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The kids with phones are alright

heatherburns.tech

181–190 of 458 posts

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s some good stuff on there, just not in the “Shorts” tab. Why do people get so weird about the shorts tab? There are perfectly good videos in there, they're just tilted weird. You can fit quality content into 3 minutes. And remember Elsagate? That was entirely landscape videos.

There are good Shorts. One problem is a flick of the thumb scrolls you down to the next, then the next, and many are crap. The uncertainty about whether you're going to see crap or gold is part of what makes recommendation-based infinite scrolling addictive.

Never done that, muscle memory is simply not there. But then again i dont watch youtube on phone, computer with ublock origin is vastly superior experience.

There is whole world to read and discover before switching to passive videos. Or even spend time here lol

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do people really want to restrict 16 year olds with alcohol? 16 is nearly adult, they need to learn responsibility

Teenagers learning how to have a couple of beers with a meal would be an improvement on them turning 18/20/21 and going and getting hammered on shots

In Europe, I think it is more common tbh. Even in the UK my dad would let me try making cocktails etc. at the weekend when I was 17.

It meant when I got to university I knew how much I could drink (although as a student I was too poor to drink much anyway haha) whereas there were people drinking like half a bottle of vodka.

I don't drink any alcohol nowadays so it's not like it turned me into an alcoholic either.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#183

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…

I'm extremely against ads, so I sympathize greatly with your sentiment. But what does it mean to "ban targeted advertising"?

Will we ban posters along highways that advertise car wreck lawyers? Where do you draw that line?

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#184

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…

Kids shouldn't have smartphones until much later, like late teenage years. A flip phone for kids who are out of the house regularly with some contacts is fine. No need to be a Luddite, but what do kids possibly get out of a phone? If I didn't have work and to chauffeur people around, id toss mine too.

Based on what? Your personal feelings? You think kids don’t get anything from online content and interactions with other kids via their phone?

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got my first bug bounty at 16. Not having access to compute would've drastically changed the direction of my life. I wouldn't have been able to afford university & would likely be working on a farm right now like my cousins

Access to a desktop computer vs a smartphone that they bring to bed with TikTok on it are different though. What was your bug bounty for?

As a kid I was using my PSP to browse the web at night. Will you also restrict a Nintendo DS, a Switch, and any other device that comes with a web briwser?

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#186

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.

IMHO it's not healthy for anyone. From kids, to retired pensioners not knowing what to do with their time, to profesionalls doing linkedin "hacking" and "networking" on twitter, etc.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#187

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…

Social media, as we have it today, is not healthy for anybody. It is bad, truly bad, and the companies responsible know it. You can't lace beer with crack and sell it. Not to a 12yo, not to a 50yo. Regulate the proverbial crack, then we see if further regulations are required. Earlier this year (0): > “We will launch during a dynamic political environment where many civil society groups that we would expect to attack…

Thank you, it's been infuriating reading these social media bans for children, as if when kids suddenly turn 16 or 18 or whatever magical nimber the courts come up with, they are suddenly immune to the psychological tricks from multi million dollar companies hiring the best psychologists with no morals money can buy.

Social media needs to be heavily regulated to the point where it's safe for everyone, or banned entirely. I don't understand why there's this belief it should have a right to exist when basically everyone agrees it's a net negative to society.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#188

"The kids are alright" is evergreen. So much of the are doomed rhetoric is pure nonsense, a lot of that rhetoric is on here.

Even if the kids ARE illiterate, society will adjust to cater to them. Everything will be fine.

They will be dominated by smarter kids, maybe from other countries.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#189
post #77
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people here just don't have kids of a relevant age yet. They assume either the bullying doesn't happen, or it isn't any different than bullying in person, or that it's easy to stop when it happens. You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating. You have to frequently audit what's on their phones because they often won't volunteer what's happening. You take them out of one group chat only…

> You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating. I hear this plenty, but kids are literally forced to go be with their peers (hopefully including some friends) for 6+ hours a day (in my country). Don't they have enough time to arrange their social lives in person? It’s not as bad as phone apologists say.

Agreed, students in schools seem to be regularly reporting an improved environment as unmanaged phone use went away.

Re: The kids with phones are alright

#190

Kids with phones are alright. Attention economy of social media is not. As did tabaco companies, they (soc. media tech giants) push proposals to regulate phone use based on age in hopes that the their information asymmetry advantage and addictive dark patterns that are the problem in the first place won't be regulated and they can keep exploiting the public held in their trap by network effect.

Attention economy is a red herring. HN shows that you don't need to do much to be more addictive than TikTok. It's human nature.
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