[TechBro8615]

You can always just delete your account. Granted, that's easier for me to say as an adult than it would be for your average peer-pressured teenager. But that's where parents can help.

I think eventually, teens will see social media as "uncool" in the same way as they see smoking cigarettes as "uncool" (in some countries). It takes a lot of social propagandizing to popularize that idea, but we did it with cigarettes and we can do it with social media.

We need to make being off the grid cooler than being on it. Privacy is cool!

[1827162]

I think the pendulum will swing towards that way eventually. It's cyclical. Once the novelty of social media wears away, as it has done already, and the harms start being worse than the benefits.

However not being on social media can have real-world consequences in the classroom, the child could be treated as an outcast and mocked or bullied for it.

There is a middle ground, which is to use a pseudonym and ensure anonymity. You can then selectively disclose this pseudonym to people you trust. It might be safer for the children that way and also make it more difficult for adult authority figures to interfere with their lives.

[glenngillen]

My 6yo daughter had to create a login for various online things recently (e.g., code.org to keep track of her progress). I don't exactly when or where they taught her this at school, but she absolutely refused to share any of her personal information in any way. She spent a good 30 minutes trying to make up a handle to use that she liked but didn't include any reference to her name, her initials, anything about her birth month or day (I'd suggesting adding the day of the month she was born as a suffix so she'd remember it given all her initial name preferences seems to be taken already), etc.

I was very impressed that they seem to have this conditioned into them so young, and to a level of importance that exceeded even my own paranoia about doing it properly.

[hackerlight]

One of Haidt's points is that you can't escape by deleting your account, because everyone else is still online. Suppose you're a teenage girl. The gossip mill about you is still going to be doing the rounds on social media, so the cyberbulling can't be stopped whether or not you're participating. If anything, being the strange outcast by refusing to go online will inflame things. That's one reason why a ban for those below 16 or 18 is a good idea.

[jimbob45]

You say that but it's a bit tough to care if you don't see it happen. It's possible for everyone here to be the subject of a meme somewhere of a picture taken without consent. However, it just feels tough to care unless you actually see the meme and the reactions of people to it.

[Nextgrid]

The difference between some completely random person taking a picture and your circle of friends is that it's very unlikely for the former to reach anyone you know, where as with the latter it's a guarantee.

[MichaelZuo]

But then it would be brought to their attention? And they can respond?

If it's never brought to their attention, it's pointless to worry about.

[hgsgm]

How does "responding" help to protect against gang bullying?

[rocketbop]

Obviously doctor, you’ve never been a thirteen year old girl.

[MichaelZuo]

So?