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The case for banning children from social media

newyorker.com

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Re: The case for banning children from social media

#351

Post by atahanacar »

rockbruno wrote: post #272
atahanacar wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't want your children to become addicted to something, be a good parent and monitor them. It is not the government's or the society's responsibility to babysit your kids. I don't want my freedoms taken away from me (in this case, freedom to anonymously use social media) just because some people don't have the capability or the motivation to parent their kids properly. Also, this "what about the children" th…

> If you don't want your children to become addicted to something, be a good parent and monitor them. It is not the government's or the society's responsibility to babysit your kids. It's both's responsibility. There's a reason why many countries forbid, for example, television ads that directly target children. As a parent you cannot completely shield what your kids are exposed to, many aspects of life are outside o…

Again, forbidding TV ads that target children doesn't restrict any of my freedoms, so it is acceptable.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#352

Post by sssilver »

ok_dad wrote: post #340
exitb wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't that include most children-directed media, as it inevitably ends up being an ad for related merchandise?

Perhaps, and I'm fine with that. Children's media shouldn't be funded by corporate advertising directed at the children, period. I don't care what kind of sledgehammer that takes to the ad industry, I care about the children's well-being. Next, let's ban all advertising, is what I'm thinking.

I just realized that banning blatant advertisement may be one of the most effective measures to help slow down the reckless consumption of natural resources

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#353

Post by dustedcodes »

tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

100% agree. Social media is as addictive as drugs but even more damaging with life long effects on that person.

A big part of going through teenage years is the development of one's own personality and finding YOUR OWN identity. Figuring out who you are and who you want to be, building real relationships with real people to learn about social contracts, trust, bonds, friendships, mistakes, and most importantly it is a key part of building a healthy amount of confidence and self-love which are important character traits that everyone should establish to some level in order to weather through tough times in life later on.

Social media makes all of the above impossible. Even worse, it makes this important development phase very toxic. It teaches teenagers and children the opposite of friendships, the algorithm is constantly looking to outrage children and to rattle their feelings in order to drive engagement. The algorithm is tuned to feed into young people's insecurities in order to drive clicks on ads and increase their ad revenue. This is why so many kids suffer from mental health issues, are immensely under confident, unhappy, feel alone and worthless.

It's shameful that policy makers are not acting fast enough. There is already a huge generation of damaged children who just turned or are turning into adults now and we already see the effects of that.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#354

Post by mhardcastle »

atahanacar wrote: post #39
andy_ppp wrote: post #19

It’s essentially manipulation of the dopamine system in the exact same way as casinos except it’s worse because it uses AI to really start personalising what keeps us hooked. Would you let your children become addicted to gambling?

If you don't want your children to become addicted to something, be a good parent and monitor them. It is not the government's or the society's responsibility to babysit your kids. I don't want my freedoms taken away from me (in this case, freedom to anonymously use social media) just because some people don't have the capability or the motivation to parent their kids properly. Also, this "what about the children" th…

Companies will only get better at creating addictive products for children. This represents an ever-increasing burden for parents.

Also, there are some times when coordination would result in better outcomes than single disorganized actors. I talk to parents who say they WOULD prevent their kids from using social media, but it would have negative social impacts on their kids for them to be the only ones without it.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#355

Post by master-lincoln »

rysertio wrote: post #112
brigadier132 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you worse off? Also, do we count whatsapp as social media?

> How are you worse off? Everyone in my middle school used social media to know when to submit assignments, class schedules etc. Without social media you're going to be left out.

Sounds like the kind of info you would get from your teacher. I assume the teachers didn't publish it on social media. So why did you need that info from social media?

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#356

Post by tjpnz »

>Most people seem to agree that something should be done to protect kids from what sure looks like an addictive product. But almost no one knows what that something is.

Speak for yourself. I block social media sites on my home network and will be doing the same through a VPN when they get smartphones.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#357

Post by atahanacar »

andy_ppp wrote: post #260
atahanacar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasoning is simple: If it were the government's responsibility to babysit your kids, it would be acceptable for them to restrict my freedoms in doing so. However, it is neither their, society's nor my responsibility, so my freedoms shouldn't be restricted for that cause. If it doesn't restrict my freedoms, I don't care, government can do whatever parents want, whether it be ban the sale of alcohol to kids, stop…

I understand your reasoning I’d just rather we were more careful about how social media works, especially the use of LLMs integrated into advertising and addiction systems, for example. I think you already seem to think I have a fully formed plan of what the regulations should be, I definitely don’t want infringe free speech but I think teens are especially vulnerable to abuse on these platforms and suicide amongst t…

>I understand your reasoning I’d just rather we were more careful about how social media works, especially the use of LLMs integrated into advertising and addiction systems, for example.

I completely agree.

>teens are especially vulnerable to abuse on these platforms

Not only on these platforms, but everywhere else too. What we definitely need is more support programs for these people, and more education for both them, their parents and society in general. Mental health is an issue that still is not being given enough attention to.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#358

Post by andrepd »

tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

> just ban it

I don't disagree, but how do you propose we do that exactly?

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#359

Post by cubefox »

rsolva wrote: post #208

A new law in the EU will ban showing ads and using personal data for kids. Here in Norway we have had general ban on showing ads to kids for decades, but it was made in the TV age and has not been enforced on social media. We can't outright ban social media (for a lot of different reasons), but we can regulate away the most harmfull aspects. One of the fundemental underlying problems is the lack of good privacy laws.…

I don't think that ads are the main problem of social media. It's rather the way they replace personal physical relationships with scrolling.

Re: The case for banning children from social media

#360

Post by watwut »

tastysandwich wrote: post #46

I just don't see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive. It's not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target "wokeness", and the left will immediately target "hate speech". And the kids will be…

Young people should be driven to school and from school from parents. They should not have phones and all their movement should be controlled by parents all the time. Even better, they should be homeschool, so that you can exclude influence of peers in school.

I am sure they will turn out just fine after being released from constant surveillance and prison only after 18.

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