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Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

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Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the EU DMA exactly did that - requires interop between messengers to allow third parties to send chat messages. Not sure if Instagram messenger is included, but Whatsapp definitely is (I know, instagram is more popular in the US).

Also, thanks to EU regs, Meta and Google were forced to allow you to finally disconnect the accounts Facebook-Oculus, Google-Youtube, the way it was in the past. Having single point of failure accounts, like seeing your email account banned because your YouTube videos got Copyright struck was insane. It's clear we can't just leave everything to the free market, when a lot of the internet and digital services end up c…

> It's clear we can't just leave everything to the free market

We definitely aren't doing that. But these services are enormously hard to get right, work really well, and are entirely opt-in. You're critiquing luxury services, which isn't a strong need for regulation.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent I agree parental reponsiblity is absolute but I haven't seen a workable solution reguarding social media. I can't realistically monitor what my children are looking 24/7, like I can't listen to every conversation that they have. I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? Plus they likely would be ostracized by the…

> I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? This is not the future that I expect. Rather, in my observation/bubble, "radical privacy advocates" are more and more spreading. So, I would expect that you rather prepare the children for a wrong (and worse) world. > Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. In my schoo…

I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Completely agree. We don't need laws pointlessly micromanaging details. If we need laws now it's legislation from over 100 years into the future where these business ideas are not valid in the first place.

We do need laws. A parent cannot fight a fight versus ten-twenty billion/trillion dollar companies. Sugar in your cornflakes, sounds and graphics in your games, insane tracking on ads, and so on. Those a-holes end up knowing more about your kid than you. And if you try to "fight" them by blocking their access to your kid, they got so many kids hooked up already that the exposure to garbage is unavoidable by some kid…

> A parent cannot fight a fight versus ten-twenty billion/trillion dollar companies

Of course they can. I won't buy my kids a Javelin from Raytheon, nor a smartphone with Facebook on. With or without laws stopping me.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#44
post #11
post #2

I think companies should be forced to provide a chat-only version of their app that's totally equivalent otherwise. How many of you only have instagram installed because you use it to talk with friends, but then sleepwalk into the algorithmic feed/explore page until you suddenly regain consciousness and notice you're wasting your life... The solution is easy: make a chat-only version mandatory. I also think companies…

Saying apps cause you to waste your time, is giving away your responsibility of your own life to some apps. If you sleepwalk into this, and they 'fix' it, what's to keep you sleepwalking into the next thing? People struggling with addiction should seek professional help if they really struggle rather than waiting for laws to protect them... - this is never going to solve their additions...

I think this is very naive. The whole reason marketing is so lucrative is because the human brain is so easily exploited. That exploitation is to no benefit of society or the individual and an individual practically stands no chance against it.

We also don't allow drugs to be distributed and marketed. There are many limitations to cigarette sales and they have shown to be successful.

Maybe the next thing someone sleepwalks into is a pleasant conversations with people or coding a great open source project and that is not something that needs to be fixed.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#45
post #33
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal responsibility is overrated. In almost all of the examples you mention, direct government intervention can and does lead to positive health outcomes for individuals and for the whole of society. It just seems like that's almost a taboo thing to say in the US.

I'm not in the US and I am in favour of laws making smoking, drinking, driving, drinking soda and sweet stuff etc harder, less pleasurable and taxed. But I don't think laws, while necessary, can really solve the problem. If well thought out, they can limit the damange that is done, but not solve the problem.

There are many laws against advertising cigarettes for instance. There could be similar laws against unhealthy foods and alcohol. Lets try all these things before we say laws are not effective against these things and evaluate after.

In smoking it has had a huge impact.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advantage of this position (looking at other parents' kids) is you'll always be able to find an angle. You're blaming parents for letting their kids on their own device. If they'd follow your advice, you could then blame them for not letting their kids get bored [0]. And if they're reading you can blame the lack of exercise, or otherwise the lack of reading/writing by hand. Or if they're doing all of that in turn…

This seems like whataboutism. Yes, it's possible to improve one's parenting in a variety of ways. "Not paying hundreds of dollars for a phone" is one of the easiest.

But then you're not giving your kids access to modern tools (photo, audio recording, translation etc.).

You're inserting yourself between them and their grand parents, close family etc. not letting them navigate a safe social circle.

You're closing their world and this is a different angle to blame.

PS: I am heavily biased, but in general I think we can give parents a break. Some of them must be shitty, but traditionally the rest of society has been the escape hatch in these situations. If we really think there's an issue, the first question should be why it's not solved at the social/systemic level. Putting kids in a cage and blaming parents can always be done at the very end, when all other solutions have been tried.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I could ban all social media / phones but how is that going to prepare them for life in a world where social media is all encompassing? This is not the future that I expect. Rather, in my observation/bubble, "radical privacy advocates" are more and more spreading. So, I would expect that you rather prepare the children for a wrong (and worse) world. > Plus they likely would be ostracized by their peers. In my schoo…

I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.

> I don't disagree with anything you say but try telling my 16 year old daughter she need to jettison any form of social media and go with the nerd crowd.

There exist quite some other groups of people who reject social media: I just chose the "nerd crowd" example because many HN readers are very familiar with it. For example

- people who are somewhat skeptical about technology

- people who are "anti establishment"/"anti big tech")

- ...

I can easily imagine that if "(mostly) everybody" uses social media, a pubescent girl might easily come to the decision to reject social media completely just to be annoying to other people, and tell them to f... off.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#48
post #17

I wonder how many people talking about self-control have a good relationship with their phone? I don't know anyone personally who likes their relationship with their phone. I've been considering and trying to practice being kinder to myself, my phone, and my relationship with it. I still want to use less of it, but it's now a part of us, and will take time to almost amputate. I want to just stop feeding it, and let i…

I'm mostly happy with my relationship with my phone. Part of it is setting things up so it's not front and center in my life (disabling and/or silencing most notifications and only allowing calls and messaging apps to vibrate) and not really having a lot of "interesting" things on it that are easy to slide into and hard to pull out of (social media, which I've been fully off of for 4 or 5 years, and addictive games).

But yes, there's a component of self-control, too. I could easily pull out my phone and start scrolling Google News, reading alarmist headlines and getting myself wrapped up in them. And sometimes that does happen. But for the most part I just... realize I don't like how I feel when I do it, so I don't do it[0]. If I'm waiting around for something (transit, waiting room, etc.), I'll first see if there's anything else to occupy myself with, even if it's just people-watching or enjoying being outside. If I'm not feeling it, then sure, I might take out my phone and read something in the Kindle app, open messaging apps to find someone to chat with, open the browser and check out HN or a news site I enjoy, etc. And that's fine. The key thing is that I've looked at the world around me and actively decided that I'd rather read something on my phone to pass the time.

I don't think you need to develop this self-control through shame. Think about why you want to stop being on your phone so much. Frame that with respect to how you feel when you're using it. Not the results of the dopamine hits, but how you actually feel. Do you dislike the mindless aspects? Do you dislike all the inflammatory, outrage-inducing stuff that the algorithms throw at you? When you finally do put the phone away, do you lament the time you wasted, and think of other, more productive/useful/joyful things you could have been doing? Don't be ashamed, but do let the actual feelings associated with your phone use wash over you, and if you don't like them, start committing to doing things that don't make you feel that way. I'm not saying it's going to be easy for everyone to do that, but I think it's necessary.

If you can't develop self-control that way, try to leave the phone at home sometimes. Not in the "amputating it with a hacksaw" sense, but in short, easy, low-stakes situation. When you go into your kitchen to have lunch, leave your phone behind. It'll still be there, a couple rooms away, and you can pick it up again after you finish eating. Next try leaving the house without it. Got outside for a 20-minute walk around your neighborhood, without your phone. Next leave the house for longer without it. You know how to get to the grocery store. You've done it a hundred times and don't need your GPS. Write or print your grocery list on a piece of paper, and leave the phone at home. You'll be home in an hour or so, and then you get it back. Realize that there are actually a lot of situations in our lives where we can do this, and give it a try.

I think I'm lucky that I was a child of the 80s and 90s. I grew up without the internet until my teens (and then it was just intermittent dial-up until college), and without a smartphone until I was nearly 30. I got to see the evolution of a lot of this technology, and I believe that allows me to be more mindful about what I do and don't use. I know plenty of zoomers and younger millennials who have had always-on internet in their pockets for most of their lives, certainly for the entirety of their adult lives. It's all they know. And I think it's becoming harder and harder for today's parents to limit or deny screen time, as there can be severe social consequences for the children when that happens.

[0] This is how I got myself off social media. I examined how it made me felt, committed to a month with no access to it, examined how that felt, and realized I was so unhappy scrolling my feeds all the time. I still have the accounts open, but I've deleted all the apps from my phone, signed out on desktop, and disabled all the email notifications they send.

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like whataboutism. Yes, it's possible to improve one's parenting in a variety of ways. "Not paying hundreds of dollars for a phone" is one of the easiest.

But then you're not giving your kids access to modern tools (photo, audio recording, translation etc.). You're inserting yourself between them and their grand parents, close family etc. not letting them navigate a safe social circle. You're closing their world and this is a different angle to blame. PS: I am heavily biased, but in general I think we can give parents a break. Some of them must be shitty, but tradition…

I don't buy that. Once kids are around 10 or maybe even as late as 12 or so, sure, if they aren't connected via whatever social media or messaging platform their peers are using, there will be severe social consequences. But a 3-year-old doesn't need to be watching things on a tablet at the dinner table. A 7-year-old doesn't need "access to modern tools", at least not unfettered, whenever-they-want access.

I also don't buy the argument that they'll be behind in digital skills or whatever. I was born in the 80s and didn't have access to a computer until I was 8 or 9, (intermittent dial-up) internet access until I was in my teens, and a smartphone until I was nearly 30. I had no problem acquiring all these "digital skills".

Re: Can a law make social media less 'addictive'?

#50
post #45
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not in the US and I am in favour of laws making smoking, drinking, driving, drinking soda and sweet stuff etc harder, less pleasurable and taxed. But I don't think laws, while necessary, can really solve the problem. If well thought out, they can limit the damange that is done, but not solve the problem.

There are many laws against advertising cigarettes for instance. There could be similar laws against unhealthy foods and alcohol. Lets try all these things before we say laws are not effective against these things and evaluate after. In smoking it has had a huge impact.

I'm all for it.
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