| I am a parent of a toddler and he’s only on Apple Photos, my wife and I don’t use social media. That said, I expect to be downvoted into oblivion. > anonymity is one of the best gifts I can give them I don’t know, I mean a lot of parents tell themselves they are doing a lot of things, me included, that they have no control over in reality. I sympathize with the parents who try to turn their kids into celebs. We made this celebs-rule world. For every one person, kids or adults, who feels exposed online, there are 99,999 more toiling away in obscurity. On this forum probably the children are going to be fine. Their parents are rich enough that even if you are not a nepo baby in the strictest sense of having a famous last name, they will be fine. They can do whatever and they will be fine. If you’re some random person, obscurity is crushing. If you’re not a nepo baby and you have no above average cognitive gifts, which is 80% of people, getting some attention can change your life. Most people have the level of drama, the stupidity, the vapidity of influencers. You just didn’t know that until TikTok. TikTok doesn’t cause this, it doesn’t even exacerbate it. And social media DOES benefit them, it IS rational. It’s the textbook definition of elitism to tell people who found a little fame and like it that they aren’t like the smart kids or true blue nepo babies, who can be offline and still thrive in this world. |
I agree with the first but not the second. I think "social media" is a net good, by far. At the same time, there are negative effects: one is that it creates a constant audience for whatever stupid thing the Influencer wants to do or say, which is an incentive for them to say or do stupid things.