Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns • Hacker News Board

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#101

Post by ChicagoBoy11 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

CharlesW wrote: post #36

ChicagoBoy11 wrote: post #3

I work at a fancy private school and partially am have hosted numerous events for parents on kids and social media. We have been banging on this key for easily the past 8 years, with varying levels of emphasis. The response from parents has also been universally consistent: A lot of nodding, and, ultimately, very little action. There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their de…

> There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to. For the latter group, do you feel like it's always willful ignorance? For example, some parents think you're talking about TikTok, when (as I'm sure you know) it often starts with Roblox/Minecraft…

I don't think it's ignorance as much as "well, that won't be my child." Also, its a much more appealing alternative when it is the path of least resistance. I suspect, too, we don't really have a sophisticated enough conversation on the distributions of the outcomes. From my experience working with teens, I think it is probably the case that the media outcome of having broad access to these is strictly worse than not, but probably of a small magnitude, but that there is a long tail of negative outcomes that no one believes will be their child.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#102

Post by throwway120385 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

hammyhavoc wrote: post #94

omginternets wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media. To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems. Maybe sign your kid up for little league?

Little league? Social media? Are we talking children or teenagers? What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. For the prior generation, if you aren't online, you aren't cool, and you won't know about cool things…

Countercultures always look really small. If everyone was actually doing it it wouldn't be much of a reaction to the prevailing culture of everyone being connected and having snippy political discussions in neighborhood discussion groups.

All of this organization doesn't actually happen on social media in my social group. We pretty much all just text each other, and everyone I know and care to spend time with does this. The people who are utterly reliant on Facebook to organize their lives have filtered themselves out of my friend group.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#103

Post by standardUser » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:23 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #78

swader999 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.

Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media. To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems. Maybe sign your kid up for little league?

When I was young, the kids who played little league were, how do I put this? Dicks. It's not about shoving two like-aged children next to each other and yelling "bond!", it's about a child being able to navigate their own social life and, hopefully, find and bond with people they relate to. Limiting the activities a child can participate in, especially when those activities are widespread among their peers, will of course limit their ability to find their people and form those bonds.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#104

Post by nineplay » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

sghiassy wrote: post #97

nineplay wrote: post #86

I have lost patience with articles about kids and teens and "social media" that make no attempt to define what social media is. It is no wonder parents won't seriously - particularly when the follow up advice is "don't give your kids phones" as though it's all or nothing. Could we please get a list of social media kids are using and their relative levels of harm? If it's mostly Instagram then say Instagram and parent…

Interesting that you wouldn't classify TikTok as social media. How would you characterize it?

I suppose I'd call it a video sharing platform. "Social media", to me, has an implication of media that is shared within a social circle. Facebook is social media because the intention is to share information with friends and family. No one is posting on FB hoping to have it go viral and make a pile of cash off it.

TikToc is content creators sharing their videos with the whole world.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#105

Post by i2cmaster » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:26 PM UTC

nineplay wrote: post #86

I have lost patience with articles about kids and teens and "social media" that make no attempt to define what social media is. It is no wonder parents won't seriously - particularly when the follow up advice is "don't give your kids phones" as though it's all or nothing. Could we please get a list of social media kids are using and their relative levels of harm? If it's mostly Instagram then say Instagram and parent…

Obviously people are abusing non-free software and centralized web services both to spread propaganda and to separate parents from their kids. People not involved in the industry have an extremely difficult time articulating what they experience there though.

I think it's wrong to be upset at them.

>Saying "no phones" is throwing the baby out with the bath water

I completely disagree. Outside of the top maybe tenth percentile of focused/competent people smartphones are a net negative. They're practically designed to be. I don't own one for that reason.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#106

Post by standardUser » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:27 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #90

nineplay wrote: post #86

I have lost patience with articles about kids and teens and "social media" that make no attempt to define what social media is. It is no wonder parents won't seriously - particularly when the follow up advice is "don't give your kids phones" as though it's all or nothing. Could we please get a list of social media kids are using and their relative levels of harm? If it's mostly Instagram then say Instagram and parent…

The reason they don't say is because they don't know.

It's true. This meta-analysis was posted a while back on HN with this key quote:

"In social media research, we focus on “how much social media did a person consume?” and we plan our experiments accordingly... Most don’t even distinguish between platforms, as if Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and TikTok are just different kinds of liquor. "

Like I wrote in a comment back then, it's like blaming "computers" or "the internet". Vague to the point of useless.

https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/why-some-researchers-th...

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#107

Post by wonderwonder » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:30 PM UTC

hammyhavoc wrote: post #98

wonderwonder wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they isolated? If kids are involved in sports and extra curriculars they will have plenty of social interaction. Nothing on social media is good for young minds. Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. I'm the parent, I'll provide morals and insight into topics I think are important that aren't or shouldn't be covered in school. I don't need Jim.lottahoes78 teaching my kid anything.

> Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. What about cities? What about stores? What about TV? What about magazines? What about the radio? What about school? What about music? What about books? Whilst I agree with you, where do we draw the line? Personally, having worked in advertising/marketing for over a decade and grown completely disenchanted with it and pivoted to just doing creative shit, I…

I agree with you. Marketing to kids is wrong. I think social media is more insidious though. They are not selling products they are selling view points and often at the expense of others. Believe this or you're a Nazi. Don't drink this beer. Social media is the battlefield of the culture wars and I don't want my kids to be casualties.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#108

Post by hammyhavoc » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:31 PM UTC

omginternets wrote: post #95

hammyhavoc wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Little league? Social media? Are we talking children or teenagers? What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. For the prior generation, if you aren't online, you aren't cool, and you won't know about cool things…

>What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. Yeah, no. People still talk to each other. I leave it to you to exercise some adaptability and find suitable workarounds. This is a small problem. I guarantee you that…

As neither a parent nor a teenager, I find this a weird one to leave with me. I merely repeated some valid concerns, to which you presented no solutions, just snippiness.

What workarounds am I looking for? And for whom? Why aren't the people concerned looking for their own workarounds?

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#109

Post by sidcool » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:32 PM UTC

There are so many contradicting studies from experts that I have lost interest. Too much of anything is bad. But how much is OK for kids? I see very young kids exposed to content, philosophy and culture that's not native to their parents.

Re: Social media can be a ‘profound risk’ to youth, surgeon general warns

#110

Post by knaik94 » Tue, May 23, 2023, 4:33 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #87

knaik94 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the ability to help guide them through social media by helping them understand good and bad. I understand that you might have different beliefs, but social media plays a very critical role in young kids communicating with each other. Covid catalyzed them embracing social media to stay in touch. Youtube also shouldn't be considered social media.

I appreciate your viewpoint but strongly disagree. Children today suffer vastly increasing rates of depression and suicide. I link most of it to social media. My kids talk to their friends just as kids have done for generations. If social media is playing any sort of a critical role in a kids life it's because the parents are not doing it. YouTube is absolutely social media no different than Instagram or TikTok. Even…

Social media is an important way for kids to communicate to a group of people outside of their immediate friends. Kids born before broadband did not have the option to communicate in the same way, and trying to live that way now will do more harm than good. It's similar to trying to using a dumb phone that is not capable of group messaging as your only form of communication. Mental health issues are very complex and social media is only a communication platform at its core.

YouTube is not social media because there's no real network of friends. You have creators making content for users to consume. There are comments under videos, but there's no friends feature or direct messaging. Anyone can't post anything. The rest of the world is going to continue to use social media, limiting access won't change that. My perspective mostly agrees with this Unicef report.

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/done-right-internet-us...