[shaunsingh0207]

Facetime however doesn't, and if I was a high schooler with a girlfriend thats likely what I'd use. That and gamepigeon "games", group chats, a fair bit of stuff thats a nonissue to older people but to high schoolers is absolutely nessecary for relationships to function

... are you really going to use email or irc in high school

[em-bee]

what can facetime do that telegram or other messaging apps that support video chat can't? as far as i can tell they are now equivalent. we are not talking about irc or email here. true alternatives to facetime do exist.

[themoonisachees]

As much as I despise Apple, they won this battle in the US. this isn't. About technology or whether or not video calls happen to exist on another platform. If for some reason GP's son was unable to create a twitter account when all his friends were on twitter, you can't just say "he can create an account on mastodon". Sure, it's technically similar but that doesn't matter because the problem is a social one and Apple has recognized that and has successfully tuned middle school kids into their sycophants by refusing to implement RCS. The fact that moving to a different messaging platform would solve this does not matter, because if these kids were willing to move platforms they wouldn't bully someone for having a green bubble to begin with.

[rwalle]

???What are you talking about? You really think Mastodon is a fair comparison? And bringing RCS here is also pointless.

To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

[krackpot]

> To use WhatsApp/Duo/etc, all it takes is a phone number and maybe an email address (or a Google account you already have), and a few minutes of time.

> If someone's girlfriend is like "I would rather just use FaceTime and call you 'by phone number', instead of spending that few minutes to set up an account for an app we can both use", I would agree with the person above -- this is too toxic.

On principle, I agree the hurdle is not high to get another app/account. I even stand with you to not give in and succumb to this behavior.

The social aspect is harder. It may be easy to convince 1 person (the girlfriend) to do this, but what about her attached network of friends and all the group chats that come with? Will it be easy to convert all her friend groups and setup all the group chats to replace the existing ones?

I'm not sure anyone has that strong of a network effect unless they're at the top of the heap. In which case the girlfriend would have probably just downloaded the app and setup the account.

Even if they convinced the girlfriend and not her network of friends to get the app and new account, it would essentially still exclude and make them a "second class citizen" in that group. All it would take is not opening the app or seeing the notification or acting upon it to be relegated.

I think those not as tech friendly would want multiple 1 to 1 chat apps where there was one or very few people were on the other side. Just easier to convert people to the majority.

[em-bee]

i am sorry, i simply can not accept defeat on this issue. i do not have the financial means to buy iphones for all my kids (even old/used ones), so they will have to accept alternatives, and what matters here is to find ways to talk to the kids to understand that what they want is simply not possible in this form.

[brudgers]

There were plenty of things that he didn’t get for financial reasons.

Plenty he didn’t get for philosophical.

i simply can not accept defeat on this issue

For me doing something nice isn’t defeat, and his desire for an iPhone wasn’t an issue.

We were fortunate to be able to get him an iPhone. And fortunate he wanted an iPhone and not his own bong.

It might have worked out the same if we hadn’t. By working out I mean FaceTimeing with him now that he’s a grown ass man.

[paulcole]

Wait so is the issue financial or philosophical? If you had the financial means would you just buy iPhones for all of them if that’s what they wanted?

[em-bee]

it's both. i brought up the financial side to make clear that this is not something where i am going to budge, and i am not interested in any solution that involves buying iphones.

this is also an issue of social justice and exclusion of lower income families. anyone who is arguing that not getting an iphone means depriving their children from getting friends is missing the point. if that is what is happening in a community then that community is seriously broken, and we need to address this problem. excluding others because they don't have the necessary tech gadget is something that should not be allowed to happen.

if my kids do this to others then i failed as a parent.

[paulcole]

> anyone who is arguing that not getting an iphone means depriving their children from getting friends is missing the point. if that is what is happening in a community then that community is seriously broken, and we need to address this problem.

This is kind of like saying, “Yes my house is on fire now, but rather than put it out right now, we should research and develop fireproof houses.” Cool idea but your house still burns down. You can work on the bigger societal problem but if you can, address the immediate issue, which is you kid getting bullied. And yes it sucks if you can’t afford it, but if you can, buying the iPhone is a simple way to resolve the issue your kid is facing (albeit not the underlying problem).

[shaunsingh0207]

telegram doesn't come by default on my phone. getting a teenager to download telegram or duo or <insert other platform here> is hard. The power of facetime is any kid with an iphone has the ability to immediately video call any other kid with an iphone.

I'm not saying its a good thing. I despise that its practically impossible to have a social life without an iphone in a lot of urban american schools. Just know that by not budging and not getting your kid an iphone, you are causing them frustration and potentialy making them lose out on a significant part of their childhood.

[ForestCritter]

Completely ridiculous. My kids didn't get phones until the last two years of high school. They used the home phone and their friends called them plenty. They got bullied for being white, should I have painted them black? I taught them how to deal with bullies and that the bullies were the ones with problems. Now I have three happy early 20 year olds with friends despite having no facebook (my boys didn't want one and my daughter deleted it because she didn't like it) and not always attached to their phones. My son who is interested in several subjects follows multiple discord forums and his brother follows more tech and open source stuff. My daughter simply prefers to talk to people in person. On a side note, learning to deal with frustration is part of becoming an adult. Life isn't fair, why would you teach your children to expect it to be? Instead I taught them to find balance, there's always some good with the bad.

[em-bee]

They used the home phone

the trouble is of course, today there are no home phones anymore. the last one i saw a few years ago in china. but even when our internet service came with a phone we didn't bother connecting it. sooner or later home phones will be extinct.

there are laptops and internet but then it depends which messaging services work with out a phone. telegram, signal, whatsapp, wechat all require a phone.

i suppose a shared family mobile might work for calls, but not for messaging where surely everyone should have their own account.