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Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

bbc.com

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Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#531

Post by taxyz »

heavyset_go wrote: post #306

I feel like this is a response to the exponential popularity of sites like r/exmormon among younger generations. For example, look at these exceptions. It seems like organic, unapproved discussion between users is what the bill is trying to stifle: > (D) news, sports, entertainment, or other content that is preselected by the provider and not user generated, ... (Q) to permit comments on a digital news website, if th…

I think this is a little less sinister than you are making it out to be. To me, it reads as the intent of those exemptions is because those sites (CNN, Fox, ESPN, etc) exercise editorial discretion around what content is posted and, presumably, should be more active in moderating/enabling/disabling discussion comments. Sites like reddit (since you mention r/exmormon) while are user moderated ultimately escape liability behind section 230.

It's a separate debate for us to argue what is more harmful to children/minors/teens - news/sports/entertainment media vs social media but with our current legal framework these exemptions kinda make sense. If what you are worried about is brainwashing, being solicited, general harm from both users and algorithms, its probably true that that is less likely to happen to a kid in the comments section of an ESPN article than it is on reddit/4chan/tiktok/instagram - and when it does happen at least there is someone to hold somewhat responsible.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#532

Post by chrisan »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #518

I think that people aren't giving enough credence to the reason Utah gives for the restrictions: The teen mental health crisis. Social media has radically changed the social lives of adolescents, and as a result anxiety, depression, self harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed. The data on this is not ambiguous [1]. And there's now a lot of evidence that social media and smartphones are the cause of the crisis: they s…

I don't have any answers to the problem but teen mental health issues have grown quite a lot since social media.

My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years. She talks to other doctors who come from other areas and their concerns/experiences are the same.

I feel like every week she is talking to me about some new kid's attempt.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#533

Post by warning26 »

prh8 wrote: post #524
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #518

I think that people aren't giving enough credence to the reason Utah gives for the restrictions: The teen mental health crisis. Social media has radically changed the social lives of adolescents, and as a result anxiety, depression, self harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed. The data on this is not ambiguous [1]. And there's now a lot of evidence that social media and smartphones are the cause of the crisis: they s…

[flagged]

> How about, hmmm, having more mental health resources?

This rings hollow, in the same sense that every time there is a shooting in the US, we are always treated to comments explaining that "well actually, you see, the REAL problem is that there aren't enough mental health resources", shifting discussion away from how easy it is to get a gun in the US.

Solutions are allowed to be multifaceted; we can both restrict social media and have better mental health resources.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#534

Post by dragonwriter »

chrisan wrote: post #532
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #518

I think that people aren't giving enough credence to the reason Utah gives for the restrictions: The teen mental health crisis. Social media has radically changed the social lives of adolescents, and as a result anxiety, depression, self harm, and suicide have all skyrocketed. The data on this is not ambiguous [1]. And there's now a lot of evidence that social media and smartphones are the cause of the crisis: they s…

I don't have any answers to the problem but teen mental health issues have grown quite a lot since social media. My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years. She talks to other doctors who come from other areas and their concerns/experiences are the same. I feel like every week she is talking to me about some new kid's attem…

> My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years.

Social media has been around a lot longer than the last few years. (In fact, while they weren’t even the first wave of widely-used-by-young-people social media, both Twitter and Facebook opened to the public in 2006.)

There have been a few major events that have occurred in the last few years, though, that aren’t social media that might relate to the effect under consideration.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#535

Post by taurawah »

smooth_remmy wrote: post #169
monksy wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not surprising at all for Utah. That is a highly Mormon run state that has strong stances on how you should live your life. Even if you are a "goi" (I use the word loosely to illustrate the cultural metaphor in a us v them mentality) to them. What is amazing is that they have this strong stance on how to restrictively govern the people inside their borders, but yet expect to have a western lifestyle support them…

> That is a highly Mormon run state that has strong stances on how you should live your life. Even if you are a "goi" (I use the word loosely to illustrate the cultural metaphor in a us v them mentality) to them. I think you're crossing a line here. You are accusing the Mormons in Utah of having a us-versus-them mentality. But your own comment tries to turn readers against Mormons. Never forget: The Missouri Executiv…

Yeah because the Mountain Meadows Massacre 19 years later wasn't an us vs them mentality or anything

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#536

Post by hedora »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #528
prh8 wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> How about not having a theistic culture? How about not stigmatizing kids who don't fit into the blonde white monoculture that Utah pushes everywhere? The teen mental health crisis is happening everywhere in the US, and in Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. It started about the same time everywhere. Utah's particular culture doesn't have anything to do with it. They're just the state that has reacted first…

There’s no evidence regulation would help, and strong evidence the form of regulation being proposed will make things worse, which the article outlines.

Things that could work, that are not known to be harmful:

- Parental education campaigns.

- Elimination of tracking and other privacy invading technologies for all age groups, not just children.

The latter eliminates the need for age blocks, and matches consumer preferences of 90+% of the US population. It also de facto bans technologies that track and encourage mental illness (such as cambridge analytica, and arguably youtube/tiktok content targeting).

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#537

Post by tzs »

bananapub wrote: post #13

this is a crappy headline. by trying to put some age limit on things, they're forcing absolutely everyone to give up their identity to the government / sites.

It's not hard to design age verification to avoid that. Briefly you have age verification done by sites that already have to have your identity or that you trust giving your ID to, and then provide a protocol that lets you use the verification from them with other sites.

With a little modern cryptography you can make this protocol so that the age verifier gets no information about what sites you are using the age verification with, and the other sites gets nothing that ties the identity used with the age verifier site to the identity you are at the other site.

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#538

Post by japhib »

paxys wrote: post #16

Whether this is a reasonable law or not, my big problem with it is that it puts the burden of enforcement on tech platforms rather than the kids' parents. There is no way for any company to check for something like this without also affecting every other user of the site, whether they are in Utah or not and whether they are a teen or not. What do they do exactly, start collecting government IDs from us before every v…

For exactly this reason, there is no way this law will stand in court

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#539

Post by whats_a_quasar »

dragonwriter wrote: post #534
chrisan wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have any answers to the problem but teen mental health issues have grown quite a lot since social media. My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years. She talks to other doctors who come from other areas and their concerns/experiences are the same. I feel like every week she is talking to me about some new kid's attem…

> My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years. Social media has been around a lot longer than the last few years. (In fact, while they weren’t even the first wave of widely-used-by-young-people social media, both Twitter and Facebook opened to the public in 2006.) There have been a few major events that have occurred in the…

I will continue posting links to Jonathan Haidt's review docs all over this thread.

Social media and smartphones became widespread in the early 2010s, and that's exactly when teen suicides started rising. [1]

COVID does not appear to have significantly affected teen mental health [2]

If you have evidence that something else is driving the rise in teen suicide rates, I'd love to see it.

[1] https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/social-media-mental-ill...

[2] https://jonathanhaidt.substack.com/p/the-new-cdc-report

Re: Utah is first US state to limit teen social media access

#540

Post by dragonwriter »

whats_a_quasar wrote: post #539
dragonwriter wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My wife works in PICU and she has never seen so many suicide attempts in all her career (going back to 2006) as she has in past few years. Social media has been around a lot longer than the last few years. (In fact, while they weren’t even the first wave of widely-used-by-young-people social media, both Twitter and Facebook opened to the public in 2006.) There have been a few major events that have occurred in the…

I will continue posting links to Jonathan Haidt's review docs all over this thread. Social media and smartphones became widespread in the early 2010s, and that's exactly when teen suicides started rising. [1] COVID does not appear to have significantly affected teen mental health [2] If you have evidence that something else is driving the rise in teen suicide rates, I'd love to see it. [1] https://jonathanhaidt.subst…

> Social media and smartphones became widespread in the early 2010s

Among adults (or in “household” surveys where adults were surveyed? Sure, but the majority of teen internet users were using “social networking sites” in 2006.) [0]

If your contention is that adult social media use is driving teen suicide rates…well, that’s actually more plausible than teen use, but none of the policy responses address that.

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2013/05/21/part-1-teens...

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