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

nytimes.com

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

#471

Post by Tryk »

zamnos wrote: post #403
nvarsj wrote: 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?

You teach them principles, obviously. Or are you planning on weighing in on their choices for the rest of their lives?

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

#472

Post by uoaei »

badpun wrote: post #299
uoaei wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

* sharks and bat rays in the SF bay were dying of a brain fungus that resulted from decreased salinity from the excessive rain we got a couple months ago * the size and severity of algal blooms are increasing across the world * this year's crab season was delayed (initially predicted to be nonexistent) because the ocean currents and especially the depth of cold waters changed so drastically from last year etc., etc.…

> people whose lives and livelihoods depend on the ocean (somewhere around 1 billion people). Can you give a source on that? Thanks.

The World Bank says "Billions of people worldwide —especially the world’s poorest— rely on healthy oceans as a source of jobs and food"

https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/oceans-fisheries-and-coas...

The UN says the oceans are "the main source of protein for more than a billion people around the world".

https://www.un.org/en/observances/oceans-day

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

#473

Post by escapedmoose »

jlawson wrote: post #439
escapedmoose wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Man, I don’t know what to say. 32 student deaths from on-campus shootings in a single year still seems outrageously high to me.

Every year in America 900 kids age 0-19 die from drowning. 3,058 teenagers ages 13-19 die in motor vehicle crashes. [0] In a country of 332,000,000 people, if 32 deaths stemming from parking lot arguments seems to require a society-wide blanket of fear and dramatic political anger, you are just badly miscalibrated. You're thinking like it's a village, which is natural, but if you want to discuss broad issues at scale…

But in other developed countries, kids still die from car crashes and swimming pools. It’s less of a “one is too many” argument for me and more a question of “if everyone else is able to get this right, how the hell are we getting it so wrong?” Looking around the world really drives the point home that these are avoidable fatalities.

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

#474

Post by thegreenswede »

dundercoder wrote: post #132
ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #3

I work at a fancy private school and partially am have hosted numerous events for parents on kids and social media. We have been banging on this key for easily the past 8 years, with varying levels of emphasis. The response from parents has also been universally consistent: A lot of nodding, and, ultimately, very little action. There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their de…

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…

You're either going to have your kids resent you or stunt the maturation of their independence (the whole point of the teenage phase). You think you're doing the right thing but you're going to most likely create hyper dependent young adults.

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

#475

Post by dundercoder »

thegreenswede wrote: post #474
dundercoder wrote: post #132

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…

You're either going to have your kids resent you or stunt the maturation of their independence (the whole point of the teenage phase). You think you're doing the right thing but you're going to most likely create hyper dependent young adults.

I disagree, but I have the advantage of knowing the whole story of how they are raised, while you are extrapolating the entire experience from a couple paragraphs about reading text messages with my child.

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

#476

Post by erenyeager »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #200
hammyhavoc wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. Those who are dead-set on doing it will always find a way, that's the energy of teenage rebellion at work. Whilst I do agree that it's a failure to parent to a large extent, locking things behind restrictions can also make people want it more without them understanding why they're being restricted from having something that clearly makes a l…

> The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. There are things that have been shown to have an effect on teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. And things that have not. Parents forbidding it is definitely not in the effective category. It is wild to me that the GP's analysis of what might be done begins and ends at "we've run programs asking parents to forbid social media…

I think you have to consider the broader peer group. If all the anti-social media parents and their kids become friends with each other, it will be far easier to avoid peer pressure compared to regular society. Same with drugs, sex, smoking, etc, if your kids have good company and friends, avoiding harmful things is much easier.

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

#477

Post by Projectiboga »

lumb63 wrote: post #337
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 […] 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…

I bet you remember fire drills as a kid? Now they have those and Active Shooter Drills. It doesn't matter if actual shooting are rare if the fear of them is 'Drilled' into the kid's heads. I saw a paper that tried to measure the impact of first cell phone ownership on teen's mental health. What stood out the most was the whole cohort of teens were at fairly depressed emotional status, the ones impacted by early cell phone ownership even more so. We all here are relatively well educated and by extension fairly well off, we can't imagine what most of the generations following us are going through. I'm gen x so while the economic outlook was beginning to degrade there was still ample opportunity for simple hard work to succeed, that ladder has been pulled up to a large extent. We need a unified progressive taxation system, the current hodgepodge of regressive FICA tax and various credits, cliffs and the slew of tax breaks for investments have worsened class differences.

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

#478

Post by noelsusman »

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 fact that you and many, many others believe all of these things to be 100% true is exactly the problem. Social media has poisoned your brain.

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

#479

Post by winternett »

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 worst part is that social media is dangled as if it is an obtainable successful career for most as creators.. But everyone often has to work years before even making a dime FOR FREE.

People invest heavily in rapidly depreciating startup equipment like ring lights, PCs, Cameras, Microphones, only to find out that every site is rigged like a casino, and few people truly win (most get predatory contract offers), and now they're actually charging all creators for visibility while shrinking natural post reach, and inventing and fostering scams of all kinds (Crypto/NFTs) while child exploitation is rampant.

Social media is pretty much essential to growing a business now, but the problem is that it's under siege by opportunists that give little care about the toxic wide-scale emotional, mental, and financial manipulation that they now perpetuate and promote for profit. I don't know how or if it's ever going to be reigned in.

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

#480

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

escapedmoose wrote: post #473
jlawson wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every year in America 900 kids age 0-19 die from drowning. 3,058 teenagers ages 13-19 die in motor vehicle crashes. [0] In a country of 332,000,000 people, if 32 deaths stemming from parking lot arguments seems to require a society-wide blanket of fear and dramatic political anger, you are just badly miscalibrated. You're thinking like it's a village, which is natural, but if you want to discuss broad issues at scale…

But in other developed countries, kids still die from car crashes and swimming pools. It’s less of a “one is too many” argument for me and more a question of “if everyone else is able to get this right, how the hell are we getting it so wrong?” Looking around the world really drives the point home that these are avoidable fatalities.

How many of those countries have a democratic republic style of governance like the US? Perhaps it is more dangerous to live in a freedom-loving democratic republic, but the number of people clamoring to get into the US vs the lack of people trying to leave tells us there's value in the risk.

That's not to say we shouldn't strive to get those numbers down, but personally I think we should be focusing on mental health, of which social media has a huge impact. Banning the weapon - as is the common suggestion - is treating the symptom, not the cause.

But we also place too much emphasis on school shootings when, as demonstrated, other things are far more dangerous to kids.

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