[sethjgore]

TLDR, Facebook wants your children to connect to you via a chat app.

I'm more than saddened to see that among the tech giants, they are encouraging _children_ to just use face filters and video chatting, rather than encouraging them to go outside and interact with friends in person. Why does an app made specifically for children and families need filters at all? It doesn't really matter that they are not putting in ads in this app. It is still an app and it is still imprinting children to accept artificial, screen-based relationships as equal to real, in-person conversations with your family.

Facebook is transforming the most important relationships in your life to a product. Commericalized.

[brudgers]

Apple positions Facetime exactly the same way. The differences are that people imagine Apple with a halo and the high price of an iPad for each toddler.

[beager]

My sense is that Apple is in less of a position to use child data for exploitative purposes, because their aim is to sell hardware. It bestows the sense that Apple isn’t trying to exploit children for data, at least beyond selling them more hardware. In facebook’s case, selling the data is their entire business model, and that should make us nervous.

[brudgers]

The forty years Apple has been pitching to children means that a toddler's great-grand-parents may have bought an Apple II for the toddler's grand parents. Apple's marketing at children has been going on so long it is background noise. The brand's halo has been carefully curated by associating with Disney and product placement in movies. The final scene of The Book Thief shows that Apple will market over top of the Holocaust.

[ng-user]

Going to play devil's advocate and ask, did you really expect a tech company to encourage children to avoid all of their products and go play outside like they did 30 years ago when these companies never even existed? Of course they want children and people of all ages on their services. It's in their best interest to get the majority of folks using their platform.

I seriously have no idea why this is so hard to understand.

[malchow]

Niantic doesn't seem to have a problem with this.

[ng-user]

Their situation is not an either/or, it's both. It's an awesome model and I think eventually a lot of companies will replicate something similar using AR.

Thanks for pointing that out though!

[malchow]

Sure. I am thinking of the classic "How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World," in which there is a discussion of natures. It strikes me that Niantic produced a product which resonated with the nature of kids. Apple in the Jobs days strove to produce technology that was consonant with human nature, which meant they sometimes seemed slow but built things that made sense, and made obvious decisions quickly (no ad tracking in iMessage, for instance). Even Google in its early days built a search product that was quite more human than competitors. Products that irritate human nature can succeed, but perhaps not for too long.

[Cthulhu_]

A bit luddite don't you think? Nobody encouraged me or you back when we were children to go online and chat using IRC instead of going outside to interact with friends in person, yet we did. I'm sure a lot of parents would prefer a more monitored environment (claimed) than IRC and such.

[toomuchtodo]

> I'm sure a lot of parents would prefer a more monitored environment (claimed) than IRC and such.

I'd prefer no chat client whatsoever, which I can enforce as a parent.

Not a luddite, have just seen the damage large tech corporations have caused to societal fabric in the name of profits and keeping that out of our family.

Disclaimer: Grew up on EFnet, would rather have my kids playing outside.

[blocked_again]

If Facebook doesn't do it someone else is going to do it.

https://kids.youtube.com

[tomger]

Same logic works for any crime.

[golergka]

False dichotomy. It's not a choice between connecting in-person and via app; it's a choice between connecting with particular person via app or not spending time with them in any way.

[mlevental]

what percentage of people that you keep in touch with over social media that aren't in your immediate vicinity?

[fwn]

In my case that's roughly 10 people. The only one I regularly see and hold strong online conversations with is my girlfriend.

This is probably true for of most people not living in their hometown or having connections through college or work.

[lfowles]

I regularly keep in touch with quite a few coworkers that have moved away. Not to mention college friends who all went their separate ways.

[golergka]

Most of them. Best case, it's a friend that I would see every second weekend or so, but chat with and comment every day.