161–170 of 1001 posts
Phone-free schools seem like an obvious way to fight this, but supposedly modern parents need constant access to their kids and tend to oppose the idea.
You don't get phone-free schools in a post-Uvalde world.
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You might be interested in the book 'Bad Therapy' by Abigail Shrier. It's well worth a read. https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/198332459 Also 'Free Range Parenting' https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6250260-free-range-kids-...
Isn't she the one that wrote that anti-trans moral panic book based on interviews with parents of trans people, but not actually any trans people? Her other book was pure culture war opportunism, what's different about this one that makes it worth reading?
It's surprising how many parents I know who are in denial about this. It must be because they themselves are constantly using social media and don't want to accept what it is doing to their own mental health.
This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media, and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity. Any policy that actually achieved this, without being trivial to circumvent, would basically need to replicate the great firewall of China. Doing this in a half-assed way is even worse than not doing anything at all. If you just require ID checks for…
Kids are given a phone and access to social media by their parents (who are also users most likely). I don't see parents saying oh please block this out of my kid's hands with deep packet inspection or ID checks. These people can just install Family Link or whatever and set limits, and be parents. But they just won't do it. Some don't even know it exists. Kids are clocking 5h+ of mobile use / day, with poor sleep patterns and digital hygiene. No limits. That's the real issue.
The author had it right in the first paragraph. In the 90s version of this hysteria, Congress passed a law that would have prevented access to education medical information, dirty curse words, and other filth from being published on the internet to protect the children. The federal government fought a case all the way to the Supreme Court to enforce it. If they had won that case, the internet would look very differen…
US citizens have the right to free speech. US companies have a qualified right to free speech https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec... How about AI? If it is an algorithm that is talking to you, does it have the right to do all the things that are protected by 'free speech'? And does it matter if the AI is commercial, or a home hobby project effort?
This somebody is using his right to free speech, AI is just a tool.
I'm sceptical of the claim that social media is causing teen mental illness. I've thought about this quite a bit, but never wrote my thoughts anywhere so I guess here and now is as a good time as any. I think Haidt's assertion that social media is to blame for the rise in teen mental illness is likely indirectly true, but from what I've observed personally even kids that don't frequently use social networking apps st…
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US citizens have the right to free speech. US companies have a qualified right to free speech https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec... How about AI? If it is an algorithm that is talking to you, does it have the right to do all the things that are protected by 'free speech'? And does it matter if the AI is commercial, or a home hobby project effort?
Somebody has bought or rented the computer that this AI runs on, somebody has launched it as a piece of code or an API call. This somebody is using his right to free speech, AI is just a tool.
This author is seriously suggesting that governments ban children's use of social media, and that can't really be done without completely destroying internet anonymity. Any policy that actually achieved this, without being trivial to circumvent, would basically need to replicate the great firewall of China. Doing this in a half-assed way is even worse than not doing anything at all. If you just require ID checks for…
We spend enormous amounts of time and energy trying to pick up the pieces of the destruction being left in the wake by social media giants as they get absurdly rich. How about we instead simply make the giants liable for what gets posted on their platforms? Let the “move fast and break things” crowd that is so certain of their own genius spend their billions on figuring it out instead of on how to get you to click on…
Once they control a significant part of society's communications they own society something in return. Let society access our communications how we choose.
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US citizens have the right to free speech. US companies have a qualified right to free speech https://constitution.findlaw.com/amendment1/freedom-of-speec... How about AI? If it is an algorithm that is talking to you, does it have the right to do all the things that are protected by 'free speech'? And does it matter if the AI is commercial, or a home hobby project effort?
Somebody has bought or rented the computer that this AI runs on, somebody has launched it as a piece of code or an API call. This somebody is using his right to free speech, AI is just a tool.
I have heard similar arguments about corporations hehe
Very Rothbardian, Mises and Say would be proud too
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I mean how much time is spent on electronics and away from people overall. Mobile devices increased that a lot, but they aren't the only part. There are way more PC gamers than before, for example. My classmates also used early Facebook more on PCs, maybe because some features didn't work on iPhones (Flash content?). They'd just sit at home on the PC all night. I'd even count remote classrooms/work. In 2020, people d…
Thirty years earlier people were also "always at home". Watching TV, or playing console games… The big difference was: At least the youth was at home together with others doing so. You went over to your neighbor to watch some TV show for example. What changed quite lately are indeed the always online smartphones. You don't need to go to your neighbor, even if you want to "do something together" (of course online, lik…
TV shows were linear, so unless you had an interest in every single show being aired, your viewing was naturally limited to specific times.
Video games didn’t use to have online capabilities, nor did they provide endless matchmaking with completely strangers across the world, so if you wanted to play with other people, you had to do it in person. And games didn’t have endless streams of new content being released.
What changed is that everything became built around endless streams of content. Smartphones are a key enabler of that, but even legacy media like TV and video games have evolved to become bottomless content pits. Social media feeds never end, video games always have another match, there are always more shows and movies to binge on demand.