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Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

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Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#21

Post by cmrdporcupine »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #19
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down…

Regulation of social media probably polls pretty well, I think polls have even found that most high schoolers want to reduce or end their usage of it

Phone use during class time is banned in my kid's high schools.

Makes no difference -- it's completely unenforced by the teachers. They're practically physically adults, teachers don't want to risk the confrontation, etc. And the kids suffer for it.

And my youngest uses no social media but their mind is still eaten by constant phone usage.

More than social media, the problem is the device. The form factor.

The "smartphone" is a malevolent technology.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#22

Post by dang »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #8

Anyone remember YikYak? I was in university at the time, the explosive growth was wild. After the inevitable bullying, racism, threats, doxxing, that came with the anonymous platform, YikYak enabled geofencing to disable the app on middle and high school grounds. I think every social media platform with an "age limit" should be required to do this as well. And open it up, so that anyone can create their own disabling…

One past thread: Thank You, Yakkers - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14223199 - April 2017 (108 comments)

Lots of comments: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#23

Post by yamazakiwi »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17
Frieren wrote: post #10

Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being radicalized on-line, sold dangerous diets, manipulated by state sponsored creators, lied by companies, taught anti-science, and the list goes on and on. How is all this not heavily regulated? Even adults need protection from scammers, fake products, misleading ads…

As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down…

I want to add it is important to show that you are against those things as well, too many people react by shifting blame when they stand to gain more by saying, "Yeah, I don't like that either."

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#24

Post by glitchc »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17
Frieren wrote: post #10

Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being radicalized on-line, sold dangerous diets, manipulated by state sponsored creators, lied by companies, taught anti-science, and the list goes on and on. How is all this not heavily regulated? Even adults need protection from scammers, fake products, misleading ads…

As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down…

We can always take the phone away. As a parent of a teenager, sometimes I have to make hard choices. This is one of them.

Kids don't need cellphones. We want them to have one often because of our own insecurities.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#25

Post by basisword »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #17
Frieren wrote: post #10

Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being radicalized on-line, sold dangerous diets, manipulated by state sponsored creators, lied by companies, taught anti-science, and the list goes on and on. How is all this not heavily regulated? Even adults need protection from scammers, fake products, misleading ads…

As a parent, I never failed to recognize it. I just failed to be able to do anything about it. You were a teenager once, I'm sure you can remember how little influence your parents actually had over how you actually spent your time. Or at least saw that in your friends. This is a society wide thing. Parents are pretty much powerless. So yes, regulation. But you'll see how discussion of any proposal for this goes down…

Genuinely asking - is it impossible to just enforce a no phones until 16+ rule with your kids? The reasons against it I see are either “it’s too hard for the parents” or hypothetical (“they would have no social life”). There were tonnes of things I wanted to do as a teenager that my parents prevented me from doing. Including things my friends were allowed to do by their less strict parents. There was of course things I did despite them but phones seem like a simple one for parents to control given teenagers can’t afford them otherwise until they start working at 16+. Allowing instant messaging via a computer seems like a nice middle ground.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#26

Post by rollcat »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #8

Anyone remember YikYak? I was in university at the time, the explosive growth was wild. After the inevitable bullying, racism, threats, doxxing, that came with the anonymous platform, YikYak enabled geofencing to disable the app on middle and high school grounds. I think every social media platform with an "age limit" should be required to do this as well. And open it up, so that anyone can create their own disabling…

Technological solutions to societal problems just don't work.

Some $EVIL technology being fashioned to harm individuals isn't to blame - the companies behind that technology are. You can pile up your geofencing rules, the real solution lies somewhere between you deleting the app and your government introducing better regulation.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#27

Post by biker142541 »

morkalork wrote: post #15
graemep wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except FB, which mostly harms the middle aged.

It was harming kids on an industrial scale back when it was new, before Instagram et al cannabalized their audience

Would generally disagree here. Especially when limited to edu emails, it was focused on human connections. Even after it opened to broader audience, it was centered on explicit connections you already had (or to some limited extent discovering new ones through network effects).

Now whether social networks in even these basic forms are harmful (discouraging physical connections, isolation in digital environments, etc), is maybe a different topic.

Exposure to echo chambers of harmful, hateful content driven by algorithms seems to be more the focus here. MySpace, early FB, or even AIM/ICQ, and others focused on facilitating connections and communication didn’t drive the same level of harm imo.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#28

Post by btown »

zonkerdonker wrote: post #8

Anyone remember YikYak? I was in university at the time, the explosive growth was wild. After the inevitable bullying, racism, threats, doxxing, that came with the anonymous platform, YikYak enabled geofencing to disable the app on middle and high school grounds. I think every social media platform with an "age limit" should be required to do this as well. And open it up, so that anyone can create their own disabling…

Ah, a world where this is taken to an extreme might even bring back the mythical https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_place rapidly disappearing in the American suburb and city alike... because it becomes the only place in the community where property owners don't geofence to forbid social media use!

https://theweek.com/culture-life/third-places-disappearing

But of course, social media companies will pour incredible amounts of money into political campaigns long before they let anything close to this happen.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#30

Post by n4ture »

Hi @dang,

Sorry to hijack this thread with a completely off-topic issue, but I have no idea where else to reach about this. I did a submission yesterday showcasing the work of some of my colleagues at UofT, it's satire but it is backed by serious academical work. I was very sad to see it quickly got flagged and removed from the front page when it started to generate discussion. I just wanted to ask you to unflag it or provide an exlaination as to why it should remain flagged and is breaking the guidelines, as I believe censoring/muting academics on important topics such as AI in the current political climate is yet another dangerous step towards fascism.

The submission in question:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704319

Thanks for listening to my plea, and again apologies for being so off-topic!

Best,

n

Edit: formating/typo for clarity

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