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Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

reuters.com

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Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#651

Post by dahart »

ThrowawayTestr wrote: post #317
dahart wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I’m concerned about social media, and it has been more or less impossible to stop my teens from using it. They were jailbreaking and using VPNs and bypassing my parental controls a lot earlier than I expected. I did notice that whenever my kids didn’t have access to phones and games for several days for whatever reason, they were less grouchy and more willing to engage with us and do family or social act…

[flagged]

We did consider the idea that online activity might have contributed. That was before we recognized that the issues were present long before her online activity ever began, and before we understood how our child’s perspective, and before we knew more about the stats and indicators. Now that we’ve thought about it for a few more years, and been working through the issues with professionals, and talking a lot with our children, and listening to a lot of talking points from all sides (some educated and evidence based, and some not very educated at all), we feel a little embarrassed about our initial naïveté, regretful about the ways we failed to support our child even when we thought we were being supportive, sorry for all the kids going through this that don’t have any support system, and concerned about the damage that these culture wars are having on our society and democracy.

Social media might be contributing to gender issues and other kinds of social dysphoria in the sense that I am pretty sure the vast ocean of ignorance, prejudiced attitudes, and hate speech my kids find online have increased their fears about participating in society and reduced their confidence in being able to freely show who they are. Non-binary gender and sexuality is only a “problem” because some people say it is, and a lot of those people are online being mean. Personally I feel like the political tribalism going on in our country is a much worse problem than gender issues by many orders of magnitude. Anyway, I’m just glad my kids have some family and friends and adults near them, both online and IRL, who are accepting and loving and committed to civil rights for all…

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#652

Post by fulafel »

AlexandrB wrote: post #307
fulafel wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure we should be trying to fix away awareness of the climate crisis, which seems to be a blind spot for most older people preventing the democratic process from taking the needed drastic actions. (Same could be said for the increasing economic inequality despite record GDP, though it's more survivable near term)

I think these two things are in conflict. Drastic action on the climate will almost certainly make most people's lives harder (at least in the short term) and will probably be tougher on the poor than the rich - for examples food price increases due to higher energy costs. Once you get down to the nuts and bolts of the changes needed, it's a tough sell to those already struggling.

You might also say that past increases in economic inequality have come from other factors, so you might say we have headroom to roll back those to compensate for the climate crisis caused effects.

(Also as the poor are even now hit hardst by global heating, there's definitely a moral responsibility for the rich to do much more)

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#653

Post by seoulmetro »

freejazz wrote: post #588
seoulmetro wrote: post #556

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a hilariously backwards and slightly scary take. "If you aren't X you can't care about Y or you are a Z." is basically a huge logical fallacy. Insulting people because they care about things that affect them indirectly but not directly is pathetic and you should feel terrible. We all live in the same world that connects, we actually do have to deal with outer spheres of responsibility eventually.

>The only people on earth that should matter to are the kids themselves, their parents, or their future partners, whom they will be able to choose, based on a willingness to beget children. It seems like a much more expansive and reasonable list than you described as being a "logical fallacy"

That's because the logical fallacy is the last paragraph in the comment.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#654

Post by jonathankoren »

skydhash wrote: post #589
wvenable wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This law might have never come up if we had better parental controls at every level of the software and hardware stack. I'm a parent I have parent controls setup on my child's devices but it's very hard to dial it in properly and cover all the bases. It should be far more straight forward to manage than it is now. I'm obviously pretty tech savvy and I would say 99% of parents are not going to get this right.

A solution to these issues is for the child to not have the device in the first place. A desktop computer in a central place with eye on it can go a long way in managing online activities.

As a parent, as a former child, as someone that grew up with computers in places just like you describe, let me say, in my personal and professional experience… lol

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#655

Post by skhunted »

fragmede wrote: post #571
skhunted wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn’t absurd. It established that pretty much everyone agrees that government intervention is sometimes needed to protect people from their impulses. The idea that everyone (especially kids) can simply exercise self control when it comes things as addicting as social media is absurd.

> It established that pretty much everyone agrees that government intervention is sometimes needed to protect people from their impulses. Wait, do... do people actually buy that reason for the War on Drugs?

Yes. There are some things so unhealthy that it is worthwhile to try to prevent people from using them. Heroin is one such substance in some peoples’ mind. Gambling is something that can be very addicting and destructive and as such society tries to keep kids from partaking in it. Similarly it is wise and worthwhile to keep kids off of social media.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#656

Post by dahart »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #641
dahart wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I’m concerned about social media, and it has been more or less impossible to stop my teens from using it. They were jailbreaking and using VPNs and bypassing my parental controls a lot earlier than I expected. I did notice that whenever my kids didn’t have access to phones and games for several days for whatever reason, they were less grouchy and more willing to engage with us and do family or social act…

If there were anything else that harmed over 90% of kids while potentially helping a remainder we’d generally prohibit it. I’ve known and worked with folks facing mental health issues over the decades and usually these kind of issues come from within. The idea that instagram is a cure-all for teen self-harm is not supported. Anecdata—we knew a teen recently with very supportive parents and a smartphone and it didn’t…

I did not even suggest that Instagram helps with teen self-harm at all. It’d be great if we could discuss this without straw men or sniping argumentation. My kid found support from friends online, at a time when she felt like she wasn’t getting the right amount from the people in her life, which to my chargrin, included me. Direct intervention has helped, and online activity alone wasn’t going to stop everything. Direct intervention alone wasn’t going to stop everything either, and it’s important to know that the wrong kinds of direct intervention can make the problem worse. (I’m worried the DeSantis law is the wrong kind of direct intervention, for example.) Since you work with people with mental health issues, then you know full well that neither my story nor yours is a one-and-done situation. A single intervention is never the start nor the end of the story, and preventing suicide for people with depression & dysphoria is a continuous effort with lots of different forces pulling and pushing.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#657

Post by jonathankoren »

wvenable wrote: post #478
Brybry wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By not having this law and doing it client side. My opinion is the law is bad.

This law might have never come up if we had better parental controls at every level of the software and hardware stack. I'm a parent I have parent controls setup on my child's devices but it's very hard to dial it in properly and cover all the bases. It should be far more straight forward to manage than it is now. I'm obviously pretty tech savvy and I would say 99% of parents are not going to get this right.

You’re right about parental controls, especially apple ScreenTime. I’ve used computers almost my entire life, I even work for Apple, and I still resorted to calling tech support about it. As far as I can tell, they don’t actually do anything useful, and instead just get in the way.

I do disagree that a technical solution could have avoided laws like Texas. It’s not about “protecting the children”. It’s never about the children. It’s just censorship. It’s just easier to go after a porn site than it is a library.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#658

Post by friend_and_foe »

gnicholas wrote: post #604

I recall hearing Professor Haidt (NYU) describe an experiment he ran with teenagers. He asked them how much they'd have to be paid (per month?) to not use some social media site. The typical answer was ~$40. Then he said that they were going to get all the other kids in the school off the social media site, and asked again what the student would want to be paid to be off the site. The answer was that students would a…

I know I've felt that feeling. I'm not a teenager, but I can imagine the FOMO and loss of social clout a kid would feel not being connected in ways that their peers are.

My solution was to not care if I was missing out. Counterintuitively, it's not until you do that that you're free to find the life you want for yourself. Good luck explaining that to a 16 year old though, they're not there yet, they're not building the life they want, they're finding their tribe, and you have to be connected to do that.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#659

Post by hackable_sand »

munk-a wrote: post #457
d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laws are often just social signals in writing. A law indicates that a large group agrees that something is bad. Often times people find it easier to just agree with a law rather than navigate the mental gray area around behaviors that aren't black and white.

That understanding really breaks down when partisan politics are involved - if it's us vs. them you can do a lot of stuff without your base raising a stink as long as it's posed as being against your opposition.

Pollitical chicken.

Re: Florida's DeSantis signs law restricting social media for people under 16

#660

Post by jrflowers »

Zpalmtree wrote: post #623
jrflowers wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She seems to be ingrained with the idea that she will never own a home, environmental disasters will be constant and the economy will be in shambles by the time she reaches adulthood. This is very troubling. Without social media teens would have to hear those things from their elders and peers in person or read about them elsewhere on the internet

These are all nonsense though

This is a good point. Because you disagree with that, it is not ubiquitous
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