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Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

nytimes.com

201–210 of 548 posts

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#201
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still hope that one day we'll find a way to stop that (to a big extent).

Some day, we'll all have Jansport backpacks.

Still using mine from 5th grade 20+ years later. The oldest thing I own.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#202

D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Social Media Wages stagnated since 1980. Rents doubling every decade. Dead-end service jobs. Unpayable student loans. Social Security payments going to IOUs instead of retirements. Lying politicians and chief corporate officers making bank on the backs of the working poor. 30% credit card interest. Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late. GMO and processed foods poisoning giving…

> A burning natural world set to end between 2050 and 2100

What exactly are you thinking will constitute the end of the world?

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#203

D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Social Media Wages stagnated since 1980. Rents doubling every decade. Dead-end service jobs. Unpayable student loans. Social Security payments going to IOUs instead of retirements. Lying politicians and chief corporate officers making bank on the backs of the working poor. 30% credit card interest. Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late. GMO and processed foods poisoning giving…

> Wages stagnated since 1980

Not sure how you're defining "stagnated", but Real Weekly Wages have continuously gone up since 1980: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

> Rents doubling every decade.

Nope, the average increase per decade is 42%, not 100%: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SEHA

> 30% credit card interest

Nope, the latest rate is ~20%, and that only comes into play if you don't pay your credit card bill in full, and I'm not about to get into the topic of financial responsibility: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TERMCBCCALLNS

> Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late.

"In 1960, the group of women with the largest share of first births was 20 to 24 years old (43%).

In 2018, first births among women occurred most often between ages 25 to 29 (29%)."

25 to 29 is nowhere near "too late".

> A burning natural world set to end between 2050 and 2100.

I don't even know where to begin with this one

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#204

D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Social Media Wages stagnated since 1980. Rents doubling every decade. Dead-end service jobs. Unpayable student loans. Social Security payments going to IOUs instead of retirements. Lying politicians and chief corporate officers making bank on the backs of the working poor. 30% credit card interest. Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late. GMO and processed foods poisoning giving…

i agree except for the GMO part. modern diet is pretty ill though. some of your points are slightly exaggerated but not by much. as someone now in their 40’s, affordable housing has been the biggest one. worked my whole life but still had to live with housemates and couldn’t save much if any money. finally got a higher paying job at a pharma company in the bay area a few years ago, still can’t afford to buy a house or have kids.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#205
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time this topic comes up, many of the responses here are about how it is pointless to try and impose limits on social media (or anything for that matter) on children, as they will inevitably circumvent them or something like that. To me it comes off like mental gymnastics to excuse a failure to actually parent.

It doesn't really matter if they circumvent it. The problem with social media is not exposure, it's overstimulation/"addiction". If you put an inconvenience between the kid and the stimulus, you're already more than halfway there. If they need to use a desktop and a VPN to go on Instagram, they can't spend as much time on it. Likewise, the kid will smoke less weed and drink less beer if they have to hide it and jump…

> Likewise, the kid will smoke less weed and drink less beer if they have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it.

In my experience/observation, how strict the parent is at trying to forbid drug and alcohol use doesn't actually have much correlation with whether and how much the kids use drugs and alcohol. Or if it does, it's a negative correlation. The kids with the biggest problems always seemed to have the strictest most punitive parents, whether as cause or effect. I am pretty sure plenty of research backs up that an effective way to reduce teen drug use is _not_ to have parents just try to be really strict and punitive about it.

Sure, there are a few parents who are totally absentee or abusive (say, giving kids drugs) and it can be related to kids with drugs and alcohol problems. But the vast majority of kids with drugs and alcohol problems indeed "have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it". And I don't find the kids whose parents try to be stricter or are scarier about it are in fact any less likely to have problems. I wouldn't be shocked if the correlation is the opposite.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#206

I argue social media is a profound risk to anyone. It's an entire industry that's made to exploit every insecurity and vulnerability within a human psyche. Nervous about vaccines? Sure, you can go to your local doctor, but in the meantime you ask your fellow parents on Facebook and suddenly someone tells you that not only do these vaccines have the potential to fuck up your child for life, that doctors are totally in…

The internet has opened up the world so we don't just need to trust our local doctor, mayor, school principal, parish priest. That's a great and empowering thing.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#207

D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Social Media Wages stagnated since 1980. Rents doubling every decade. Dead-end service jobs. Unpayable student loans. Social Security payments going to IOUs instead of retirements. Lying politicians and chief corporate officers making bank on the backs of the working poor. 30% credit card interest. Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late. GMO and processed foods poisoning giving…

> Wages stagnated since 1980 Not sure how you're defining "stagnated", but Real Weekly Wages have continuously gone up since 1980: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q > Rents doubling every decade. Nope, the average increase per decade is 42%, not 100%: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CUUR0000SEHA > 30% credit card interest Nope, the latest rate is ~20%, and that only comes into play if you don't pay…

> Not sure how you're defining "stagnated", but Real Weekly Wages have continuously gone up since 1980: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Wages definitely stagnated in 1980 (your chart shows $319 for both 1980 and 1998, for example, and it's visibly pretty flat for those two decades), and they've continued to be decoupled from productivity and corporate profits. "Trickle-down" turned out to be mostly pee.

https://www.epi.org/blog/growing-inequalities-reflecting-gro...

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#208

D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Social Media Wages stagnated since 1980. Rents doubling every decade. Dead-end service jobs. Unpayable student loans. Social Security payments going to IOUs instead of retirements. Lying politicians and chief corporate officers making bank on the backs of the working poor. 30% credit card interest. Delaying childbirth to make rent until it's too late. GMO and processed foods poisoning giving…

You forgot music videos and magazines!!

I remember a time when music videos and magazines were the leading causes of teen mental health decline.

Also, what is social media? My nieces and nephews spend more time on messaging than they do on TT or IG.

Let’s say we get rid of TT and IG, do we think that all the issues surrounding YA mental health will go away?

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#209
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why you are down voted but this is really a really really big issue. This is why "large scale action" e.g. from school or better regulators are needed and why parents only can act very limited. Don't force social isolation on your children just because idk. "this game is bad". Even if they social circle is "good" and doesn't start excluding or harassing them because of this (totally can happen, you can't rea…

Not allowing your children to own a phone ≠ Force social isolation.

It can in many circumstances. I live rural and we don't have a land line. It's hard to get the kids over to their friends as much as they want. My solution is to talk to the other parents. We all agreed to no tik too. I turn our wifi off after bed time. We have a phone contract with our 14 year old that stipulates the usual be nice and don't live on your phone rules.

They swim, ski, kayak and play school volleyball and badminton so there's lots of opportunities for that sort of interacting but I think it would be pretty harsh to cut them off of their phones. If I could get 3/4 of their friends parents to agree I would for sure until they are 16.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Our state banned billboards like 80 years ago. Make that happen in your state. They are valueless.

Which state is that? I didn't realize that was a thing in the US, but it sounds great.

Vermont banned roadside billboards 55 years ago, maybe that's the state?
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