[j45]

Age 16-17 is very different than Ages 5-10 for kids to carry a device.

The former is no issue. I just don't think the author's take is nuanced as they think.

Kids (Age 5-13) safety is of ultimate importance. Devices, independently are also a major issue in schools. Social media use of bullying also is a major issue. To the point they are banned.

[simplyluke]

The UK is not proposing disallowing 16-17 year olds (or any children) from carrying smart phones on public transit, though, which makes the entire article fall apart.

The author leaps from a proposed ban on 15 year olds using tiktok to wholesale bans on smartphones.

[Lerc]

Removing a means of bullying that leaves a trail is not the same thing as removing bullying. It's just removing undeniable bullying.

If people truly agreed that children needed to be protected from the desires of others, teaching them that a particular religion is the true one would be restricted until they were of an age where they could provide informed consent.

For some, communication devices are the only way to escape that particular abuse.

[roelmore]

Forgive me if I am misinterpreting or getting in the way of your primary point -- but I think it is relatively well recognized that, though cyberbullying might not be objectively worse than analog bullying (obviously direct physical abuse/altercations cant happen electronically....yet), the 24/7 pervasiveness, anonymity, lack of emotional feedback for the bully, reach, and permanence of cyberbullying has had a meaningful impact on the state of the bullying game and the impacts it has on children.

That doesn't mean I agree with the general thrust of taking technology away from kids and young adults....I don't. But I do think we should probably understand the bad that we are taking with the good.

[nsxwolf]

I think a lot of people here just don't have kids of a relevant age yet. They assume either the bullying doesn't happen, or it isn't any different than bullying in person, or that it's easy to stop when it happens.

You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating. You have to frequently audit what's on their phones because they often won't volunteer what's happening. You take them out of one group chat only to have the bullies reappear in another one.

Old fashioned bullying kept regular business hours. This gives them a portal into your home life 24/7, and that's the best case, when you put a ton of effort into managing it.

And if you're not having this problem somehow, you might want to double check and make sure your kid isn't the bully.

[fn-mote]

> You can just not have phones, but it's socially isolating.

I hear this plenty, but kids are literally forced to go be with their peers (hopefully including some friends) for 6+ hours a day (in my country). Don't they have enough time to arrange their social lives in person?

It’s not as bad as phone apologists say.

[j45]

Agreed, students in schools seem to be regularly reporting an improved environment as unmanaged phone use went away.

[Lerc]

Well I guess it is true that I don't have children of that age. My daughter is on the board of a charity that deals with youth issues though.

[what]

So neither you, nor your daughter, have any experience with the issue?

[Lerc]

I seem to recall both of us being children once, although admittedly not at the same time. The research my daughter does as part of her charity work probably counts as well.

[j45]

I certainly wouldn’t speak about kids and bullying without knowing about both.

What works needs to be found.

[j45]

Removing phones doesn't remove a means of bullying, it removes a magnifier and multiplier of bullying.

There's lots of ways to capture bullying. But it might be hot water right? What if it was a watch with a camera? What if it was a camera alone? :)

Bullying is serious enough it can't be conflated with the desires of device manufacturers and social media platforms to manufacture young consumers of their feeds.

An issue here is the unfiltered internet is not capable of raising children, as much as they want to be exposed to everything, it doesn't work out the same for every child based on a whole host of independent factors than those who take the position above.

[marysol5]

"A trail" that will be ignored by the very same authority figures who ignore literally violence done in front of them.

[nrabulinski]

Except social media as a concept isn’t the issue. I’ve been bullied before social media was mainstream. A little later in life, when internet as a whole was majorly taking off, it helped me actually socialize. I met people some of whom I’m friends to this day, but more importantly - I could meet people to go out with, to talk to.

Should we ban schools then? Because school grounds are famously place where the most bullying, especially kids 5-13 (which you highlighted yourself), is happening. Or maybe ban real life interactions? Because you can meet someone who will bully you or be of bad influence?

We both know that’s not the right way, just like banning social media is not solving any problems. It’s just a convenient argument to introduce internet-wide surveillance, as well as to take away any autonomy or rights kids may have. Instead of investing in moderation, and actually scrutinizing big tech, which is the real cause of more bullying, shorter attention spans, and whatever else people say is wrong with the kids these days.

[j45]

Technologies when not learned by the people to use in proper ways, too often can be used against people by people with vested financial interests.

Social Media worked out that way. So did device addiction.

It's great to find ways to socialize, and those ways existed before, and will also exist after.

The exclusion of current forms of social media and connectivity as default doesn't mean better solutions don't step up.

I'm not really sure of the tying of schools to phone bans in schools. Schools aren't perfect, but they have a legal liability to keep kids safe (or safer). Devices and social media don't.

A large part of this is life coming at parents faster than they can keep up, let alone stay one season ahead of their childs growth. This would probably be a way.

Societally, rules and laws, including public health are a social contract and agreement on how to live together in a tight place.

Inside the home, though, is the opportunity for parents to learn and expose as they wish.

Solving today's social media can solve a ton of problems, or at least provide an impetus for it to improve. Schools are supposed to be safe places for kids, right? And the entire unfiltered outside world was coming into it via device.

For example, one solution is parents getting literate in tech enough to know how to lead young people before this even becomes a conversation. One way to do this is to offer unlimited screen time for creating, and much less for passive consuming. The generation that wants to experience the real world through a little screen has it backwards, and that's coming form the people who built the little digital world too.

I'm not anti-technology for young people at all. I'm anti-addiction and anti-manipultion by unlimited people and parties interested in reaching eyeballs.

Parents, legally, are required to provide a safe and growing environment.

[ClumsyPilot]

> A large part of this is life coming at parents faster than they can keep up, let alone stay one season ahead of their childs growth.

The amount of administrative tasks, bureaucracy and complexity an adult, let alone a parent, has to navigate on a daily basis has increased 100x since the 70’s. It is very convent for corporations but less convenient for parents. Just look at the amount of legal contract you have to sign relating to data, Eula, etc.

> Parents, legally, are required to provide a safe and growing environment.

True, but be carefull, people might solve the problem in ways you don’t expect.

For example if someone races near a kids playground on electric skateboard at 50 km/h, and authorities keep ignoring the issue, they might just hit an unexpected obstacle

[II2II]

> Except social media as a concept isn’t the issue. I’ve been bullied before social media was mainstream.

The differences with bullying via social media are: the difficulty to escape it in space or time as well as its reach. I don't think we can argue that social media is not an issue on these fronts.

> A little later in life, when internet as a whole was majorly taking off, it helped me actually socialize.

I agree, but I also have to wonder if the nature of the Internet has changed to the point where the benefits are secondary to the costs. In the early days, it was far easier to access the positives and far easier to ignore the negatives since we made explicit decisions about where to go. While you can still do that today, by avoiding social media, it is far more difficult. The mainstream has consolidated to the point where you pretty much have to isolate yourself to avoid it. Much of what mainstream social media sites provide is pushed to the user in some for or another. On top of all of that, the online world had far less reach in the past. At least when I was younger, the bullies simply didn't go online and while exploitive people were online there seemed to be far fewer of them.

As for the Internet wide surveillance: I don't think that is the driving force behind the current regulations. We already have Internet wide surveillance. That is why your proposal is all the more important, the bit about moderation and scrutinizing big tech, because we let them get away with far too much.

[FeteCommuniste]

> The differences with bullying via social media are: the difficulty to escape it in space or time as well as its reach.

Just log off of Instagram / TikTok / wherever. Or block the people bothering you. If anything I'd say digital bullying is easier to escape because unlike school kids aren't required to be on those sites six to eight hours a day, and blocking someone needs a lot less effort and cooperation from adults than reporting them to school authorities.

[II2II]

> Just log off of Instagram / TikTok / wherever.

A large number of youth will do that, but there is also a reason why children and youth are considered a vulnerable population.

I cannot speak too much on youth since most of my experience is with children. While some of them are more than happy to navigate their social lives by choosing who their friends are and ignoring those who cause them grief, where possible (as you suggested, there is the physical proximity in schools to complicate things), a great many more want to belong. They want to belong even where they are unwelcome and the unwelcomeness is manifested as bullying. What little I've seen of teens suggests that much the same does happen, only the bullying is meaner.

And that only addresses bullying. It does not address content directed towards adults, much of which is perfectly fine for younger people to know but they should also learn about it under the guidance of an adult so they don't come to think it is acceptable or the norm. It also fails to address the manipulative nature of some sites, something that they probably haven't learned to recognize never mind how to handle.

Yes, in a sense, you can turn off the problems and a lot of the problems will just go away. I'm not going to say they will disappear completely. Remember, social media has a larger audience and the others in that audience may bring it back to real life. Also remember that the people we are discussing don't always have the wisdom or experience to turn it off. Heck, a lot of adults don't have that wisdom or experience (but, at least for adults, we can claim they ought to know better).

[ClumsyPilot]

> Except social media as a concept isn’t the issue

Are you sure about that? So far the negatives vastly outweigh the positives. Imagine a statement:

> as a concept there isn’t an issue with a social credit score / great firewall / reeducation camp as long as they are done by a competent well-meaning person