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by jrockway 920 days ago
Is it unrealistic? Like, social media wasn't invented when I was a kid and I found some way to spend my time.

I don't have kids but am planning on it, and I don't see myself locking kids out of social media. I also don't super care if they see naked people on the Internet. If it becomes a problem somehow I'll deal with the problem myself.

I'm more worried about kids shows on TV with messages like "follow all the rules or you'll be bricked inside a tunnel". I grew up with those, and in retrospect, they are super creepy.
1 comments
genocidicbunny 920 days ago
To me, the problem is that while you might block your children from using social media, are all of your children's friends going to be in the same situation. If your kid has a circle of friends that interacts a lot on social media, and your kid doesn't participate in that, eventually they will be left out of that group.
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jrockway 920 days ago
Yeah, exactly. That's why I think a categorical ban is not necessarily "good parenting". I think you have to peek in and see what they're watching on TikTok, and provide relevant information. If they think a video where someone burns down a store as "a prank" is funny, remind them of the consequences; hurting other people, prison, whatever. (OK, TikTok is a little less extreme than that, but you get the point.)

Certainly, I understand why people want to delegate work to the government here; parenting is hard work. But it's necessary work, you don't want the government's children to go out into the world and do their own thing. You want your kids to. And so your touch is going to be required in their formative years. There is no getting around that.

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genocidicbunny 919 days ago
> That's why I think a categorical ban is not necessarily "good parenting".

I agree -- both because it's unlikely to be effectual, and because it's not really addressing the root problem of parent involvement.

> I think you have to peek in and see what they're watching on TikTok, and provide relevant information.

Exactly. You can't just expect to go into your firewall settings, ban some URLs and expect that to solve the problem. Or at the same time, to just completely ban them from accessing social media at all (though arguments could be made for monitored/timed access at certain age 'gates') -- I've written multiple other comments about why that can backfire too.

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