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...and this needs to be solved with a law? Kids feeling left out over something well and truly inconsequentual?
Who needs laws! Let's also let them all smoke cigarettes too then while we're at it.
I presume text messaging doesn't count whereas Discord/WhatsApp do? What about Minecraft and other games? What about school platforms which they can post comments/messages on? Is watching YouTube included? When I've filled in surveys about our children's social media use, they have included YouTube, which makes it look like every child is on social media.
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Social media in the early 2000s is nothing like today.
You're right, kids in the 2000s actually wanted to use social media. It's a dying industry—appropriate timing for a government to make a law to save kids from the evils of it.
You're either operating with an anachronistic notion of what constitutes social media, or you're very out of touch with the public. Not sure which one.
The "myspaces" and "facebooks" are trending down, but other forms of social media like tiktok, discord, reddit, youtube, etc are alive and well, still hooking kids young as they always have.
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And Tylenol is a drug just the same as heroin. Do you think that HN has the same sort of impacts on people as instagram or facebook?
Do you think a law which restricts "social media" will be crafted delicately enough to affect Instagram and Facebook but not HN?
The problem is not "social media", that's just an insanely broad and poorly category. HN is probably "social media". Many games are probably "social media". The problem is that certain platforms exploit people for profit by feeding them crap, from political propaganda to ads for weight loss drugs. Many of them are designed to be addictive so folks can keep up "engagement". Enough eyeballs make all crap profitable, or…
I agree that it's a broad category, and that Hacker News is social media. But of all the problematic advertising you could choose, you choose instead political advertising and semaglutide ads?
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Social media in the early 2000s is nothing like today.
You're right, kids in the 2000s actually wanted to use social media. It's a dying industry—appropriate timing for a government to make a law to save kids from the evils of it.
As a parent who gave my oldest child a (very used) smartphone just before she turned 14, I would be in favor of making smartphones illegal under age 15 (or some other number, higher or lower I don't care). I'm pretty sure they're worse than cigarettes for the future of humanity.
Crazy to think how less government would need to act like a mom if there were one or two parents out there who were familiar with the word "no."
The reason most parents give up to regulate their children's online activity is because the children end up isolated if an individual household prevents their kid from socializing online. All the other kids are online, therefore switching individually ends in isolation. What might be beneficial for each household is unworkable as long as there is no collective mechanism. (which is the case for virtually every problem caused by social networks)
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You're right, kids in the 2000s actually wanted to use social media. It's a dying industry—appropriate timing for a government to make a law to save kids from the evils of it.
The issue is rather the algorithmic feed optimized for grabbing our attention. It's definitely addictive and should be regulated like other drugs. Give people technology, but let's have an honest conversation about it finally. As a adult it's already hard to muster enough self control to not keep scrolling.
I don't scroll social media. When I was 14-17, sure. But then I lost interest, much like most of my peers did.
(I do probably refresh HN more than I should though, but I think that's probably the least evil thing I could do compulsively...)