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

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

#311

Post by buu700 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #304
EarthMephit wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could make that exact same argument for alcohol, cigarettes, prescription medication - The reasons are the same.

And because of the laws, it has stopped children from smoking, drinking and abusing drugs. The entire war on drugs has been such a success.

To be fair, the "War on Tobacco" has actually been a huge success[1]. I've been saying for years that we should end the War on Drugs in its current form and extend tobacco policy to other drugs. If you're old enough to drink, smoke, and get shipped off to a warzone, who is anyone else to tell you that you don't deserve the freedom to buy a bottle of pharmaceutical-grade heroin at CVS and shoot it up in the privacy of your own home?

But because we collectively insist on infantilizing ourselves, hundreds of billions of dollars per year are redirected from the pharma industry to black market criminal syndicates. Instead of funding medical research and stock buybacks, we're actively choosing to fund global chaos and mass atrocities. We could stop tomorrow, and it would cost us nothing. In fact, it would save the US billions of dollars in annual losses at all levels of government and generate billions of dollars in annual tax revenue, all of which could be used to fund things like addiction treatment services, law enforcement, and border security.

1: https://www.lung.org/research/trends-in-lung-disease/tobacco...

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

#312

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

phatfish wrote: post #308
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because of the laws, it has stopped children from smoking, drinking and abusing drugs. The entire war on drugs has been such a success.

Of course age laws have worked. Adults are the smokers, drinkers and drug abusers. Do you want a situation with kids being drunk in school because they can just go to a shop during break and get a bottle of Vodka, no questions asked?

Really?

30%+ of teenagers smoke weed

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/everything-you-and-your-...

Statistics for drinking

https://www.responsibility.org/alcohol-statistics/underage-d...

Even when I was in school in the 90s high schoolers were sneaking and smoking during school

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

#313

Post by notepad0x90 »

card_zero wrote: post #236
notepad0x90 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a nanny state. you can't give your kid alcohol for example at that age, let them drive, get married (don't get me started on some countries!), operate a chainsaw or other dangerous machinery. This is a danger to their mental development. Look at teacher forums all over. r/Teachers on reddit should be illuminating. Tech and parents sticking devices to their kids instead of raising them properly ha…

[flagged]

I'm pretty sure that type of engagement is against HN rules.

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

#314

Post by notepad0x90 »

tintor wrote: post #251
notepad0x90 wrote: post #41

It sounds extreme, but I support banning usage of anything that runs software for children under 13. Under 13, children are still developing their minds, it is important for their welfare that they learn how to function without technological dependencies. You know how in school they used to tell us we can't use calculators to solve math problems? Same thing. It can't be done by individual parents either, because then…

This is very extreme take. I learned to program at age 10. It is an amazing tool for mind development. Had to invent sine and cosine tables to make my computer games, before even encountering the concept at school.

Is that survivor's bias? there are many other mental development goals chidren should have. for the very small number of children that will learn to program at that age, there is no harm in delaying it a few years, but for the vast majority whose development would be stunted, or worse, they'll be harmed.

Some kids learn to drink and smoke at a that age too, and many turn out ok.

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

#315

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

buu700 wrote: post #311
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And because of the laws, it has stopped children from smoking, drinking and abusing drugs. The entire war on drugs has been such a success.

To be fair, the "War on Tobacco" has actually been a huge success[1]. I've been saying for years that we should end the War on Drugs in its current form and extend tobacco policy to other drugs. If you're old enough to drink, smoke, and get shipped off to a warzone, who is anyone else to tell you that you don't deserve the freedom to buy a bottle of pharmaceutical-grade heroin at CVS and shoot it up in the privacy of…

And it’s been replaced with more people smoking weed.

https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2024/08/canna...

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

#316

Post by buu700 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #315
buu700 wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, the "War on Tobacco" has actually been a huge success[1]. I've been saying for years that we should end the War on Drugs in its current form and extend tobacco policy to other drugs. If you're old enough to drink, smoke, and get shipped off to a warzone, who is anyone else to tell you that you don't deserve the freedom to buy a bottle of pharmaceutical-grade heroin at CVS and shoot it up in the privacy of…

And it’s been replaced with more people smoking weed. https://nida.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/2024/08/canna...

That's great to hear, although they really should prefer vaporization, sublingual administration, and edibles/potables to smoking.

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

#317

Post by dr_kretyn »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #302
trey-jones wrote: post #53

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.

Or parents could just take responsibility for their own children and not buy them a phone instead of outsourcing their parental responsibilities to the government.

Those very responsible would likely do that. But then you have a spectrum from "fully responsible but on occasions slip" to "not responsible at all". You can help some make the "good" decision and prevent others from making "bad" decisions. Hopefully those who grew up with healthier environments will have higher chances for becoming "fully responsible".

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

#318

Post by makeitdouble »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #164
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was learning to program at age 11. This does indeed sound extreme.

Would it have made a big difference if you learned to code at 13? Is there a pressing need as to why kids need to code at a young age? Maybe there could be exceptions for children that develop sooner? If your other developmental metrics were met early on, I don't see why an earlier age would be a problem.

> Would it have made a big difference if you learned X at 13?

Yes. Kids getting access to knowledge that clicks with them earlier than later makes a huge difference.

Which is exactly why so many people are rushing in to control what kids get exposed to. You seem to have pretty strong thought on the issue yourself, if you agree on the possible negative impact, you can't also deny the possibility of positive impact.

The dose makes the poison, I think we can understand how extreme position tend to bring more negative than positive consequences, regardless of the rethoric.

[edit: rephrased the last part]

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

#319

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

dr_kretyn wrote: post #317
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or parents could just take responsibility for their own children and not buy them a phone instead of outsourcing their parental responsibilities to the government.

Those very responsible would likely do that. But then you have a spectrum from "fully responsible but on occasions slip" to "not responsible at all". You can help some make the "good" decision and prevent others from making "bad" decisions. Hopefully those who grew up with healthier environments will have higher chances for becoming "fully responsible".

It amazes me after seeing the corruption of the current government that people want to give it more power over our lives.

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

#320

Post by dyauspitr »

angiolillo wrote: post #171
dyauspitr wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that local level stuff doesn’t work. As soon as a couple of kids have a smartphone, the online world becomes vastly more interesting than the day to day.

> All that local level stuff doesn’t work I can't speak to anyone else, but it seems to be working well enough in our town. The overwhelming majority of kids don't have cell phones until high school. That doesn't mean your kids won't beg you for a smartphone, it just means you can say "no" without socially isolating them. > As soon as a couple of kids have a smartphone The point is to engage in collective action earl…

Collective action that is effective is hard to pull off in a million homes a million times around the country. Most people without extra time and resources are just not going to do it which at this point is a large part of the country. It’s like advocating for town level collective action on alcohol or age of consent. It’s way more sensible to just make it law.
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