What’s easier: waiting until your child is mature enough before giving them a smartphone, or trying to regulate social media companies and every addictive website?
Let’s do both.
The kids with phones are alright
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Re: The kids with phones are alright
#22Conflates a whole load of othogonal issues that really have nothing to do with each other
I agree that there are several different issues at work. Can you show an example of how TFA conflates some of them?
You may disagree with the author's conclusions, but that doesn't make the article nonsense.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#23Personally, I don’t even think adults with phones are alright.
Yeah, age and maturity are two different things entirely. One of the bigger issues / trends right now is immature adults with power.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#24What’s easier: waiting until your child is mature enough before giving them a smartphone, or trying to regulate social media companies and every addictive website?
The irony of this is the phone is an easy button for parenting. For that reason, I don’t think we should try to optimize around easy.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Age 16-17 is very different than Ages 5-10 for kids to carry a device. The former is no issue. I just don't think the author's take is nuanced as they think. Kids (Age 5-13) safety is of ultimate importance. Devices, independently are also a major issue in schools. Social media use of bullying also is a major issue. To the point they are banned.
Removing a means of bullying that leaves a trail is not the same thing as removing bullying. It's just removing undeniable bullying. If people truly agreed that children needed to be protected from the desires of others, teaching them that a particular religion is the true one would be restricted until they were of an age where they could provide informed consent. For some, communication devices are the only way to e…
Forgive me if I am misinterpreting or getting in the way of your primary point -- but I think it is relatively well recognized that, though cyberbullying might not be objectively worse than analog bullying (obviously direct physical abuse/altercations cant happen electronically....yet), the 24/7 pervasiveness, anonymity, lack of emotional feedback for the bully, reach, and permanence of cyberbullying has had a meaningful impact on the state of the bullying game and the impacts it has on children.
That doesn't mean I agree with the general thrust of taking technology away from kids and young adults....I don't. But I do think we should probably understand the bad that we are taking with the good.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#26The problem is not phones. Phones are fine. The problem is specific apps that make use of addiction engineering. These are bad on desktops too but the extreme portability of phones makes them a hundred times more potent. Like all risks it doesn’t affect all kids equally either. Some are less vulnerable for various cognitive reasons just like some are less prone to chemical addiction. Kids with wealthier and/or more e…
The problem isn’t guns.
The problem is bullets, which guns just happen to make go very fast.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#27> These are groups who, culturally, do not want their children to have agency over their own lives, People who are not yet ready to have full agency of their own lives is more or less the definition of children. Does she also expect children to have full time jobs, pay taxes, pay all their own bills and rent, etc etc?
In TFA, the author says "agency" not "full agency." I also can't find all these other issues (jobs, etc) in TFA. Where are you getting this?
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#28Personally, I don’t even think adults with phones are alright.
Remove the phones and the problem will remain, which is people’s desire to consume detrimental content, or content in detrimental amounts.
Before phones/computers/internet, it was garbage on television channels. Propaganda on 24/7 “news” channels, “reality” tv shows, etc.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#29This whole article just boils down to the argument "If badly-behaved adults are allowed to have cameras, why shouldn't well-behaved children have access to for-profit social media platforms designed to addict them and feed them misinformation?" It's complete nonsense. The conversation in the UK right now isn't about whether or not teenagers should be allowed to own cell phones; it's about whether they should be allow…
I agree with your sentiment completely. I think there's nuance that a lot of people don't bother with because of tribalism but your take is the one I most align with in this instance. Children do need protecting, I grew up with the Internet and it made me partly who I am today, but I also recognise it is completely different now. Gore/shock/NSFL websites being linked between friends as pranks are no longer a thing (thankfully), but we have replaced that with garden walls (Facebook, Reddit, YT, etc.) that are much more insidious and have mechanised the harm to children and young people to an unbelievable scale.
Re: The kids with phones are alright
#30This whole article just boils down to the argument "If badly-behaved adults are allowed to have cameras, why shouldn't well-behaved children have access to for-profit social media platforms designed to addict them and feed them misinformation?" It's complete nonsense. The conversation in the UK right now isn't about whether or not teenagers should be allowed to own cell phones; it's about whether they should be allow…
I disagree, but thanks for making a coherent argument. It's a ray of sunshine.