131–140 of 593 posts
Kid's have unlimited time. They'll find something else, likely pretending to be adults and thus even more at risk.
Meanwhile everyone else gets an internet license and the government every website tracks you ...
This is a classic case of nice idea and the results will be all wrong / not even address the problem.
Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…
Reddit is plenty addictive in my experience, and I've heard the same from other people ranging from high school teachers to tradespeople.
Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media.
The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.
At this point I do not think it is reasonable to deny the harm that certain modes of social interactions over the internet have caused. At the same time these bans should not be considered reasonable options. They exist to cover for the decade of inaction of politicians in addressing youth dissatisfaction and dysfunction.
A reasonable approach should not assume that the root cause of this dysfunction is youth interacting with social media, but should consider what lead to this in the first place. Apparently most adults seem to be capable of dealing with this situation, if they are not why would this ban, or at least some regulation, not extend to social media for adults.
In general I believe that dysfunction in the youth has multiple causes and that overuse of social media is just on part of the puzzle and that unhealthy use of social media is often caused by other problem and used as a coping mechanism.
These bans will not be effective and they will be assaults on the free internet, as the bureaucrats establishing the laws are also seeking to control the internet for themselves and will use this as a backdoor.
Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…
Indeed. I no longer call them social media. They have all become attention media platforms. I recently expressed my thoughts about this on my blog at https://susam.net/attention-media-is-not-social-media.html>.
These days I typically resolve the domain names of these attention media platforms to 127.0.0.1 in my /etc/hosts file, so that I do not inadvertently end up visiting them by following a link somewhere else. I think there are very few true social media platforms remaining today, among which I visit only HN and Mastodon.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree on how the platform’s have changed. However, I don’t think Reddit is an exception. Popular is often filled with content that is driven by the feelings of fear and hate. Not something I’d like to continually expose kids or teens to.
Smaller subs can still be decent but I agree about popular and larger subs. They’re just brain rot and engagement bait now.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Social media" doesn't just mean Facebook right? It includes sites like Hacker News, yeah?
No, HN is more like a forum. It doesn’t have dark patterns and addictive engineering built in, even if it could itself be addictive. There ‘s been functionality built in to limit time spent on HN for a long time. Look at noprocrast setting for example. Even if HN could be seen as social media it’s not in the same category of destructive social media a la Facebook/Instagram/Tiktok
Modern social media is nothing like social media in early days (myspace, early Facebook and even early Instagram). Back then it was a platform to communicate with friends, and maybe even find new friends to meet up with. Today social media is more like a drug, to keep the user engaged and to push content to them. The content must either be addictive/engaging or paid advertisements. Quality of the content doesn't matt…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reddit is plenty addictive in my experience, and I've heard the same from other people ranging from high school teachers to tradespeople.
Hackernews is also addictive. Fortnine is addictive. World of Warcraft is addictive. NFL is addictive. Addiction does not strike to me as a unique trait of the social media. The echo chamber bubble on the other hand, seems quite unique.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Legally, it doesn't matter. You can talk to people? Social media it is.
> Legally, it doesn't matter. You can talk to people? Social media it is. No this isn't true at all, it absolutely does matter legally. Look at Australia's underage social media ban. Twitter was forced to ban children, but Bluesky was not despite being the platforms being effectively the same. Roblox and Discord, no bans despite being an extremely common place for young people to socialize.