431–440 of 1001 posts
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You don't get phone-free schools in a post-Uvalde world.
I skimmed the wikipedia article on the event[1] but I don't see anything that explains the role of kid's phones in the event. Can you elaborate? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uvalde_school_shooting
The issue isn't social media in itself, it's how social media has become this absurd commercialized parody of what social media should be about. Back in the day Facebook was actually decently good social life because it augmented it with helping you easily connect with others and get to know events happening (and other stuff too). Instead everything has turned into some bizarre race to the bottom where communities ar…
Some of them only remember thing being bad and getting worse.
A 20 years old with basic education is fucked. They will be surviving not living the life.
Then social media reinforces the idea of being destined for failure with all of those 'successful' 'people'
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The reason I am against government intervention is the fact that governments seem to not be competent enough to solve problems like this and they would use content controls for their own purposes. It is vastly different and more complex than regulating saws. The comparison falls short by a huge margin and a false conclusion that any federal legislation would be desirable just because it is the case for saws. Some sug…
Irrespective of where people fall on this particular issue, I find it odd how the people who are so distrustful of government would allow things that are overtly dangerous, as long as it prevents government from...governing. It's like we have this generation of people who believe government overreach is a) inevitably the outcome in every scenario; b) present in every situation; c) always the worst possible thing that…
At least in theory, my government representatives are accountable to me. To whom is Facebook accountable?
Do we really know that, though? Maybe teens actually were better off before novels and bicycles and rock and roll in some ways? You know, spending more time outdoors, with their families, etc.
Or maybe it's just about time scales. When a new, socially disruptive invention arrives, and it does not fit in the structures of the society, it causes mental illness. But as time goes on and the cultural norms adapt to the new invention, it stops causing mental illnesses.
Alcohol is almost universally available, but it causes different amount of problems (both mental and physical) in different social contexts. In communities where it was recently introduced, it often causes loads of damage since the culture doesn't have rules and norms to prevent overuse of it. As a culture gets more used to alcohol, rules and norms (such as "don't drink alcohol before noon" or "don't go to work drunk") are developed and the harms are reined in.
One thing I think that can be said for sure is that we shouldn't fuck with extremely complex systems like our society just for fun. All changes should be phased in gradually rather than suddenly released into the wild.
I'm no saint when it comes to addiction and being on my phone for more than I should be, but I have a sister who is in her mid 20s right now, and for the last couple of years she has slowly isolated herself from life and her family, she spends most of her time in her room on the phone and does weird things like get cosmetic surgeries, ordering cosmetics, etc. It's bizarre. She does this and all the while never leaves…
I mean I personally know people who rarely interact with others other than work, and do weird things like playing with electronics and games all day, mostly just for fun and not for profit. They are often happy as they are, I'm sure many of them are on this very website.
Your sister sounds a bit like the TikTok version of the weird nerd stereotype, replace the PCBs with cosmetics and games with celebrity gossip. Their influencers sell lipsticks instead of 3d printed desk toys and mechanical switches. For me it's difficult to recognize TikTok stuff as a legitimate interest and understand her devotion to it, but then many of the hacker stuff must seem the same to the people outside of these circles.
Not that I know her situation better than you do of course, this was more of a thought experiment on trying to understand a niche that I know very little about.
Social media just projects our toxic culture back at us. It a symptom not a cause. Until we address the reasons why our culture is toxic, mental health will continue to be a problem. Blaming social media, or any other easy target, just distracts from asking difficult questions and looking for real answers.
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And then there are also those companies/institutions/orgs/news/shops that make you left behind from otherwise useful information or services by not being on social media platforms.
It really annoys me how many services - even sometimes public services like our local police - are Facebook first, with all other mediums as an afterthought.
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YouTube has a treasure trove of creative, stimulating, enlightening, entertaining, and didactic content. There is more interesting stuff there than you could watch in many lifetimes: science from Veritasium to lectures from Stanford on every topic imaginable, thousands of hours of high-quality content on every topic from WW2 to the most niche retro computer you can thing of, the best orchestras in the world playing a…
Ah yes, but then how do you actually enforce these curated playlists are the only things your kids have access to? Especially when your kids have Chromebooks at school, and friends with unrestricted access on their devices, and learn ways to workaround any screen time restrictions? Feels to me like attacking the problem from the wrong angle.
We’ve had success so far but I am concerned with what happens as they get older and get social pressure to join social media.
I guess we have to parent. Paraphrasing something I saw elsewhere:
“Raise your girls or meangirl anorexia influencers will; raise your boys or Andrew Tate will.”
It’s always been important to keep your kids away from bad influences. It’s just that now they can get life guidance from sociopaths, creeps, unhinged ideologues, and self destructive losers in their pockets.
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> It doesn't matter whether you abstain from using Instagram or not Yep. The other problem is that not having social media and mobile devices can be alienating and ostracizing, especially for teenagers. Avoiding the problems of social media requires skills and restraint that even most adults don’t have. It is a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation.
That's true. We restrict access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, FB, they can use WhatsApp, YT, iMessage, Phone and Pinterest. I'm fucking annoyed by other parents that don't set boundaries that way. I have so much discussions about other platforms. Pushing them to physically meet is hard too. We grew up at a time where SMS was a thing when I became 16. I know that keeping up is cool, but social media is a disease. Th…