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The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

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Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#101

Post by pj_mukh »

Lerc wrote: post #66
pj_mukh wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not about resources anymore. What’s especially interesting is that a lot of teachers take a paycut [1] to go teach in private school partly because the kids are better adjusted, rich kids have more comprehensive childcare and don’t need to rely on screens/social media for the gaps in parenting. For a taste of all these details, go on r/Teachers [1]: https://www.ccu.edu/blogs/cags/2011/12/teaching-in-private-s…

I encountered something just the other day that mentioned r/Teachers. I can't remember what it was exactly, but there was definitely a huge caveat about it not being a representative sample. There is correlation between socioeconomic status and academic performance, but it is not the be-all-and-end-all. Schools serving lower socioeconomic populations should have vastly higher resources to address the additional chall…

The problem is, a classroom full of TikTok zombies doesn’t fit into the 20% more work vs. 80% more work dichotomy. It’s simply spending 40 hours a week talking to an (almost literal) wall.

It’s money sure, and some teachers who don’t care can keep going. But most who do, would be happy to switch to a place where they can make a difference.

This is all a separate conversation to school resources is my point.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#102

Post by kelseyfrog »

selcuka wrote: post #85
kelseyfrog wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ok, then what's the minimum efficacy such that you'll consider it viable?

Again, it's not a black or white issue. There is no universal constant threshold where it suddenly becomes viable. If you ask my personal opinion, I would say: - If it's not even 10% effective, don't waste any resources. Replace it with another method. - If it's 10% - 50% effective, improve it. - If it's >50% effective, it's probably fine, leave it. My point it that there can be many other shades of grey here. It's n…

Ok, then maybe what I'm saying applies to Aeolun and not you.

It looks like you decided to self-insert into a critique that doesn't involve you and then decide that means the critique is wrong.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#103

Post by JumpCrisscross »

downrightmike wrote: post #40
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s a tech meme. If you’ve ever been near a PTA, you’ll understand that there is terrific civic potential in appealing to parents’ fears. The true think of the children has always been national security.

except in food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, or general well-being. The cuts to education were the last thing that disengaged kids from the world, of course they are going to self soothe

> except in food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care, or general well-being

Parents activate over their own kids. They’re seeking to protect them and will call their electeds and knock on doors and potentially back a primary challenger if you ignore them.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#104

Post by pj_mukh »

Hizonner wrote: post #100
pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Article mostly cites self-reported studies ie the kids think that the kids are doing alright, which is a different statement from the kids are actually doing alright. Most teachers seeing generational changes are raising five alarm fires around how badly the kids are doing. Actually testing kids is showing a startling reverse Flynn effect [1]. I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here? [1] http…

> the kids think [...] Most teachers Random anecdotal claims from population A contradict random anecdotal claims from population B. > I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here? Well, it can't be any worse than you have, in that the paper you link to doesn't show anything about what causes that negative Flynn effect. It does speculate , and social media is not on even on the authors' list of gu…

Barring any real causal studies, I’ll lean on the experience of teachers and school boards [1].

Note if the article called for instituting a school board ban instead of a country-wide ban, I’d support it. But the article is fundamentally questioning the existence of the problem which was a silly over-reaction.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/04/us/social-media-schools.h...

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#105

Post by throwaway85825 »

Lerc wrote: post #37
pj_mukh wrote: post #17

Article mostly cites self-reported studies ie the kids think that the kids are doing alright, which is a different statement from the kids are actually doing alright. Most teachers seeing generational changes are raising five alarm fires around how badly the kids are doing. Actually testing kids is showing a startling reverse Flynn effect [1]. I’m curious what the author has in terms of actual evidence here? [1] http…

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

I can't remember which state it was but they spent 2/3+ of the entire states education budget on one underperming school district. In the end they ended up with new buildings but the scores went down because school spending isn't actually correlated with student success.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#106

Post by roenxi »

fhub wrote: post #65
eastof wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Massively downplaying it to say "chips away" this takes a sledgehammer to the core of internet privacy. In all cases in the world where this has been done before like China or Russia, freedom is also lost shortly after. Of course people only argue one side, the stakes are losing internet privacy and freedom in the entire world if the west also succumbs to these authoritarian policies. It isn't the government's job to…

I think you’re proving my point a little. You’re treating the costs as obvious and enormous, while treating any potential benefits as essentially zero.

We have to accept that there are policies with obvious and enormous downsides and essentially zero upsides, because they exist and get tried from time to time. Eastof (and the article) are providing an argument that this is one of those times. A pretty reasonable one too, I forget the implementation details of the UK scheme but in Australia and most of Europe the authoritarian bent of the people implementing these age restriction bans is concerning - it looks like they're setting up a general purposes minority targeting systems. I'm not sure how they're going to justify that and I don't recall seeing anyone make a reasonable argument to justify it yet beyond "We can and we're going to. Trust us and think of the children".

Your argument seems to be that the issue is more nuanced than anyone else is saying, which is cool and all but then it sits with you to identify what the nuances you want to talk about are. Pointing out that someone else has identified different tradeoffs than you have is something of a given since that is the case with almost any pairing of people.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#107

Post by AngryData »

dyauspitr wrote: post #48
raychis wrote: post #5

The UK government's turn towards authoritarianism on these sorts of things is extremely worrisome! Invest in a VPN to keep yourself safe.

What a joke. Throwing around auth casually like this normalizes it.

The UK is an actual movie trope for pushing more and more authoritarian with their massive amount of surveillance and petty regulations and restrictions. I don't think it is a joke at all, they have been continuously moving that way the last few decades. Just because some places are or were at one time worse that doesn't absolve the UK from guilt.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#108

Post by throwaway85825 »

kian wrote: post #45
Lerc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

It doesn't seem like there's been a precipitous drop in resources compared to the decades of requests and warnings that have led up to this point. So what's different now, if not resourcing?

Resources have never been higher. Theres an expectation now that the schools will do everything and pay for everything but its never enough.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#109

Post by applicative »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #105
Lerc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright covers a broad spectrum of properties. Most teachers have been asking for more resources for decades, warning of the consequences of not doing so. It seems a little on the nose to ignore their warnings and when the consequences manifest opt to blame something else entirely.

I can't remember which state it was but they spent 2/3+ of the entire states education budget on one underperming school district. In the end they ended up with new buildings but the scores went down because school spending isn't actually correlated with student success.

The postwar American glory period depended on the fact that half the brain power of society couldn’t get a job except in teaching. Now the sort of women who taught me in high school are federal judges and captains of industry. Teacher salaries would need to be two or three times as high to get the quality of the period of American greatness.

Re: The UK's Teen Social Media Ban Is Political Theater, Not Child Safety Policy

#110

Post by arthurbrown »

pj_mukh wrote: post #98
arthurbrown wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nationalized social media bans and restricted device usage while in a classroom are different things. Why would TikTok ever belong in the classroom? Of course if even educational use of laptops is restricted then personal mobile devices would also be. They are already banned in my country.

The original article doesn’t care to explore the difference, it doesn’t even acknowledge there is a problem. If the article was “instead of a national ban, we should look at school-wide ban”, I would be sympathetic. FWIW, American states are doing exactly this[1], people still complain [1]: https://www.gov.ca.gov/2024/09/23/governor-newsom-signs-legi...

The article doesn't really discuss education outcomes at all, that is something you brought up. It sounds like we agree that there is an issue here. I'm suggesting that there are other reasons that explain the performance drop.

My reading of the article is that it criticizes the implementation of this policy and the methodology behind it, which I agree with.

Living in a country that moved quickly from a "social media ban" to an "adult content ban" in the space of 3 months, I feel that these policies are overreach due to how they must be implemented. As in, they require all users to provide verification, not just the targeted cohort.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwy92qpv424o

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