I'm convinced that social media is a net negative for kids. I have a 12 year old daughter, and she is the last in her class to have a cell phone (although she gets plenty of screen time with iPad, etc). With excessive use of TikTok and hours and hours scrolling through viral videos on Youtube, we are hollowing out kids' sense of identity, real life friendships, and their ability to be empathetic partners in relationships that are not built upon "likes." I'm concerned by what kind of citizens we are allowing the hive mind of media to create in the vacuum of once strong community life.
A good friend, author, TED speaker, and mother herself Catherine Price writes here on Substack about screen/life balance. She has written the authoritative and inspiring read "How to Break Up with Your Cell Phone." If you have not subscribed to her stack, go for it. Here is a recent post that was also carried by the New York Times and The Guardian by way of introduction:
Cell phones and social media are not all bad, of course... but they are the most addictive devices and platforms the world has ever seen. Look at me typing away right now when I should be cleaning up the house and getting stuff done!
First, let's define what we mean by social media rather than lumping everything together into one category and trying to call it good or bad. There is a difference between watching instructional videos on YT and using a chat group application. One of the biggest changes I see, is that kids are now connected all the time and this can seriously exacerbate problems like bullying where it follows you 24x7 and you can't get away from it even in your own home.
Second, why do we assume that there is a legislative solution? Even if there is an alleged solution, how is it going to be enforced. So what some state "banned" (liberal's favorite word, I know) it for under X age. How are you going to physically prohibit them from accessing it and how are you going to prevent the myriad of work arounds and unintended consequences that are sure to arise. I will give an example, effective Jan 1, the state of NC mandated age verification for accessing pornographic sites (and when it comes to teens, this is a topic in and of itself). The result, if you are accessing certain popular pornography sites from an ISP that issues you an NC geo-located address the sites refuse access. Unintended consequence that legal consensual adults get blocked. Easily bypassed by use of a VPN or other tactics. For example, I am located in NC by my ISP (Starlink) shows me as coming from Atlanta.
Personally, I would throw this one in with the bathroom and anti-gay laws that the repug(nant) party likes to push, falling somewhere between worthless but feel good and a violation.
China severely limits the amount of time their own children can spend on TikTok each day. But they are happy to have U.S. children spend large numbers of hours on TikTok.
TikTok is Chinese and is gathering data for China. It's been deemed the most dangerous social media in terms of U.S. security.
As others have posted, there's useful social media and there's dangerous social media. Our anecdote is that our kids seem to know the difference. Neither our daughter (21) or our son (19) has ever had a Facebook or TikTok account. Both have IG accounts that they only use to share funny reels. They don't put up permanent posts, or or "like" or comment on anyone's content. Daughter occasionally posts a story to recruit volunteers for the theater group she belongs to. She also has Snapchat to stay in touch with a couple friends. Son has Discord and Steam accounts that he uses to game with friends, a YouTube account that he uses to watch mostly gamer reaction videos, and a Reddit account he uses to collect funny memes. They both think "likes" and klout are silly (though that's not a word they'd use).
Years ago daughter had a DeviantArt account where she posted Mario Kart fan art she was creating to a community of other fan artists. A group of Japanese boys showed up and tried to bully her and others in the group. I created a patently offensive account where I went after them and posted their IP addresses to draw the attention of the moderators. The mods quickly banned the bullies. I never even got a warning. Daughter lost interest and stopped posting. That's the only bullying incident we've ever experienced.
My partner and I have very candid relationships with our children - we have no doubt they'd let us know if they have any bad experiences on social media. They seem to naturally avoid content that makes them feel bad about themselves or others. My son comes to me several times a day to tell me about things he's come across - this has led to a number of conversations about whether certain content is appropriate. It's led to discussions of topics like politics, world affairs, misogyny, white nationalism, intolerance, etc.
I believe that our experience is more common than media reports designed to elicit emotional responses would have us believe. That said, I'm also convinced that there are children *and adults* that are being harmed through interactions with social media.
IMO the option #4 that Dr. Jetelina outlined in her 05/18/2023 post is a reasonable start - especially the parts about limiting recommendations of harmful or problematic content and limiting targeted advertising - for everyone.
But what I really want to see is MORE content moderation by every social media platform, not less. Absolutely no one has a First Amendment "right" to use social media to lie to, misinform, disinform, grift off of, defraud, or bully other users.
I'm convinced that social media is a net negative for kids. I have a 12 year old daughter, and she is the last in her class to have a cell phone (although she gets plenty of screen time with iPad, etc). With excessive use of TikTok and hours and hours scrolling through viral videos on Youtube, we are hollowing out kids' sense of identity, real life friendships, and their ability to be empathetic partners in relationships that are not built upon "likes." I'm concerned by what kind of citizens we are allowing the hive mind of media to create in the vacuum of once strong community life.
A good friend, author, TED speaker, and mother herself Catherine Price writes here on Substack about screen/life balance. She has written the authoritative and inspiring read "How to Break Up with Your Cell Phone." If you have not subscribed to her stack, go for it. Here is a recent post that was also carried by the New York Times and The Guardian by way of introduction:
https://catherineprice.substack.com/p/how-to-break-up-with-your-phone
Cell phones and social media are not all bad, of course... but they are the most addictive devices and platforms the world has ever seen. Look at me typing away right now when I should be cleaning up the house and getting stuff done!
First, let's define what we mean by social media rather than lumping everything together into one category and trying to call it good or bad. There is a difference between watching instructional videos on YT and using a chat group application. One of the biggest changes I see, is that kids are now connected all the time and this can seriously exacerbate problems like bullying where it follows you 24x7 and you can't get away from it even in your own home.
Second, why do we assume that there is a legislative solution? Even if there is an alleged solution, how is it going to be enforced. So what some state "banned" (liberal's favorite word, I know) it for under X age. How are you going to physically prohibit them from accessing it and how are you going to prevent the myriad of work arounds and unintended consequences that are sure to arise. I will give an example, effective Jan 1, the state of NC mandated age verification for accessing pornographic sites (and when it comes to teens, this is a topic in and of itself). The result, if you are accessing certain popular pornography sites from an ISP that issues you an NC geo-located address the sites refuse access. Unintended consequence that legal consensual adults get blocked. Easily bypassed by use of a VPN or other tactics. For example, I am located in NC by my ISP (Starlink) shows me as coming from Atlanta.
Personally, I would throw this one in with the bathroom and anti-gay laws that the repug(nant) party likes to push, falling somewhere between worthless but feel good and a violation.
China severely limits the amount of time their own children can spend on TikTok each day. But they are happy to have U.S. children spend large numbers of hours on TikTok.
TikTok is Chinese and is gathering data for China. It's been deemed the most dangerous social media in terms of U.S. security.
One of 4 apologized.
Another is run by a megalomaniac.
A third harks back to a foreign power.
Youtube is a "source" for much antivaxxer "research".
Radio Free Europe had nothing on these guys.
As others have posted, there's useful social media and there's dangerous social media. Our anecdote is that our kids seem to know the difference. Neither our daughter (21) or our son (19) has ever had a Facebook or TikTok account. Both have IG accounts that they only use to share funny reels. They don't put up permanent posts, or or "like" or comment on anyone's content. Daughter occasionally posts a story to recruit volunteers for the theater group she belongs to. She also has Snapchat to stay in touch with a couple friends. Son has Discord and Steam accounts that he uses to game with friends, a YouTube account that he uses to watch mostly gamer reaction videos, and a Reddit account he uses to collect funny memes. They both think "likes" and klout are silly (though that's not a word they'd use).
Years ago daughter had a DeviantArt account where she posted Mario Kart fan art she was creating to a community of other fan artists. A group of Japanese boys showed up and tried to bully her and others in the group. I created a patently offensive account where I went after them and posted their IP addresses to draw the attention of the moderators. The mods quickly banned the bullies. I never even got a warning. Daughter lost interest and stopped posting. That's the only bullying incident we've ever experienced.
My partner and I have very candid relationships with our children - we have no doubt they'd let us know if they have any bad experiences on social media. They seem to naturally avoid content that makes them feel bad about themselves or others. My son comes to me several times a day to tell me about things he's come across - this has led to a number of conversations about whether certain content is appropriate. It's led to discussions of topics like politics, world affairs, misogyny, white nationalism, intolerance, etc.
I believe that our experience is more common than media reports designed to elicit emotional responses would have us believe. That said, I'm also convinced that there are children *and adults* that are being harmed through interactions with social media.
IMO the option #4 that Dr. Jetelina outlined in her 05/18/2023 post is a reasonable start - especially the parts about limiting recommendations of harmful or problematic content and limiting targeted advertising - for everyone.
But what I really want to see is MORE content moderation by every social media platform, not less. Absolutely no one has a First Amendment "right" to use social media to lie to, misinform, disinform, grift off of, defraud, or bully other users.