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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

#401

Post by notepad0x90 »

ipaddr wrote: post #386
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…

In Europe alcohol is given at that age and teaches respect. Waiting until 21 / spring break teaches nothing.

I don't buy that, Europe has a terrible problem with alcohol, and smoking. In the US both have gone down dramatically in the past two decades. The areas with heavy drinking tolerate giving kids alcohol like eggnog on Christmas.

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

#402

Post by lm28469 »

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.

YouTube is an amazing tool for learning too yet 99% of the traffic is for brain rot

It doesn't matter how good the tool can be, what matters is how it actually is used

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

#403

Post by notepad0x90 »

kmlx wrote: post #360
notepad0x90 wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know much about the Amish, so I can't comment. Teaching kids how to code isn't all that meaningful on its own. knowing what to do once you learn how to code is. If your plan is to teach your kid how to code, teach them to solve problems without code at that age. Unless you're serious about thinking learning at age 5 vs age 13 would make a big difference. I think every kid 13 and above should have an rpi too.

> Teaching kids how to code isn't all that meaningful on its own. it’s extraordinary meaningful as it helps in brain development.

Problem solving does that, the coding part is just a means to that end. Learning a programming language is similar to learning a human language except much less complex. Solving problems with code helps with brain development, as does solving problems without code.

Coding is just more rewarding, it is important to learn how to solve problems with less rewarding systems. Would you have wanted to solve algebra problems on paper if you knew python? You don't need to solve those problems on paper, but it is good for brain development. Even better than coding for example. Keep in mind that a child's attention window is limited, this is very much a zero sum situation.

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

#404

Post by rightbyte »

kazinator wrote: post #331
ulrikrasmussen wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A literal nanny state is a state that provides nannies.

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

#405

Post by pqtyw »

b112 wrote: post #354
blitzar wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once the data is in bosses will see the massive benefits and ban mobile phones entirely during work hours.

Good. I recall "no personal calls" at work as a rule, in the old days. Inbound emergencies allowed, of course. Why do people think looking at their personal email, or looking at their phone is acceptable at work? It's no different than sitting, reading a magazine pre-Internet. The very idea would have been absurd.

Really hope this is sarcasm..

Or do you also feel the same about the 6x14 hour workdays?

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

#406

Post by rsolva »

glaucon wrote: post #291
rsolva wrote: post #275

Banning personalised ads would solve a lot of the underlying incentives that drives the attention grabbing economy today. Increasing the age a few years for when young people are allow to make accounts on social media is not going to make a large difference in the big picture of things, and do not address the core problem that is the collection and abuse of massive amounts of personal data. Upping the age limit a few…

> Banning personalised ads I'm in favour of anything that tries to address the appaling effects of social media, but as long as there is advertising that will, surely, be some sort of personalisation. In the past you bought a magazine about, say, gardening, and all the ads were about gardening. The advertisers were betting that most people reading a gardening magazine were interested in gardening products, the ads we…

> If online 'personalised' ads were banned how would personalised be defined ?

Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear. I'm not against contextually relevant ads. Ads related to gardening makes sense in a magazine about gardening. There is no need to aggregate enormous amounts of personal data in such a scenario because the topic of the magazine (or webpage) is enough to give an idea of the type of readers you get.

I was talking about the current prevailing practice of collecting massive amounts of personal data, fine grained enough to make a psychological profile more detailed than what your closest family and friends could produce. Just to show you ads!

Context can be deduced from the topic of a website, no need to collect, package and sell data so intimate that it could be used against you in horrific ways by the higest bider, be it a nation state or a company.

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

#407

Post by encrypted_bird »

walletdrainer wrote: post #400
encrypted_bird wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Frankly, imho, billionaires shouldn't even exist . No one person can get that much wealth, that much power, that much influence, without losing their humanity, their decency. It's just not possible because the only way to accrue that much wealth is to do horrifically indecent things. So, do I recognize what you're saying? Certainly. But I won't be shedding a tear of sympathy for them. I lose all sym…

Is building a successful business automatically horribly indecent? What about winning the powerball? If you had to choose the least horrible billionaire you can think of, what horrifically indecent things have they done to acquire that wealth?

If you are a terrible being, yes.

Succeeding at business does not alone make you a billionaire; that's a whole new level above "successful business owner". Most successful business owners are millionaires but not billionaires. As I said, no one becomes a billionaire without doing horrible things because said horrible things are exactly how you amass such a large amount of wealth amongst a single person.

Also, winning the lottery to the extent of becoming a billionaire is neither common (that's the understatement of the millennium) nor a business. It is a gamble, and a gamble millions of people lose every day because they refuse or fail to understand the sheer improbability of "getting the big one" and the sheer degree to which said gambles are stacked against the "player".

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

#408

Post by thw_9a83c »

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.

> 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.

I see no logic in the above statement. You gave your kid a smartphone when she was 14. By today's standards, that's very late, and it's basically just one year before Denmark's proposed ban on social media. You can ban your child from having a smartphone for an arbitrary amount of time, but they are a future adult. Adults use smartphones. You can either prepare your child for the potential negatives of smartphone use, or they will learn that through their own experience later. There's no escaping smartphones and social networks.

The only way to deal with this is to talk to your kids, warn them, and educate them. I gave my kids smartphones when they were 8 and 9 years old. Those phones were fully managed by me, and the only web pages they could access were their school pages and Wikipedia. Every year, I relaxed these restrictions and frequently talked to them about the dangers of social media. Now, they have almost fully unrestricted phones, and I don't think there's anything to worry about.

The problem with social media for kids and teens is constant comparison. Any kind of comparison, but predominantly about visual appearance. Most people will never win this fight, and I believe it is a parent's role to explain this to their children. Banning smartphones or social media won't save anyone from facing the reality later on.

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

#409

Post by defrost »

encrypted_bird wrote: post #407
walletdrainer wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is building a successful business automatically horribly indecent? What about winning the powerball? If you had to choose the least horrible billionaire you can think of, what horrifically indecent things have they done to acquire that wealth?

If you are a terrible being, yes. Succeeding at business does not alone make you a billionaire; that's a whole new level above "successful business owner". Most successful business owners are millionaires but not billionaires. As I said, no one becomes a billionaire without doing horrible things because said horrible things are exactly how you amass such a large amount of wealth amongst a single person. Also, winning…

> As I said, no one becomes a billionaire without doing horrible things because said horrible things are exactly how you amass such a large amount of wealth amongst a single person.

Not exactly true.

Andrew Forrest became a billionaire via Fortescue Metals and leveraging development of vast iron ore fields for sale to China. Since then he's focused on renewable energy to reduce harmful emissions in resource mining. He has skated some questionable activities in a humane and considered way but he's far from scum of the earth.

Gina Rinehart became a billionaire by virtue of being born to a self made billionaire. Her father got there by mining Blue Asbestos and exporting lung disease across the planet, followed up by also exploiting iron ore fields (although decades prior to Forrest). Lang Hancock (the father of Rinehardt) was a person of questionable values, Gina is a terrible human being with scany regard for others.

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

#410

Post by encrypted_bird »

defrost wrote: post #409
encrypted_bird wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are a terrible being, yes. Succeeding at business does not alone make you a billionaire; that's a whole new level above "successful business owner". Most successful business owners are millionaires but not billionaires. As I said, no one becomes a billionaire without doing horrible things because said horrible things are exactly how you amass such a large amount of wealth amongst a single person. Also, winning…

> As I said, no one becomes a billionaire without doing horrible things because said horrible things are exactly how you amass such a large amount of wealth amongst a single person. Not exactly true. Andrew Forrest became a billionaire via Fortescue Metals and leveraging development of vast iron ore fields for sale to China. Since then he's focused on renewable energy to reduce harmful emissions in resource mining. H…

The same Andrew Forrest whose company were found to have knowingly destroyed hundreds of local Australian aboriginal sacred sites in its mining operations? Also, he's a billionaire. He may not be "scum of the earth", and maybe he's tried to do better in his latter days, but he still got horrifically rich off of everyday workers' sweat, injuries, and hardships (mining is no joke).

Besides, this philanthropy is largely just token restitution, at best. No one needs to be that wealthy to live more than comfortable. If he really wanted to help the world, he would use enough of his wealth so as to no longer be a billionaire.

People vastly underestimate just how much a billion dollars is compared to a million dollars, or even 500 million dollars. He could literally give away 99% of his wealth and still "only" have 10 million dollars. And as of of 2023 he had 33 times that much.

No one needs to hog that much of the world's resources. It is neither just nor equitable.

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