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The kids with phones are alright

heatherburns.tech

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Re: The kids with phones are alright

#171

Post by throwaway27448 »

> This runs against the grain of 2026 tech policy, which decrees that it’s young people who need their behavior censored and constrained, in ways that punish them for the actions of the perpetrator.

I mean social media is simply misanthropic. If humanity had any balls it'd burn these places down. Calling banishment from social media a punishment is a stretch. The point of these decrees has nothing to do with protecting children and everything to do with persecuting adults for behaving in ways the state doesn't like. The author's read is just weird

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#172

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #169
NoPicklez wrote: post #96

My question to these sorts of articles is, okay so what do we do then? What do we do when we know that social media it not healthy for kids. Its not good for their attention spans or mental health to a much greater degree than other forms of media. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't have phones, but they should be able to use them without being engulfed in social media content that has been shown to have a negative impa…

> What do we do when we know that social media it not healthy for kids. Its not good for their attention spans or mental health to a much greater degree than other forms of media. Do we know this? As far as I can tell, the studies are ambivalent at best. Some kids are damaged, others benefit.

Probably the same way we know most things. We know it affects us and we extrapolate.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#174

Post by iugtmkbdfil834 »

Here is something I am not seeing anyone else addressing. Some yonks ago I was going to work by train and I stopped partially as a result of an incident on that train that involved someone recording my rather candid political conversation with a colleague. It is not the social media; tech etiquette needs to be seriously adjusted and while I am willing to give grace as we are trying to figure out proper balance as a society, I am not willing to have my life examined on the interwebz for everyone's amusement.

The kids in that sense, are just a convenient vessel for an argument; the same way they function for the author of that article.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#175

Post by netniuq »

NoPicklez wrote: post #96

My question to these sorts of articles is, okay so what do we do then? What do we do when we know that social media it not healthy for kids. Its not good for their attention spans or mental health to a much greater degree than other forms of media. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't have phones, but they should be able to use them without being engulfed in social media content that has been shown to have a negative impa…

We regulate the platforms, not the users: We ban (most? all?) targeted advertising. If we still have to go further, we force tech giants to publish their recommendation algorithms and aggregated user data (e.g. statistics about time spent on what types of content on the platform by user cohort) If we still have to go further, we can adapt policy restricting concrete addictive usage-patterns (e.g. the infinite scroll proposal recently discussed here[1])

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48897104

On an unrelated note: yes, I also don't understand how this incident has to do much with social media bans…

> Just because there are adults with full agency that do the wrong thing, doesn't mean we should remove protections on young people. Just because adults with full agency drive recklessly, doesn't mean we should allow 13 year olds the ability to drive.

also agree wholeheartedly.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#176

Post by cynicalsecurity »

RIMR wrote: post #16

This 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…

Did the UK get rid of the Muslim rape gangs already? No one is being raped on social media, yet all the hysteria is focused on social media when it should be focused on a completely different issue that actually harms children in real life on a massive scale - outside and unrelated to the internet.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#177

Post by jml78 »

netniuq wrote: post #175
NoPicklez wrote: post #96

My question to these sorts of articles is, okay so what do we do then? What do we do when we know that social media it not healthy for kids. Its not good for their attention spans or mental health to a much greater degree than other forms of media. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't have phones, but they should be able to use them without being engulfed in social media content that has been shown to have a negative impa…

We regulate the platforms, not the users: We ban (most? all?) targeted advertising. If we still have to go further, we force tech giants to publish their recommendation algorithms and aggregated user data (e.g. statistics about time spent on what types of content on the platform by user cohort) If we still have to go further, we can adapt policy restricting concrete addictive usage-patterns (e.g. the infinite scroll…

We ban targeted ads. Great but then what? My oldest is 17, no targeted ads to him so that means he gets a million political ads. To me, it is just as problematic. I would argue that under 18, there should be zero ads. Yeah I know it will never happen.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#178

Post by dgellow »

jml78 wrote: post #177
netniuq wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We regulate the platforms, not the users: We ban (most? all?) targeted advertising. If we still have to go further, we force tech giants to publish their recommendation algorithms and aggregated user data (e.g. statistics about time spent on what types of content on the platform by user cohort) If we still have to go further, we can adapt policy restricting concrete addictive usage-patterns (e.g. the infinite scroll…

We ban targeted ads. Great but then what? My oldest is 17, no targeted ads to him so that means he gets a million political ads. To me, it is just as problematic. I would argue that under 18, there should be zero ads. Yeah I know it will never happen.

You think a 17 years old should be protected from political content? They are pretty much an adult and are able to vote in some places…

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#179

Post by kakacik »

Triphibian wrote: post #136
Triphibian wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took some digging but I found that setting on browser. Thank you. I'd love a big toggle for "brain fucking" that you could just set to off.

And of course these settings do nothing if he just opens any browser and watches YouTube logged off.

New Commodore flip phone - has google maps and whatsapp for calls and video, otherwise a dumb phone.

Hard to argue below 18 actually needs more. Wants, sure, but then whole cancerous can of worms is opened and good luck there.

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