Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns • Hacker News Board

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

#381

Post by CalRobert » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #173

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 don't have to tell you things are bad. Everybody knows things are bad. It's a depression. Everybody's out of work or scared of losing their job. The dollar buys a nickel's worth. Banks are going bust. Shopkeepers keep a gun under the counter. Punks are running wild in the street and there's nobody anywhere who seems to know what to do, and there's no end to it. We know the air is unfit to breathe and our food is unfit to eat, and we sit watching our TVs while some local newscaster tells us that today we had fifteen homicides and sixty-three violent crimes, as if that's the way it's supposed to be.

We know things are bad - worse than bad. They're crazy. It's like everything everywhere is going crazy, so we don't go out anymore. We sit in the house, and slowly the world we are living in is getting smaller, and all we say is: 'Please, at least leave us alone in our living rooms. Let me have my toaster and my TV and my steel-belted radials and I won't say anything. Just leave us alone.'

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

#382

Post by jmathai » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

lumb63 wrote: post #367

poulsbohemian wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you mean well, but do you understand that even one school shooting in a year should be unthinkable? Do you not understand that ever child in this country is acutely aware of the existence of school shootings and for many of them it absolutely is a cause of significant anxiety?

Yes, I understand. Do you not understand that every child in this country is acutely aware of the existence of school shootings, and for many of them it absolutely is a cause of significant anxiety, because the media has shown them school shootings, and has told them to be anxious about them? Look at death statistics for young people [1]. There are many causes of death which children are not scared of, despite them b…

Yeah - I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. A .7% chance of being at a school with a mass shooting is unfathomable. It's so high.

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

#383

Post by [deleted] » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #350

anigbrowl wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up in approximately the same period and grim possibilities, along with local economic problems to a lesser extent, were certainly a concern for me and my peers. Other risks existed as well, kids in my neighborhood school died of drug overdoses, accidents, and medical problems. Others had to deal with poverty, abusive parents, or a family member behind bars. Back then middle aged people blamed television your a…

> School shootings are such a regular feature of American life... No they're not. > ...that every school holds safety drills for the risk. They also hold drills for tornado, fire, etc. These aren't regular parts of life either; they are emergencies for which people can prepare for the extremely rare chance it actually happens. We could debate the utility or practical implementation of active shooter drills compared t…

[deleted]

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

#384

Post by nvarsj » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

oefrha wrote: post #271

StrangeATractor wrote: post #228

A lot of comments in this thread remind of cigarette companies dismissing health concerns with tobacco. In my circle of friends and family I've seen the majority of them go from being people you could talk to and spend time with to people that just stare at their phones constantly, I've heard others say the same about their circles. Parents let Youtube raise their kids because they don't want to get their eyes off th…

While I don’t like staring at my phone constantly while I’m around others, have you considered the possibility that people simply enjoy whatever are on their phones more than talking to and spending time with you? A lot of people just want to be left alone, when you think you’re “having an interesting conversation” or “having a good time” or whatnot with them, it’s entirely possible they’re only doing it out of polit…

This concept would be hard for extroverts to understand.

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

#385

Post by est31 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:24 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #173

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…

The report is more about school age children while your points, while relevant, are more about late teenagers / young adults.

Better reasons for why school age children are so addicted to social media are more car centric suburbian developments and the general attitude shift to not let children play outside without supervision. This isn't for cultural reasons only, it's also caused by the increased homeless population and the drug epidemic: in many places, streets are indeed more dangerous than they used to be 40 years ago.

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

#386

Post by dathinab » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:25 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #364

dathinab wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> parents usually understand fully > I doubt this is a common or inevitable consequence. I think if you speak with a psychotherapeut which keeps up with the current state of research/sience the answer would be: no many parent have no idea what they are doing, and it is VERY common. It's common enough that some people claim abusing this dynamic is the main source of income for Fortnight ... > If that's important to a…

> no many parent have no idea what they are doing Absolutely true, but not relevant to the point that I was trying to make. Kids often claim that parents don't understand the kid's point of view, but parents usually do. That was all I was saying. I wasn't claiming that parents were experts on parenting. > it's not about making photos, it's about sharing them and slightly about funny filters etc. I understood the poin…

> the issue is unfettered exposure to social media.

I half agree, but think the issue is more "exposure to unfettered social media" (a bit of a word stunt* I guess, but I'm sure you get what I mean).

Through as a parent I agree that there is only so much you can do about social media itself, so you have to find a compromise like you did.

*it's more like the access/view the child has to (a potential subset) of a social media providers content then the social media itself

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

#387

Post by nvarsj » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

ChipSkylark wrote: post #142

I'm picturing energetic and socially conscious "hip" 20-somethings doing a country-wide elementary school tour where the whole school gathers in an auditorium to watch them rap about the dangers of social media. If it works for cigarettes...

This is your brain on Social Media. sizzle

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

#388

Post by anigbrowl » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

lumb63 wrote: post #367

poulsbohemian wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you mean well, but do you understand that even one school shooting in a year should be unthinkable? Do you not understand that ever child in this country is acutely aware of the existence of school shootings and for many of them it absolutely is a cause of significant anxiety?

Yes, I understand. Do you not understand that every child in this country is acutely aware of the existence of school shootings, and for many of them it absolutely is a cause of significant anxiety, because the media has shown them school shootings, and has told them to be anxious about them? Look at death statistics for young people [1]. There are many causes of death which children are not scared of, despite them b…

because the media has shown them school shootings, and has told them to be anxious about them

What argument are you making, that news outlets should not report this? I don't think much coaching is required for people to feel anxious about the idea getting shot by a homicidal maniac, even if the probability of a homicidal maniac showing up is relatively low. Applying your logic, we should avoid having reports or drills about it, and any additional loss of life from lack of preparedness should be offset against the aggregate increased happiness of prior obliviousness to the risk.

There are many causes of death which children are not scared of, despite them being far more likely to occur than school shootings.

Homicide infants and grade-school kids is disturbingly high up the list, although that includes domestic violence and other causes rather than only school shootings. But there is a high qualitative difference between dying because you did something stupid or because you are the unfortunate victim of disease or an inherited medical condition, vs someone actively trying to kill you.

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

#389

Post by andrewmcwatters » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:26 PM UTC

bart_spoon wrote: post #162

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #52

I get it, I agree with it, but I also grew up with unfettered access to the Internet during a period of time when the World Wide Web was growing and maturing and you saw a lot of stuff you shouldn’t have as a kid. It seems like extreme helicoptering to restrict your children from things like this that are in the world and it’s an easy way out. Hey! All of a sudden you don’t have to parent. Some software can do it for…

You could be suffering from survivorship bias

Probably. Certainly worth acknowledging. I realize the Internet now isn’t what it was then. Perhaps my approach is naive. I’m sure I’m missing nuance.

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

#390

Post by dathinab » Tue, May 23, 2023, 9:27 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #369

dathinab wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting aside that this time estimates can vary widely depending on culture, that there was covid, and that a lot of this time isn't spent doing things with their peers but in a classrome which also might happen to contain their peers I thinks it's still a flawed analysis. Because if you look at the time they can choose what to do, like in brakes between classes or in brakes in the classe (e.g. PE) a bunch of it is s…

> The best practical solution for something is most times some some in-between solution. I'm very curious as to what you recommend for an in-between solution. It seems to me that either the child has a phone or they don't. How is it possible to effectively restrict their use of the phone short of not allowing them to have it unless a parent is present?

Parental controls of the phone. I.e. the child physical has the phone but the parent virtually owns/controls it.

Which sadly are currently often sorely lacking especially for younger children and even for the limited functionality often need too much technical understanding (e.g. knowing that "adult-content filters" tend to not work and at least for young children whitelists are preferable while sadly also often cumbersome).