[PeterBarrett]

I don't have kids yet but it is something that has been discussed about my nieces and nephews. As you say, you don't want your kids to become social pariahs but you also don't want to give them smart phones, in this day and age it looks like the two are intrinsically linked, which is disappointing.

I would like to say that we can teach kids to have a healthy relationship with the internet and social media but sites like TicTok are engineered to be as addictive as possible so that would be naïve of me to say.

In saying that, if you outright ban these sites in your house it just means that when it comes time for your kids to be more independent they could possibly have no knowledge of how to healthily use social media and then be worse off than if they had access early.

There is no easy answer here, at the end of the day it will be their decision, all you can do is teach them to navigate the digital world and then be there to help when they make mistakes.

[estaseuropano]

I used to lead policy on digital school education for an important organization advising governments on education policy. This was my driving concern: to fight against all the old grumpy people that don't understand and absolutely fear the digital world and think that all would be well if we ban 0s and 1s from school and force kids to go into the woods (not at all exaggerating on the latter part). There were also others that think all problems are solved when you just get everyone to learn coding, which is a starting point but nearly equally wrong and naive as you need societal context and other understanding to make sense of the digital.

It is a basic but at system level not obvious insight that you cannot ignore reality in how you educate your or anyone else's children. It is easy to be careful and conservative but for education to be useful you have to teach them about difficult topics early and thoroughly and both the substance and the methodology have to actually fit the reality these children can and do encounter every day and WILL eventually encounter once they leave the protected environment of school and parents.

You simply cannot teach a child to be a mature, employable, self-confident, independent, informed and sensible adult without the tools of the normal world. By all means, keep them away from tech completely and there are exactly two scenarios: 1) they sneak their way into getting access 2) they fall into an adult life they are not prepared for and will suffer for it.

You, as a parent or educator, mist face reality and discomfort yourself and engage with the world your children encounter. Teach them understanding and insight, not shame or fear.

[PeterBarrett]

Well put, I agree with you and I'm happy to hear someone with a more informed opinion was giving input at a level that mattered.

As with most things in life, too far to either extreme and you will have problems. How can we expect our kids to cope if we ourselves are totally addicted ourselves or totally isolated from it all.

[kradeelav]

It's interesting, of all the points being made in this thread, "making kids be more resilient with (and even enjoying) time alone" feels like an area of opportunity that hasn't been mentioned, not something to shut down and banish.

My circumstances were a little unusual (only child with physical disabilities) but not once did I feel like a social pariah what with books, games, books again, one or two loyal friends, pets, exploring the accessible parts of the backyard and digging up insects ...

There's a happy middle as far as giving into Big Tech vs not, basically.

[thebean11]

I think the lack of real social interaction is the problem right now, not lack of alone time. These are kids who essentially spent a year and a half by themselves..

[basedgod]

ah yes the whole "Coca Cola corp. says you can't just ban your kids from drinking and eating sugar !!! then when they turn 18 they'll fall off the wagon and eat nothing but sugar ! better to have them eat it throughout their childhood so they KNOW how to avoid it"

do you people ever try to have an independent thought outside of the propaganda of big business ? what kind of nonsense of this, that children should be expected to compete for their attention span against literal city sized teams working to maximize the size of their algorithm

[jasonladuke0311]

This comment is hilarious. I've known like a dozen people who have experienced the exact scenario you mentioned.

[jvanderbot]

Seems to be the same for alcahol, staying up late, being self motivated for studying, and just about anything else.

If you don't introduce something to your children and give examples of how to use it safely as an authoritative parent, then who will? Of course it can be safer to avoid some things, so I see TFA's point, but it seems extreme to avoid the whole ecosystem completely.

[superlopuh]

It's kinda of funny but it was also my exact experience, I started buying sugary drinks like there was no tomorrow as soon as I had the freedom to do so, and was no longer living at my mothers's place. Put on quite a bit of weight and damaged health quite a bit in the process. This might not have happened if there was more of a conversation about healthy habits and limiting oneself. Maybe not.

[SpicyLemonZest]

The key reason I'm okay with no-soda households is that there's few if any social contexts where you're expected to have a soda. You mention eating sugar, but I think banning that really would risk falling off the wagon - you're not gonna keep your kid from noticing that ice cream is tasty for 18 years.

[PeterBarrett]

Your argument is about as well formed as your sentences. I can only assume you're a troll account given how new your account is and that you clearly didn't read the comment you're replying to.

[hans1729]

>I would like to say that we can teach kids to have a healthy relationship with the internet and social media but sites like TicTok are engineered to be as addictive as possible so that would be naïve of me to say.

I don't think so. Don't underestimate the intelligence of kids. If your kid actually understands the way dopamine works (on a sufficient level), they will cultivate their own way of attention-management. That's perfectly doable, kids just soak up knowledge. They have to learn it anyway, so the later you start, the worse the consequences of both social isolation and bad usage-culture will be.

/edit:

to add to my original point, when your kids decide for themselves that they want something, and they feel that you are unfairly restricting their access to it, the consequence will be that they demonize you. Where that leads, for them, for their relationship with you, for the other points you're trying to get across, is never a good place. Be very careful about it.

[mathieuh]

Why do you think children will be more successful at outwitting nefarious companies' behavioural scientists than adults are? It is widely acknowledged that companies are successfully applying methods of grabbing and retaining our attention in order to sell us things, so I'm a bit cynical that children, already not renowned for impulse control, will be any better than adults in ignoring that.

[hans1729]

The earlier they make their experiences, the earlier they can develop a mature response to abusive stimuli - if taught about the nature of those stimuli. I'm not advocating for giving developing brains blind access to predatory products. I'm advocating to teach them a healthy-as-possible relation with them.

And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our schools curriculae are in complete disconnect of the world we've built within the last 40 years. The mechanisms of attention are by no means rocket science, and kids are not braindead. Those who are generally able to understand and then recognize the dangers will have the ability to do so from young age, and the ones who don't have that skillset early on will never develop it anyway.

[thr0wawayf00]

> And the reasons adults suck at this is just that: because we were never taught to deal with it, because our schools curriculae are in complete disconnect of the world we've built within the last 40 years.

Some companies see this as “innovation”: coming up with new ways to advertise, target, and stick to consumers. The problem with the “schools are behind” argument is that this is how the system is designed and it will always be this way.

Computer Science is a good example of this. It takes years for newer technologies to get into CS curriculum. By the time curriculum is updated to educate kids on phone addiction, there will already be a newer and more insidious method to target kids that didn’t make it into the curriculum.

[rglullis]

> It takes years for newer technologies to get into CS curriculum.

The problem is not the technology. The problem is how they are used, and ethics is something that does not change - or at least changes at a much lower pace.

[thr0wawayf00]

If there's a profit incentive to misuse a particular technology, it will be misused. Ethics is always secondary to profit in a market system. If ethics superseded profit, capitalism never would've taken off.

[BlueTemplar]

I don't know why you would expect schools to do a better job than parents for something like this ?

This is fundamentally a parenting question - and from my limited knowledge of it, pre-teens need a radically different approach than teenagers : for the first (whom we are talking about) you need to be a model, for the second you need to walk a fine line of not antagonizing the likes and values of the tribe they ended in, lest you completely lose any influence you might have too early on.

It's the transition between the two that seems to be particularly hard to pull off here...

[erybodyknows]

Addiction has very little to do with knowledge (or lack thereof), and everything to do with feelings/emotions and their management.

[antisinguIarity]

>because our schools curriculae are in complete disconnect of the world we've built within the last 40 years

I'd be very curious to know if any of the tech-based education programs being rolled out at a rapid rate include any material on the dangers of technology and social media addiction.

[b112]

Those who are generally able to understand and then recognize the dangers will have the ability to do so from young age,

<sarcasm>Which is why heroin addicts, quit when they choose, and have zero issues staying off the above.

Which is why after even a few doses, they never become horribly addicted, and end down a path of self destruction.</sarcasm>

Addiction means logic, and choice go out the window.

[bryanrasmussen]

>Why do you think children will be more successful at outwitting nefarious companies' behavioural scientists than adults are?

because kids don't use Facebook?

[rglullis]

Is TikTok/Snapchat/Instagram/whatever-is-fashionable-today any better?

[giraffe_lady]

I truly do not have a settled opinion on the correct course here.

But the idea that mere education can disarm these tools is incredibly naive. It's not powerless against it but not sufficient alone.

Intelligent people who are deeply knowledgeable about the physiology and psychology of addiction still get addicted to drugs, for example. Or. We all know how advertising works, and yet it still works. Do you think it doesn't work on you?

Intelligence and knowledge can be part of a defensive strategy but they're not a complete one. And even the best strategies executed flawlessly will fail sometimes or against some opponents.

This is not a matter of intelligence, and I find that framing chilling. It carries an implicit judgement that those who find themselves captive to these powers were merely too weak, undisciplined, or unintelligent to prevent that through their own agency. It's not the agency of individuals that is the problem here though.