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Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

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Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#71

Post by ceejayoz »

spacechild1 wrote: post #60
ceejayoz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're willing to ban them from ever going to friends' houses, where they'll use their friends' devices to do it.

> where they'll use their friends' devices to do it. That'd already be much, much better than using it at every possible moment. Why do people just give up proactively? Yes, you can't prevent it 100%, but you can still try to restrict it as much as possible.

> Why do people just give up proactively?

Because we're up against trillion dollar companies that employ armies of experts with the goal of inducing addictive behavior. We're deeply outgunned.

Because kids have a genuine need for socialization, and being the one without a phone means you just don't get invited to shit. Birthday parties, hangouts, random trips to the ice cream shop.

Because kids are smart. I'm very technical - I had a pfSense firewall, Pihole, and Apple's screen time on my kids' devices. They found ways around that within hours; kids at school swap VPN/proxy instructions and whatnot.

Because kids these days get a school laptop, on which I have zero admin rights.

Because I don't want to be a jail warden, I want to be a parent.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#72

Post by ClumsyPilot »

basisword wrote: post #20
Frieren wrote: post #10

Each generation of parents fails on something. This generation is failing at recognizing the dangers of social media. Teenagers and even children are being radicalized on-line, sold dangerous diets, manipulated by state sponsored creators, lied by companies, taught anti-science, and the list goes on and on. How is all this not heavily regulated? Even adults need protection from scammers, fake products, misleading ads…

>> How is all this not heavily regulated? It isn’t properly regulated because the CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate so much user generated content. I’m of the opinion that, in that case, their sites shouldn’t exist but people seem to have convinced themselves that Facebook et al provide too much value to stand up to.

> CEO’s and founders just moan that it isn’t possible to regulate

Surely if a CEO with a billion dollar budget can’t regulate it, neither can a parent?

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#73

Post by LeifCarrotson »

myko wrote: post #59
nancyminusone wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At my college, someone got kicked out for yikyacking "gonna shoot all black people a smile tomorrow" and everyone quickly realized exactly how anonymous it really was after the guy was found a few hours later. Thing is, there was a comma between "people" and "a smile" which made his poorly thought out joke read a lot differently. Dumb way to throw away your education.

I'm being obtuse but I don't see the comma thing making the "joke" come off differently, what am I missing?

The phrase "shooting a smile at someone" means to briefly or quickly glance at someone while smiling. Perhaps "shot a glare in his direction" is more familiar?

Depending on the location of the comma, the speaker is either planning to make happy gestures at people, or killing people with a firearm which makes them happy.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#74

Post by ceejayoz »

itishappy wrote: post #52
ceejayoz wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're willing to ban them from ever going to friends' houses, where they'll use their friends' devices to do it.

A cell phone is available 168 hours a week. A friend's phone might be available, say, 10% of that?

Friend gets a new phone, gives you the old one. Neighbor has open wifi. Hide it deep in the giant pile of laundry in your bedroom.

Whack-a-mole is fun at an arcade. It's not fun when it's your kids.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#75

Post by adityapuranik »

Back when I was graduating from Uni, one day I just decided that Snap streaks pressure was too much. I had streaks of 700 days+ with a person I barely talked to. But most of my streaks were with my best friends, people I talked to every day.

It was like a daily ritual, and I couldn't escape it for a while. I decided to go cold turkey, since it felt like the only option. All my friends moaned and complained for a while. They even tried to revive the 'streak' back, but I persisted. Feels really silly when I look back, but 700 days means I was sending snaps everyday for 2 years straight.

I still have the app and there are still few friends of mine, who send me snaps about their whereabouts, but I have stopped using it. Blocking the notifications was one of the best decision that I could have made, since that was the single biggest factor in not opening the app itself.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#76

Post by mystified5016 »

ViktorRay wrote: post #58

Does anyone remember the Hacker News thread last week about Black Mirror? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648890 Many in the comments were criticizing Black Mirror for being unrealistic. Especially in Black Mirror’s assumption that negative technologies would be introduced into society and ruin people without folks realizing. Well…Snapchat is basically a Black Mirror story. It was introduced and became widespr…

That doesn't really track.

Most technologies in Black Mirror are fully implemented as-is, usually with clear and prescient knowledge of the downsides known and suppressed by the owner of the technology.

Snapchat is not that. It started out as an innocent messaging app and slowly mutated into the monster it is after it was already widely adopted.

The criticism of Black Mirror is that it's presented as immediate widespread adoption of the new Torment Nexus 5000, which was always intended to be a force of evil and suffering. Everyone knows exactly what the torment nexus is and willingly accepts it. Snapchat only became a torment nexus after it was established and adopted, and was done this way maliciously.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#77

Post by lupusreal »

neilv wrote: post #46

(Since the TikTok post was swapped out with this one, I'll repost my late comment here, since it applies to a lot of companies.) > As one internal report put it: [...damning effects...] I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook. And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit. My question…

> Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear?

They hire people on the autism spectrum who are inclined to say things out loud without much regard/respect for whether they are "supposed to" say it. *cough* James Damore.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#78

Post by vkou »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #68
kennywinker wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Geofencing around schools is the kind of thing you might see if government attempted to regulate this

Don’t we geofence sale of alcohol and tobacco around schools?

I think vending machines dispensing whiskey shooters would be a great addition to any classroom.

People clearly want the product, and I would clearly stand to make a lot of money from it.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#79

Post by light_hue_1 »

abletonlive wrote: post #65
ViktorRay wrote: post #58

Does anyone remember the Hacker News thread last week about Black Mirror? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43648890 Many in the comments were criticizing Black Mirror for being unrealistic. Especially in Black Mirror’s assumption that negative technologies would be introduced into society and ruin people without folks realizing. Well…Snapchat is basically a Black Mirror story. It was introduced and became widespr…

How is Snapchat a black mirror episode? Do you think even 10% of Snapchat users are harmed in the ways discussed in this article? This is like saying we are living in Dune because we have some people in space. So just because some people are harmed in society suddenly black mirror is not too on-the-nose or unrealistically pessimistic?

Yes. A large fraction of Snapchat's users are significantly harmed.

First hand, I see it all the time in students. There's an extreme unhealthy obsession with social media that leads to serious inferiority complexes and depression. All of this wrapped in algorithms that compel people to participate in various ways, from streaks to points, etc.

Quantitatively, everything from anxiety to depression to suicide has more than doubled in teens.

Oh heck, forget about teens. I see it in plenty of adult groups, like mothers. There's a major pressure from others to keep up, serious self-doubt for normal setbacks, unrealistic expectations around even mundane things.

Social media is black mirror, and we're doing it to ourselves.

Re: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale?

#80

Post by fkyoureadthedoc »

stickfigure wrote: post #61
some_random wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not willing to even entertain the notion that communication platforms could influence the way that it's users communicate with each other? That totally ephemeral and private image based social media could promote a different type of communication compared to something like say, HN, which is public and text based? Sure you take your kid skiing, but presumably you make them wear a helmet and have them start off…

Yes, I make my kid wear a helmet. I make sure his bindings are set properly. I make sure he's dressed warmly. I make sure he's fed and hydrated. I am the parent. The ski resort provides the mountain, the snow, and the lifts. He's a bit too young to be interested in taking pictures of his wang but I'd like to think this is a topic I can handle. Teaching him to navigate a dangerous world is sort of my job. I'm not losi…

This is about societal level harm. Sure, you do everything right, but most people don't.

I also do everything correctly, but one time a drunk driver still almost killed me.

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