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

nytimes.com

451–460 of 548 posts

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

#451
post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oceans will not die, their biological makeup will change and adapt to new conditions.

Sure, but the change will be slow, and humans are fast. By the time that comes through, it won't be of use to us. Even if it were fast, there's no guarantee that it will be just as useful to us after the change, or of any use at all. Just because the oceans will still technically be alive in some sense does not mean that they will be as lively or at all the same as what we have now.

It is hardly even technically correct. Nobody disputes calling the late permian extinction event The Great Dying, even though technically not everything died. Life was disrupted in an unprecedented way, such that people agree this name is fitting. The same is true of a 3° horror scenario.

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

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how you raise a generation that thinks intrusive monitoring and zero privacy is perfectly normal, or even worse craves it.

Maybe it's how you raise a generation that understands you shouldn't post a single thing online that you don't want the whole world to know about. Prior generations have entirely failed to understand that, certainly (cf. Zuckerberg's infamous "dumb fucks" comment—which, go figure, we know about because he sent it as an instant message)

> Maybe it's how you raise a generation that understands you shouldn't post a single thing online that you don't want the whole world to know about.

I can assure you that this has not been the result of whatever is going on at home.

Getting teenagers to care about their online privacy is like pulling teeth.

I think this might be because they get so much positive reinforcement from sharing what they are doing on social-media-platform-Z.

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

#453
post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, you know, compare the number of school shootings to literally any other country in the world? The fact that there are school shootings for the media to report on at all is so crazy to me.

Why do you care so much about school shootings specifically? Shouldn’t be the goal to reduce overall child mortality? In which case it doesn’t make sense to focus on school shootings. They’re a rounding error in child mortality. Compare actual death rates between first-world countries to see what I mean; the US lags behind its Western peers, but the presence of school shootings, which is generally referred to as a de…

It's about empathy. Publicly stating that you are concerned about children being shot shows empathy and boosts one's image.

Publicly stating that you are concerned about child obesity is dangerous because it's implicitly stating that people are raising their children incorrectly and making poor decisions, which is more of an accusatory than empathetical statement.

The "think about the children" crowd don't actually want you to think about the children.

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

#454
post #403
post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you mean well. But I strongly urge you to reconsider your parenting here. You should not be going through your teenager's text messages... that is absolutely insane. My parents were kind of similar and I had a very negative experience growing up as a result. I still remember my mom throwing out all my NiN CDs I had bought after she read the lyrics. And all my DnD material because Satan was controlling my brain…

how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages? we don't know from the singular fact that they're reading through teenagers text messages how heavy handed that monitoring is. Maybe there's a recur…

> how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?

General rules, like:

-Assume everything you send can at some point become available to everyone, forever.

-Anyone saying "don't tell your parents" is definitely up to no good and should not be trusted.

-On the internet anyone can convincingly pose as anyone.

etc.

Also children usually converse with their peers, so you'll be going through messages of quite a lot of other people's children. Do you have the consent of all the people involved, including their parents?

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

#455
post #448
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School shootings are such a regular feature of American life […] Media certainly amplifies the awareness of problems Case in point: in 2022 there were 51 school shootings [1]. Certainly more than I’d like there to be, but in a nation with about 129,000 schools [2], I certainly wouldn’t call them a “regular feature”. If students are in school for 18 years, let’s say, to include pre-K, Kindergarten, and an undergrad…

Every single school has an "active shooter" drill. Some boneheaded admins even have a fake instigator come onto campus. It's extremely disruptive to a child's psyche even if they are never unlucky enough to be at one of the weekly school shootings (which is a horrifically dystopic line that I'd never considered possible 20 years ago).

Every school should have if I won the lottery drills than because the odds of winning are higher than being killed in a school shooting.

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

#456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them Yes, you do, because they will not want to interact with you if you're not on the preferred app. This is the case even with adults: I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.

> I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's. Find better friends?

I didn't say they were my friends, I said the opposite, people I just met

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

#457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time. Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything t…

As a young adult who was recently a teenager, I can't help but feel concerned about the potential dangers of having no expectation of privacy from our parents, especially when it comes to reading through our text messages. While I understand the intention behind it, this practice can easily lead to conflicts and strained relationships. Teenagers are at a stage in their lives where they are trying to establish their i…

I have vivid memories of my parents barging into my bedroom when I was or was not there to do absolutely anything they wanted. They also opened all of my mail. I haven't talked to them in 15 years.

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

#458

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 idea that any of these would normally worry an average young teen is hilarious to me. I grew up during cold war, USSR collapse, multiple wars in the region. At no point was I (or any of my peers to my knowledge) gravely concerned for our future. Because none of us yet had any idea what our normal future is supposed to look like. The only way these mild horrors get into children heads is, again, through social med…

That doesn't really sound comparable unless you actually grew up in the USSR (your comment is kind of ambiguous as to whether you're from the area or just grew up in the US during that time period).

The soviet era had the risk of nuclear, but there was still a good chance that would never happen. By contrast, most of the things OP mentioned are already happening.

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

#459
post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> School shootings are such a regular feature of American life […] Media certainly amplifies the awareness of problems Case in point: in 2022 there were 51 school shootings [1]. Certainly more than I’d like there to be, but in a nation with about 129,000 schools [2], I certainly wouldn’t call them a “regular feature”. If students are in school for 18 years, let’s say, to include pre-K, Kindergarten, and an undergrad…

Come on. What point are you arguing? I know you are most likely anti school shootings. But whats the point of trying to deny it's impact with statistics? Whatever statistics you try to conjure. 52 in one year is way too much. And 1 in 150 kids being on a school with a school shooting is a lot.

Statistic don’t affirm or deny impact. They are facts. The rest is left to you. Why are you trying to exaggerate its impact by suggesting we suppress statistics (facts)?

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

#460

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 idea that any of these would normally worry an average young teen is hilarious to me. I grew up during cold war, USSR collapse, multiple wars in the region. At no point was I (or any of my peers to my knowledge) gravely concerned for our future. Because none of us yet had any idea what our normal future is supposed to look like. The only way these mild horrors get into children heads is, again, through social med…

But the USSR collapse was (at least outside Russia) a great thing. Eastern Europe was no longer colonized by Russia and in the West, the fear of nuclear war was gone.
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