[londons_explore]

Lack of ability to snapchat friends might not seem important... But communication is key to nearly everything in life, and not being part of those snapchat rumours, disputes and controversies now will probably mean your daughter doesn't get as good at the skills to interact with her peers in 20 years time.

[minusthebrandon]

She interacts with her peers at school and with her family... by that same token, ANYONE who grew up before Snapchat or the Internet had or has lacking social skills.

Also, she CAN FaceTime. I would not consider Snapchat or TikTok to be "socializing with friends" for an 8 year old.

[jjk166]

> She interacts with her peers at school and with her family... by that same token, ANYONE who grew up before Snapchat or the Internet had or has lacking social skills.

You know how we don't really get this whole social media thing the kids are into these days? That's because we lack those social skills. Just like how your parents' generation struggles with E-mail despite it being so simple, because you grew up with that.

It might not bother you that you're bad at Telegram or whatever because none of your peers use it either. But her peers do.

[minusthebrandon]

My parents struggling with e-mail is no way the same thing as lacking social skills. That just seems a lack of technology skills.

My point was that saying Snapchat or social media leads to greater social skills than what previous generations had is very hard for me to believe.

[jjk166]

Tomato tomato

You can communicate via a method your parents can't because you used it extensively in your prime while they didn't. Your grandparents probably had the same issue with fax machines and your grandchildren will probably have the same problem with neural-messaging. Every generation thinks "but this time it's different" and every generation is wrong.

[minusthebrandon]

I will still say that lacking the ability to communicate via a particular medium is not the same as lacking social skills. My inability to send messages via Morse code over telegraph lines doesn't mean that I lack social skills.

[jjk166]

So if a skilled telegraph operator handed you a message including the word "naloopen" you would know what that means? There was not just one but several forms of telegraphese developed. A conversation held entirely in brief dots and dashes has a substantially different flow to it than say typing out a message on an internet forum, which in turn is nothing like how one would communicate with a 5 second fleeting video recording. A telegraph is a very simple machine to operate, I'm sure you could learn quickly, but you would certainly still lack the social skills necessary to keep up with a professional telegraph operator from a century ago.

Likewise, your parents certainly don't have any problem conceptually understanding keyboards, letters, or addresses - they were perfectly comfortable with typewriters, letterheads, and postal codes. Dealing with nigerian princes and chain mail might involve the use of technology, but these are very much social skills.

As someone who only uses social media platforms that are mildly reskinned versions of 80s/90s message forums, I don't really know what the "BCC vs CC" of tiktok is, nor do I care. I have an excellent understanding of how tiktok works technologically, but I lack the particular social skills tiktok requires. Since my peers do not get it either, this has never been a problem for me, but I'm sure in a few years when my kids expect me to just know how to snapple into the televoid with them that I'll look like an idiot as I search for a reply button somehwere.

[jancsika]

Nobody ever ended up going down a "Fax" rabbit-hole, or becoming depressed because they spend an hour before bed each night compulsively faxing.

[jjk166]

How many people sent a fax to a tow truck when they got in an accident? How many people met their future spouse faxing?

Conversely, how many people have been scammed out of their life savings by nigerian princes? How many people developed a poor work life balance as they could now do work from home any time?

I'm not going to argue that smart phones have no issues, but everything that came before had issues too, and all were abandoned when something better came along.

[NegativeLatency]

I missed out on texting because of similar choices by my parents, at the time it was not fun

[snazz]

Yes. I don't know how old the GP's daughter is, but restricting communication apps—especially during a pandemic—seems counterproductive. TikTok, sure, whatever; it's a time suck and doesn't really help with social skills. But socializing online really matters now, especially for adolescents.

Edit: If she's eight years old, then this seems like a more reasonable restriction. Disregard what I said previously. Eleven or twelve might be a better time to get Snapchat, especially since that's about the time that most kids get their first smartphones today anyway.

[minusthebrandon]

Yes, she is 8. But even if she were 10 or 11, we'd probably keep similar restrictions. She does have access to FaceTime and our time restriction will probably grow as she ages.

[anonunivgrad]

A minor should not have access to Snapchat. It’s all fun and games until she sends a nude picture to a boy out of naïveté, falsely lured into a sense of security by Snapchat.