[tarkin2]

I teach children. You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades.

And this isn't mentioning exposing easily malleable minds to propaganda paid for by states that see the UK as an enemy, all before their critical reasoning skills, and awareness of their emotions, and how their emotions can be used against them, have had the chance to develop.

I expect this to massively electorally backfire on the government. But in the long run, it will be more than worth it. The only alternative would be to blanket ban phones in schools, although they'll still be plugged into social media the minute they leave.

[nly]

Tbh I've never understood why a strict non-negotiable ban on phones in schools hasn't been in place. This is an easy win with no negative consequences for adults.

[jvvw]

It already exists in the schools near where I live in the UK, but only came into place in some of them in the last year. I was surprised that they had been so slow about it.

[Aurornis]

It’s happening in my area, too (US, not UK).

I was also surprised it hadn’t been the case. Apparently there were some policies against phone use during class but the enforcement was so toothless and sporadic that teachers and kids alike were ignoring the rule.

Now the rules are firm, universally applied, and have actual consequences. That last part seems to be the key. You can try to say phones are banned but until there are actual consequences it’s not really going to make a difference.

[jvvw]

Round here they have a locked pouch they have to put their phone in during school which seems to work reasonably well (although I'm sure not perfectly). It makes it more clearcut if they do find somebody with a phone not in their pouch anyway that they've definitely broken the rules. They get locked at registration at the start of the day and then unlocked when they leave school at special points.

[thisislife2]

I too don't like all this "age-verification" approach, but how does banning phones in school prevent kids / teens from using social media?

[Aurornis]

The goal is to prevent phones and social media from being a distraction during school time.

The schools in my district did it. Several kids ran huge campaigns with flyers and news media involvement trying to protest it, but after that died down the response has been very positive.

It’s not going to satisfy the people who think that all children everywhere must be banned from social media at all times whether their parents agree or disagree. It does have a very positive impact at schools.

[thisislife2]

Oh ok. I agree with you from that perspective - phone are indeed a distraction and should be banned in school. I do find that whole debate strange though because in India, schools (not government) have never allowed phones in the first place and our society has been largely fine with that practice. Nobody has accused any school of "overreaching" or made such mandates a political issue. In fact, my mischievous nephew's phone was confiscated by his school Principal who told his parents that she wouldn't return it till the term ended because they shouldn't be giving a phone to him at his age!

[vrighter]

it was the case when i was younger and phones were still dumb. We've gone backwards

[demorro]

I'm really torn on this. On the one hand I agree with you 100%, whilst on the other I have little faith that our government will implement in a non-damaging way. However, I'd almost be willing to trade some amount of civil-liberty in order to protect us from the rot of social media. If I could ban everyone from "harmful social media" I would, I just understand that's impossible to define and implement without massive unintended externalities.

I'm not naive to how much of a slippery slope that is, and I don't think the government is pursuing this in good faith. Nonetheless, here we are.

[epolanski]

> You have no idea how much social media has affected their attention, memory, critical reasoning and social skills: the social repercussions will be felt for decades.

I don't see different results among my peers (I'm 39) let alone older people.

Seeing my family, it's mostly the 50+ that are consistently distracted by phones, not the Gen Zs.

[iugtmkbdfil834]

My kid's school bans phones for that very reason. I find the age limit annoying and very easy to circumvent, which renders it pointless. This is a problem, because I agree with the benefits of kids attention not being eroded at scale.

edit: added age

[penguin_booze]

The other potential good outcomes are that (1) make a dent (however minuscule) into current and future revenue of parasitic american companies (2) a next generation of young people growing up not addicted to social media.

The latter has the same effect of trying to proselytise to a grown, intelligent adult. The response is, quite rightly, yuck.

[yw3410]

May I ask how long you've been teaching and generally how big the behavioural change and/or timespan has been?

[mrighele]

I am fine with banning social media for minors.

What I find utterly wrong is the method, because this way you end up tracking also every adult.

A better way would be to legislate that minors need to use devices specifically designed for them, so that they can be kept under control, and forbid them to use regular devices.

My daughter cannot drive my car, and I don't need to insert my id card to use it, nor there is a facial recognition system to ensure that I am an adult.

Banning the kids from access social media sounds like just an excuse to be able to track adults.

[intrasight]

You seem to have contradicted yourself saying it's OK to ban them and then saying it's just an excuse to track adults. But you're no exception it seems everyone involved in this discussion is conflicting these two issues. How about we just say we're going to ban minors - make that the law, and then figure out the proper technical approach? We're smart technologies here and I'm sure in about an hour we could find a solution.

[mrighele]

No, I'm not conflicting the two issues. I'm fine with the ban I'm not fine with how it is being implemented, I thought the example would make it clear.

A ban shouldn't affect the adults (and this is the same for stuff like porn). If you think that kids should be restricted from a portion of the Internet, have the tools that they use check who they are... but adults should be able to use other tools.

[intrasight]

Then we agree.

I know I'm inherently an optimist, but I assume that society can and will implement it properly. This isn't hard technically but apparently it is hard politically.

[hackable_sand]

That's just a long way to say you hate Pink Floyd

[insurgent_dino]

Do you agree that parents should be the one protecting their children from this 'propaganda' and internet slop?

Whilst I agree that social media can be overwhelmingly negative especially for young people, dont you recon that the risk to privacy and free-nature / increased surveillance of the internet is a greater problem?

[mmarq]

I’m a parent, children should be banned from social media and enforcement should include serious fines for parents who don’t monitor their children.

After the first 2-3 fines, people will magically learn to use parental control and the idiocy of age verification will end.

[halJordan]

I think they should be "one of" not "the one." You know, it takes a village. And in any event, as others have said, parents have completely refused to participate in the question anyways, so in the real world your statement is not worth the paper it's written on.

[alephnerd]

Not OP but parental controls have existed for over a decade in these platforms with little to no uptake.

Now that the UK has had 3 major riots in the past 24 months exacerbated by foreign social media bots, it is all the more critical to prevent children from falling into the trap.

The time for the carrot is over. It's time for the stick.

On a separate note, I find it funny that plenty of so called internet freedom supporters are using HN given that it's terms and conditions give YC full ownership of comments in perpetuity.

[eesmith]

"Parental controls? What parental controls?", a.k.a. "Parental controls are unusable… and it’s why Congress is stepping in." - https://web.archive.org/web/20231115165553/https://gabrielsi... - 113 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38314224

"Parental controls aren't for parents" - https://beasthacker.com/til/parental-controls-arent-for-pare... - 456 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46464652

"Apple’s Parental Controls Are Broken" - https://www.wsj.com/articles/apples-parental-controls-are-br... - 43 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36921602

"Apple parental controls have more holes than Swiss cheese" - https://xcancel.com/MichaelErmer_/status/2012515535326527740 - 3 comments at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46672071

And as a bonus

"Tell HN: Attackers using Google parental controls to prevent account recovery" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47056472

[undersuit]

Apply the stick to the companies and people doing this, you don't think social media was critical in the UK riots? See how even adults are affected by the thing you're proposing controlling with age limits.

[tarkin2]

Shouldn't parents be the ones to protect their children from the dangers of heroin, rather than an over-reaching state?

[thisislife2]

Do you really believe parents can realistically protect their wards from getting hooked to any harmful, addictive drugs? How will they ever know if their kids are experimenting with these drugs? The problem is that the drugs are addictive - all it it needs is for someone to try it a few times to get completely hooked to it. And you don't realise it until it is too late.

[Rebelgecko]

IMO everything you said is equally applicable to social media (unless you have complete and total surveillance over your kids)

[thisislife2]

I was explaining why stopping the circulation of harmful substances, like Heroin, do require government intervention and that parents alone cannot fight it. Your conflation that such drugs are equivalent to addictive social media is something I don't agree with - they are addictive but it's a different type of addiction and the harm is different too (more psychological than physical). That said, I will concede that I mostly agree that "age verification" isn't perhaps the best approach to fight it.

[dom96]

Funny example, because many argue that stopping the war on drugs would solve a lot of problems.