Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 453 posts

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

#331

Post by kazinator »

ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #188
notepad0x90 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don't know, maybe? Maybe it's not up to the state to decide whether my kids developmental metrics allows them screen time before age 13? What kind of nanny state is that?

That type of nanny state is a literal nanny state, imposing rules for children, like an actual nanny.

The usual figurative nanny state refers to a situation in which unreasonable rules and regulations are imposed on the behavior of grownups, not children.

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

#333

Post by petre »

lukasm wrote: post #201
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.

I fully agree. There should be a complete ban on social media and similar addictive platforms for those under 16, and a nighttime ban (10 p.m.–7 a.m.) for users aged 16 to 18. We basically give cigarettes to children.

Why not vice tax the operators? Easier than using age verification schemes and giving them even more data, chat control etc. I'm thinking tiktok, meta and x. Want to operate in Denmark? The license will cost $N/person/month where the amount of people equals the country's population. It's basically a viewer tax.

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

#334

Post by arcfour »

sfpotter wrote: post #293
AOsborn wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With respect, you’re very out of touch. Connecting online is the primary social space for many kids nowadays, not in person. Some parents (or those without kids) have a bit of a naive view and think ‘social media’ and just imagine Facebook, instagram etc - things they understand and that don’t provide much connection. The kids connect using private accounts, completely different apps, or even just inside the chat of…

I agree with what you're saying (including saying that arcfour is out of touch and doesn't really know what they're talking about), but... I do agree with them to an extent. And I have a kid (with another along the way). Kids adapt. They want to be on social media, or games, or Discord, or whatever because their friends are. If they have enough friends in real life doing something fun, that becomes where their specif…

That's rather rude of you, especially since I was actually a kid and grew up during the mass proliferation and ubiquity of social media, to suggest that I am "out-of-touch" compared to... you? (who are likely much older than me, or at best the same age) is pretty ridiculous. I was on Twitter and Facebook at like 12 years old, I've experienced this. And to dismissively suggest I don't know what I'm talking about, on what basis do you say that? The basis that you just disagree with me...saying that a law for this is stupid and an example of paternalistic government overreach? Many people who decidedly do know what they are talking about agree, just as there are many who disagree and know what they are talking about; simply because you are on the other side doesn't mean I must be clueless.

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

#335

Post by fsflover »

edwin2 wrote: post #82
tokai wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With digital ID. They are releasing it in a couple of months. https://digst.dk/it-loesninger/den-digitale-identitetstegneb...

this scenario can be addressed without digital ID the social media platforms already measure more than enough signals to understand a users likely age. they could be required by law to do something about it

I would rather outlaw tracking of minors (and adults, too, btw).

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

#336

Post by burnished »

colechristensen wrote: post #131
willio58 wrote: post #84

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…

Just nitpicking your first sentence: prohibition broadly works, just in the US (at least) it breeds negative externalities that don't seem worth it in balance.

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

#337

Post by levistrauss »

DocTomoe wrote: post #149
willio58 wrote: post #84

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.

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-bl…

How do you a double blind sutdy on smartphones? It seems to me that the group that would get smartphone would understand they’re the smartphone group, and the one without would know they don’t have one.

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

#338

Post by DocTomoe »

zurfer wrote: post #179
DocTomoe wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't want kids to smoke, scrolling algo feeds is not better. That's a dogmatic axiom until you can show how TikTok causes lung cancer.

You're right, I didn't produce evidence in my comment. Smoking and lung cancer are more clear cut than social media problems in general. The effects of social media are more complex and nuanced than smoking. There are a lot of studies that show that social media has a negative effect on mental well being. When someones dies of loneliness or birth rates collapse and young people have less sex than ever, social media i…

It's not entirely honest that we argue about 'times the teenager has sex decreasing' and 'collapsing birth rates' being a problem when most parents and society itself heavily discourage their teenagers having sex and/or creating offspring.

Also, I'm not arguing in favour of Social Media here. I just have seen enough moral panics in my years to have become allergic to them. For instance, I'm still waiting for evidence that computer games increase violence in real life, and how comics rot kids' brains.

Strong arguments demand strong empirical evidence. "Well-being" is not, in fact, a good metric (unless we apply it to other aspects of modern life). In fact, the very idea that wellbeing should be a concern in policy is dystopic: Remember that one of the reasons books are banned in "Fahrenheit 451" is that they made readers unhappy.

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

#339

Post by DocTomoe »

levistrauss wrote: post #337
DocTomoe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-bl…

How do you a double blind sutdy on smartphones? It seems to me that the group that would get smartphone would understand they’re the smartphone group, and the one without would know they don’t have one.

Neither the test group nor the control group does have to know they are part of an experiment.

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

#340

Post by DocTomoe »

Jap2-0 wrote: post #175
DocTomoe wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-bl…

> they are... the beneficiaries of a more brain-dead, more bored, more asleep student body > 'peace and quiet' in the classroom is mistaken for educational success. To clarify, do you think that phones or the removal of phones leads to these outcomes? Do you think that teachers like or dislike phones? Or is the point that there are many biases both ways? > they have rose-tinted ideas about the way things used to be S…

> Or is the point that there are many biases both ways?

My point is that if you ask wagonmakers what they think about cars, you won't get many positive replies, but enthsiastic ones where city governments decide to go full Amish. New times and new technology necessitate changing the craft, and the methods of yesteryear, though trained into teachers, just don't work anymore. Change is scary.

Post reply on HN