There's only 3 options for the internet: 1. free for all 2. locked down with ID checked age gates 3. sanitized with no adult content at all If we put responsibility for keeping kids safe on companies we will get 2 or 3. The only good option is that parents need to actually parent their kids.
Why not a layered system of all 3. Everyone starts in #3 by default, your grandma can do her shopping and banking and pay for parking without the constant risk of being scammed. Then jump through some hoops to get to #2 and/or #1. #2 has regulated adult content. #1 ends up only appealing to tech-types and so, due to self-selection, ends the Eternal September.
> TikTok in August agreed to settle three U.S. lawsuits brought by young people who accuse social media companies of designing their platforms to be addictive and harming their mental health. I am so happy I do not live in US where an idiot harms themself and non-idiot has to pay them.
People talking about addictiveness but from what I can tell this is all about how effective the content filters are. Tiktok being held liable for the efficacy of its controls is a much bigger issue than this one case.
> TikTok in August agreed to settle three U.S. lawsuits brought by young people who accuse social media companies of designing their platforms to be addictive and harming their mental health. I am so happy I do not live in US where an idiot harms themself and non-idiot has to pay them.
> young people We were all idiots at that point in our lives.
Yes, the platforms need to be regulated more for minors. But also, prohibition has never been a very effective method with teens. Just look at how college kids drink when they get to college. The sudden removal of parental restriction has a lot to do with that if you ask me. I think this is better approached with broad education, and stronger regulations on the platforms themselves. Part of the problem is that many p…
Drinking is down for young adults and teens. My pet theory is that Covid broke the chain of party and drinking culture being passed down. (This is entirely speculative, and based on a single chart I saw.) The relevance to your point being that removal of parental restrictions don't seem to be doing that anymore. Education is definitely a good idea, but do note any plan that depends on education gives up the next 5-10…
It's a long time trend around alcohol damage communication.
Drinking is down for young adults and teens. My pet theory is that Covid broke the chain of party and drinking culture being passed down. (This is entirely speculative, and based on a single chart I saw.) The relevance to your point being that removal of parental restrictions don't seem to be doing that anymore. Education is definitely a good idea, but do note any plan that depends on education gives up the next 5-10…
> Drinking is down for young adults and teens. My pet theory is that Covid broke the chain of party and drinking culture being passed down. Weed took its place.
Edit: study above says I am wrong in that it hasn't been a 1:1 exchange of alcohol for thc
Is YouTube or Twitch really better? I don't think people are going to go "Oh well, TikTok is gone now, guess I'll finally go read through my backlog of academic papers on quantum theory"
YouTube is has a lot of great educational content. Maybe TikTok is too, I don't use it, but I find most short-form content to be of questionable value. [edited to change "full" to "has a lot of" because Youtube has plenty of brain-rot too]
I have kids. We’re social. Spend a lot of time meeting new parents all the time. I have never heard of a 5 year old with a TikTok account. I think your cousin is so far into the outlier end of the parenting tail that nothing they do is going to make any sense in the context of common parenting practices.
Alternative theory: your bubble is small, and you socialize with parents who have similar values to your own. And I'm gonna guess that your income or wealth is in far outlier territory. I've seen kids raised like this; in my generation the concern was kids glued to TVs all day, and some of those kids turned out okay. But in my family, it's the parents who grew up glued to screens who are raising the most screen-addic…
yeah, this is what is happening. the parent comment is in a bubble. The world is overflowing with terrible/highly ignorant parents
I know someone similar who gave their kid a phone at age 6. 95% of the time I see them they're on TikTok. Child safety features are not going to solve this problem. All it takes is one parent giving their kid a phone with an adult account and all that progress is undone. I am convinced it is going to take a cultural shift for any positive change to occur - self-policing and, if necessary, social stigma. This kind of…
You sound so certain that these other parents are being negligent. Despite the fact that my 9yo doesn't have a phone or tiktok, I'm going to argue the other side's case. You're right "we don't know what it does to kids brains". But that means we should give parents discretion. Some parents want to run an experiment where they give their kids constant tiktok. Maybe we'll find out in a generation or two that this was b…
You should be able to recognize there are big differences between modern day social media and tv/videogames/dnd. For one you were not watching TV every waking moment of your life including while using a public bathroom. So just imagine that. There are people out there who no longer even think. Every spare second is spent scrolling because it really can be spent like that with the lack of friction that a constantly connected mobile device offers. No, this time it really is different. There was never a time where you would just not think for an entire day, maybe if you were holed up in a crack house or opium den. If you can't see that, wake up, look around and be shocked how more people aren't getting hit by cars or crashing off the road, and somehow can still string together a sentence of coherent thought. Maybe that fades too soon; functional literacy already declines by the year.