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Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

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141–150 of 453 posts

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#141
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are massively overstating how important it is to the kids that they have a social media account. How can it hold that kids would be ignored in real life because they don't interact virtually?

With all due respect, I suspect you don’t have teen kids. Almost their entire social life is organised online.

I don't, but I do have friends, and did have friends when I was a kid growing up during the rise and proliferation of social media and the beginnings of algorithmic content distribution, so I am familiar with it.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's probably the solution: You can run a social media, but you have to do it ad free. Charge people if you need to, but you cannot run ads. What fucks up social media is the constant need to "engagement".

this is a familiar discourse. Ads are more than a thing you "run," they're an idea. You can't destroy the idea of ads. "Ad free" isn't possible to guarantee. Does this make sense?

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#143
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demanding a law because you are unable to tell your kids "no" makes you the bigger fool.

This is not about telling kids no. This is about companies (and foreign hostile governments!) worth billions of dollars openly studying how best to prey on children's minds. There are things that are just poisonous to society as a concept.

You gonna at least gesture at one of these Cognitohazards that are so poisonous we can't even discuss them? Because I admit to being curious!

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. Teachers are seeing the massive benefits from banning phones entirely during school hours. I think once we get data from bans for certain things like social media for kids, we'll all want to get on the wave.

This has to be done carefully because prohibition breeds desire and adults will absolutely try to force the attitude of 35 year olds onto 15 year olds forgetting a lot of life lessons have to be learned through experience and not just told. Everybody wants to get on the wave about how children these days are so much worse because of the new thing. And literally as long as we have recorded human writing we have adults…

> prohibition breeds desire

Sure, but we (as societies) have always had to deal with this. Wherever you are in the world there are things that simply aren't allowed under a certain age, whether that's 15, 16, 18, 21 or whatever.

My (just turned) 16 year old told me last that he didn't think it looked to be that hard to drive a car.

Me: "Umm. You'll find out. When you get to it."

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#145
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent of a 21 and 18 year old so I’m somewhat familiar about how to do parenting, thanks. Yes, “no” is a tool that more parents can and should reach for. But if you’ve got any experience at all of kids you’ll know it’s really not as straight forward as this. The more responsibility you can push off to others, such as government or schools, the easier this is. We brought ours up with pretty strong guidelines and lots…

Describe three hypotheticals to me of what you think will happen in the following circumstances: * Kid who is told "no" by his parents * Kid who is told "yes" by his parents * Kid who "can't" sign up for social media because it's illegal to do so at their age, who then signs up for it when it becomes legal. I would really like to see what you believe the outcomes of these three scenarios would be, because I doubt any…

Read literally anything about brain elasticity and then come back and tell me those “just” 2—3 years are unimportant. These are key, critical years for development. Pretty much all the studies are saying it’s fucking us, and particularly our kids.

Personally I want to do something about this, and IMO every move in the direction that helps even in a small way is a good one.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#148
post #59

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.

As a parent, you should be able to parent your child, rather than having the government arbitrarily and capriciously do so on your behalf, and for everyone else's kids, too. As someone who got my first BlackBerry at 11, which really spurred a lot of my later interests which are now part of my career or led to it indirectly, I am opposed to paternalistic authoritarian governments making choices for everyone. (Funny an…

Cultures around the world have barred children from certain social places until they go through a rite of passage that the whole society, not just the parents, recognize.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#149

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.

Agreed. Teachers are seeing the massive benefits from banning phones entirely during school hours. I think once we get data from bans for certain things like social media for kids, we'll all want to get on the wave.

Teachers are not good indicators of measuring 'benefits', as they are both the beneficiaries of a more brain-dead, more bored, more asleep student body, they have rose-tinted ideas about the way things used to be, and they are also grading the success - which all too often comes down to compliance.

That's why if this was a serious attempt to gauge whether smartphones are diametral or beneficial, we'd have a double-blind, standardised anonymously-graded test. If control group with smartphones gets consistently less points by graders who do not know them or their smartphone habits as compared to those who live in digital exile, we can talk. Until then, 'peace and quiet' in the classroom is mistaken for educational success.

Funny how no-one seems to be eager to finance such a study. For me, that's an indication that the outrage is pearl-clutching.

Re: Denmark's government aims to ban access to social media for children under 15

#150
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent of a 21 and 18 year old so I’m somewhat familiar about how to do parenting, thanks. Yes, “no” is a tool that more parents can and should reach for. But if you’ve got any experience at all of kids you’ll know it’s really not as straight forward as this. The more responsibility you can push off to others, such as government or schools, the easier this is. We brought ours up with pretty strong guidelines and lots…

Describe three hypotheticals to me of what you think will happen in the following circumstances: * Kid who is told "no" by his parents * Kid who is told "yes" by his parents * Kid who "can't" sign up for social media because it's illegal to do so at their age, who then signs up for it when it becomes legal. I would really like to see what you believe the outcomes of these three scenarios would be, because I doubt any…

In example 3: Kid lies about their age. Just like they did ever since there was COPA.
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