[wussboy]

No. No no no. Parents already have thousands of commercial and social interests trying to steal a child’s attention. You can’t possibly expect an overworked and criminally exhausted parent to come home from work and “fight the good fight” against a multi billion dollar company with huge teams of engineers and psychologists working day and night to capture your child’s head.

I say this every time this comment comes up and I always get downvoted but I just don’t care. I love my kids and I fight every day to keep them safe and healthy and I DO NOT NEED to fight a super villain with direct access to my child’s mind.

Social media is evil. It will be banned. Wait and see.

[ksec]

I am guessing kids / child here means or include Teens? Because if they are not hooked to Facebook ( which I dont know any kids or teens are ) they will still be hooked to instagram. Which many kids and Teens do use. And increasingly they are going over to TikTok. Although instagram is fighting back.

And even if you ban them from using ALL meta product. They will still be hooked to something else. Forum ( That is a form of Social Media as well ), other media for celebrity news or whatever. Ban Whatsapp? There is iMessages on iOS and used mostly across teen age group in the US, Line in Japan, KakaoTalk in Korea. Did anyone remember SnapChat ?

Even if you DO ban all of them. They will still get spread in school talking about the trendiest topic. They will find a way to join the conversation no matter what so they dont get left out. And I have seen this first hand.

I am not against Facebook providing some sort of filter or mode for Kids or something. But it is ultimately the parents that is responsible. The world has changed. And I have always argued it is not the platform or social media. It is the internet itself, extremely affordable and accessible via Smartphone everywhere. And so far I didn't even mention Youtube.

Parenting in the 21st century is harder than ever.

On the other hand kids these days learn so so much more at their age on topics that you could never imagined over the internet. Things I could only dream of when all I had was books in library written by people not targeting my age. ( Which is actually another issues because those who are curious and willing to learn excel so much further than the bottom half of the class, it seems the information super highway has fastened inequality everywhere. )

I am actually surprised at the Hotcake being the most upvoted comments, for the past 6+ years Facebook has been the most hated company on HN and anything that goes against hating Facebook tends to get downvoted.

[true_religion]

> And even if you ban them from using ALL meta product. They will still be hooked to something else.

I hope I'm not misrepresenting your argument with this analogy, but it seems like you're saying "Don't ban heroin. Kids will still get hooked on weed!"

It's okay to ban the worst offenders and carefully regulate the 'market'.

With a free and open market, billions of dollars of investment, and thousands of smart minds working over at Facebook, it's quite possible that things will get worse if there's no regulation.

[ksec]

>"Don't ban heroin. Kids will still get hooked on weed!"

Except I can see zero good about heroin, while social Media ( inclusive of instant messengers ) have their own good. So it is not as clear cut.

[gls2ro]

It really depends what do you mean by Social Media.

For example I define Chat as a different category then Social Media.

How do you define Social Media and what is the value (or good) they add that is unique to these platforms?

[hankman86]

The internet and social media aren’t the same. Heck, it’s not even an inherent principle of social media to be the manipulating, exploitative and addictive garbage that is Facebook. The bad things happening on Facebook aren’t a coincidence, but very much an expected outcome of a) deliberate and malicious design decisions and b) the centralised platform economy that social media companies rely on.

Hence, legislation shouldn’t target individual companies, but “features” that harm people or lead to bad outcomes for society at large. One such example is Europe’s GDPR, which imposes some fundamental limitations on what companies can and cannot do with their users’ personal data. And as negative consequences of poor social media design becomes more apparent, legislators must expand on that and ban more of the malicious practices that are at fault.

[madaxe_again]

I don’t think it will be banned - the commercial incentives are just too strong, and states have bought into the idea that it is a security tool - rather than the security risk it actually is. It radicalises, it damages, it makes the remote and irrelevant seem imminent and proximal, the lone voices seem prevalent - but from a governance perspective, it allows surveillance of an increasingly disgruntled population, and relinquishing that control, that direct feed into the ids of millions, is not something any government is about to do.

No, I foresee a future in which social media is mandatory - if not in law, at least in practice. I use none, as I found it turned me into a performer rather than a person, and even now sometimes find myself at an impasse where I am not able to do x, y, z because I do not have a social media presence. For instance, I was refused entry to the US for refusing to divulge my social media handles - because I have none. I was last night refused entrance to a bar because I wouldn’t share my instagram handle - because I have none. I had to go for a physical interview last year for a residency permit where I live, because I would not share my Facebook handle - because I have none. I got residency, but I was presented with additional hurdles for not being a user.

If you want out, the only way is to forgo much of modern life - and this will only become more and more apparent.

I’ve taken to writing physical letters. If I can’t be bothered, what I had to say evidently wasn’t important in the first place.

[majjam]

Im astonished you weren’t admitted to a bar because you don’t have an instagram account. What was the reasoning there if you don’t mind sharing a bit more?

[madaxe_again]

Band doing a gig - they only wanted people there who would film and share on social media. No great loss, as I hate being surrounded by present but absent people, watching something right in front of them on a tiny screen rather than with their own eyes.

[themihai]

Aren't there programs restricting social media? Why parent's don't just ban the social media for their kids?

[angelzen]

Network effects. As long as the other kids socialize on social media, not using social media becomes a drastic socialization penalty. The problem cannot be solved individually, only by collective action. Most parents must ban social media (and electronics in general) for their kids. Which indicates a need to pass laws to ban social media for minors. Bans and teens don't usually work as intended, we probably also need a wide campaign of stigmatization of said social media, akin to anti-smoking campaigns.

[cute_boi]

plus many schools etc are using facebook etc to disseminate news... and many kids friend prefers to communicate in facebook groups. Many teachers are also available in facebook.

In short: Network effect.

[xwdv]

It will not be banned. It will simply be accepted that this is the way the world is, and some day there won’t be a generation left that ever knew any other way. Some say millennials are the last generation that can truly fight. But never forget it was the millennials who created social media.

[s1artibartfast]

You are the one who gave them they keys to your kids brain and you can take them away

[Closi]

The problem is that the use of Meta’s applications are so pervasive between kids (and adults), this is effectively taking away their ability to communicate with their friends and they will be ‘left out’. Being the only person in your group of friends not in the group chat will make you feel excluded (and might even lead to you being excluded from things like events or meet-ups that are organised on the platform).

Now it’s a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t”, and just giving your kids the keys is probably the lesser of the two evils.

Which is why we should be making sure that these platforms are healthy for everyone involved, as much as is practical and possible.

[unityByFreedom]

> Social media is evil. It will be banned.

How, by getting rid of the first amendment? Seems doubtful.

[hankman86]

I fully agree. Its too easy for parents to be out of step with the latest fad that unscrupulous social media CEOs push on our kids. Not to mention that social media isn’t just bad for children and teens. It’s bad for everyone. Forget the benefits. Need reminding of your friends birthdays? Get a calendar.

It may take time for the US to deliberately damage national champions like Facebook and Google. Other countries will be less patient to act. I cannot imagine democratically elected governments idly standing by as Facebook drags their people into a dystopian Metaverse where there’s no more escaping the misinformation and manipulation that’s already rampant on current-generation social media platforms.

[tabulatouch]

It all boils down to fighting the distopic capitalism. Which, at the end of the day, we all like and worship.

[renewiltord]

Every generation of parents has been convinced some insignificant thing has been ruining their kids. The one constant has been that they’ve all been wrong.

[georgebarnett]

On the other hand, depression has exploded in teenage girls since 2013.

If this was business as usual, that wouldn’t have happened.

[bryanrasmussen]

ah ok, that's good because it seems one of the biggest companies in the world must be a significant thing.