51–60 of 111 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In most of Europe it's legal for Children to drink alcohol.
You should try to go to "most of Europe" and try to get alcohol as someone <16 and see how that goes.
It is usually legal for parents to give under-18s a sip of an alcoholic beverage. It is not legal for under-18s to buy any such beverage in a shop.
>In both of these cases (and in others), the harms are there for children and adults, but it’s only children who get banned. >I don’t use TikTok and it’s no skin off of my back if it gets banned. Banned or not, though, I don’t see a reason to ban it only for children. It doesn’t seem to be more harmful for them. They don’t seem to be using it lots more than adults. >If you’re going to ban TikTok because it’s harmful…
Yes, but the point of the article is compared to what.
I feel negative after 15 minutes on twitter (depending on the topic, of course), but I feel far less negative than if I'd tried getting similar info from legacy sources (10x slower, and with 10x the suits, lipstick, and ads).
The point isn't that social media are supposed to make users feel good, but that they're important information tools - a window to the world - and the alternatives - ignorance or less diverse more bloated sources - aren't the answer.
The solution isn't banning; it's the same as what we do with every single other useful but potentially dangerous thing: fires, pools, beaches.. - education. Perhaps secondary school could have modules for how to responsibly use social media, set and manage expectations/anxiety, when to use it (some people recommend not before sleep etc).
Banning only removes upside and delays downside. Education lessens/removes downside altogether with full upside.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In most of Europe it's legal for Children to drink alcohol.
You should try to go to "most of Europe" and try to get alcohol as someone <16 and see how that goes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
But they can't legally purchase/access it without the involvement of an adult, unlike social media. You could argue that the parents sanction social media use by giving their kids a phone/computer without any sort of parental controls, but most parents probably have neither the resources nor proper knowledge of how to sufficiently provide a safe platform for their children.
You can't legally buy a mobile contract in the UK if you're under 18. So in most cases the parents did buy it for the child.
Not to mention that using social media does not require a phone number, and wifi is practically ubiquitous.
Depressingly bad argument that seems to say: we think it’s bad for children and adults, but we don’t ban it for adults so we shouldn’t ban it for children.
I don't have a good answer regarding where to draw the line or how to actually enforce such restrictions. This is especially difficult because limiting digital access for kids is a great backdoor for surveillance and general information control.
However, I am near certain that in a few decades, people will view social media addiction much like substance abuse. It used to be the norm for writers and musicians to be drunk more often than not, but that is less accepted now. Currently, it is accepted that people spend hours a day on social media, and I am guilty as charged.
"Rules for thee and not for me."
Likewise, there are drugs pediatricians won't prescribe for children under a certain age because they have different effects on developing children vs adults.
We treat people differently based on age for lots of valid reasons.
It would be a fun exercise to replace social media with alcohol in this article so that it argues we shouldn't ban children from drinking because drinking is bad for adults too.
Even for those though, opinions are all over the place: Everything from "no rules" to "kids should be allowed to own drink alcohol under the supervision of their parents" to “it’s fine for adults to drink, but not kids” to “alcohol should obviously be banned for everyone."
For most of these we settled into a happy medium that generally everyone feels is acceptable, but we still change our opinions semi-frequently: Cigarettes being a great example in our lifetime.
I get the argument that social media is probably closer to junk food than to firearms, but:
a) Plenty of people argue that junk food should be banned for kids too! Or at least tightly regulated.
b) It’s definitely not consensus opinion that social media is more like junk food than, say, cigarettes. People will vehemently argue either side of that.
The article is based on the assumption that when we ban things for children only, it is because we perceive them to be harmful to children only. I don't think that is true. Nobody thinks adults are immune from the negative effects of cigarettes or alcohol. But adults are, in general, allowed to harm themselves. Children are not, because there is an acceptance that children are less able to make informed decisions. Yo…
We talk about education, nurturing, etc, and how vital they are to children. We also know drugs that have different effects on children than on adults.
Why then it's so surprising social platforms could also have a bigger impact on children?
Depressingly bad argument that seems to say: we think it’s bad for children and adults, but we don’t ban it for adults so we shouldn’t ban it for children.
English societies have a long history of regulating the behavior of others - see English Poor Laws.
It’s an interesting perspective at least, I hadn’t thought of the social media ban in that way.
I happen to think we should still ban bad things (smoking, drinking, gambling, and probably social media) for kids. But I appreciate the argument.