231–240 of 458 posts
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…
I am.
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…
Regulate social media if that is the case.
Bans are ineffective anyway - if you doubt that, compare and contrast the outcomes of Prohibition and the War on Drugs, versus regulating Tobacco companies...
We need limits though and that's the whole point. The effect of doom scrolling on the young brain is something we can't just turn a blind eye to. Add to it bad people trying to hurt the young ones and using them
I joking argue that we should cap computer speed at 486 level's. You can still do office stuff, some graphics and audio but you are not running a doom scrolling setup with that kind of limited hardware. You are barely running Doom! I think smart phones are really cool when they aren't in the attention economy. But high performance but low power draw chips and media accelerators unintentionally allowed for these kind…
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Phones and social media are a completely new type of pacifying and attention stealing threat which we have only just begun to discover the effects of. This is not your standard 'kids are doomed' rhetoric.
No, they're not, and yes, it is. I sincerely hope we do not take phones and other computers from future generations. That would be a terrible thing to do to them.
Giving addictive and attention stealing tech to children from a young age is like giving drugs to rats, they will continue to hit the feeder bar until they effectively kill themselves.
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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?
Quite a few places around the world have already done so, on the basis that they are an eyesore. Where there's a will there's a way.
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.
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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 entir…
This is sort of true, but there is definitely a scale of development that means the most harm will be done the earlier you start. Same with access to pornography. People's brains don't suddenly become immune to it at 18, it's just that that's the age of legal responsibility that ties in with other things.
Men who turn 18 don't suddenly become disposable meat-based gun-holders in times of war, and yet we still treat them that way.
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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…
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.
In far more cases than is ideal, the phone gives them an element of freedom/safety from their living situation.
Imagine a kid whose own parents are abusing them, or an LGBT kid growing up in a deeply conservative family, and one day the government suddenly decides you don't deserve being able to connect with support resources...
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Just saying "regulate" it is not an answer and won't give you the results you think. What you'll get is restrictions on speech. UK arrests thousands every year for what essentially amounts to mean tweets. There have been people that comment publicly on horrendous crimes that get harsher sentences than those that commit the crimes. At any point in time politicians could have enforced existing terms of service violatio…
I have no idea what you're on about. I said "regulate the proverbial crack" and gave two concrete examples of things going wrong. At no point did I hint at "stop people from conversing freely".