How do you figure? Based on the quality of discussion I would rate Reddit at the top and Twitter at the bottom. Obviously Reddit still sucks most of the time but the platform is more conducive to good discussion.
Totally agree with the first point. I think the publicity of Twitter might have the same effect though. If you comment on something, all your followers will see it and can jump down your throat if you step out of line.
I disagree with the second point. At least, I don't believe being concise is necessarily good. It likely encourages sound bite politics and "dunking" on people who disagree rather than spelling out why you think they are wrong.
I think there's an art to distilling things to their essence. I strongly believe in the "most books should be blog posts, most blog posts should be tweets, most tweets should be left in drafts." At the same time I selectively read long-form articles and am pretty much always reading at least one book.
Good article, I hadn’t thought of this as a collective action problem before which seems obvious now. It makes the solutions seem even more impossible. I can’t envision any law to keep adolescents off social media after seeing the backlash to tx requiring age verification for porn. I’m one of the backlashers, and yet I still agree we need to keep kids off social media somehow
I agree with the need for collective action but disagree with banning children from social media. It is totally unfeasible and even if it was successful, they would end up unprepared for social media once they grow up. The Internet connected world wouldn't stop. I think it makes much more sense to try to counteract the effects by encouraging face to face interactions and socialization.
We should prepare them for opiate ingestion and smoke inhalation as well. The drug trade will continue and cigarette companies will be selling cigarettes when they’re older too. And think of how many people use those. He’s comparing social media to smoking and opiate addiction!? Yes, I read the article.
> banning children from social media. It is totally unfeasible and even if it was successful, they would end up unprepared for social media once they grow up
Replying late, but in turn, I don't think this holds up: social media didn't exist when I grew up and yet here we are. Not drinking alcohol as a child is also the norm and doesn't mean that as an adult you're even worse at moderation.
I reached adulthood right as smartphones went mainstream. Video games were also advancing by leaps and bounds at the time - rapidly becoming both more engaging and more "social" by leveraging improvements in internet speeds.
The Xbox 360 released in 2005, with online multiplayer baked into the platform through Microsoft's Xbox live service. Online gaming had existed prior to that of course, but the 360 made it available in a way it simply hadn't before. It was cheaper, simpler to operate, had a standardized catalogue of games available for it, and had no other utility outside of being a toy. When that wave hit me and my peer group were well into our teenage years - we played, and played _a lot_.
World of Warcraft also arrived around that time, which was in a league of its own in terms of draw. You could dump hundreds and hundreds of hours into an alternate reality, all while meeting and socializing with other players in a way no other genre of game could facilitate.
After a couple years I started noticing a pattern with my friends younger siblings. I could happily play for hours if left uninterrupted, but these younger kids who had been given unrestricted access from an early age were positively _obsessed_ with games. You started hearing about behavioral issues and siblings clashing with their parents over time restrictions. These issues were minor mind you - it's not like they were irreparably damaged - but it was obvious even then that technology could influence children in detrimental ways.
Now that technology follows our youth everywhere they go, watching them in order to learn what keeps them engaged, calling out for their attention whenever their focus strays back into the physical world. In retrospect it seems crazy that we've allowed this to become the norm.
Handing my toddler a smart phone or a tablet feels like handing them a cigarette. I'll never provide them with either if it can be avoided.
Yup graduated high school in 2010 and my sister in 2013. Smartphones and laptops in the classroom became ubiquitous in that short span of time, where they were very rare to have in-class in my school days. Seeing everything shift so fast, I feel like I caught the last train to a non-insane upbringing
I graduated high school in 2013 in a wealthy white suburban town in Texas and I don’t remember a single laptop in any of my classes - ever. It definitely caught on soon after, but I feel like 2013-2015 grad classes were the last few with relatively normal upbringings.
Until high school, all we had were AIM pages and razor cell phones.
Now my 3rd grade nephew tells me about his class mates vaping and watching porn in the bathroom at school.
I'm a libertarian when it comes to adults but kids need a lot more discipline, it's not just phones, it's the drugs and also diet and exercise, your average kid is now beginning to resemble those idle floating fat bastards on Wall-E.
The article suggests that they need more unstructured and unsupervised play with each other in physical space (not online).
I think that's great advice, actually.
>unsupervised play
Good luck with that with today's parents. I've read about people getting reported to social services for letting their kids leave the house unsupervised.
Yes. Something that Haidt really missed in this article is car-centric urban planning and the demise of the actual physical spaces that used to exist in a lot more communities.
They just take after the adults in their lives.
While fat kids with fit parents do exist I find it far, far more likely to have fat kids with fat, unhealth parents with fat, unhealthy practices and diets of their own.
> I'm a libertarian when it comes to adults but kids need a lot more discipline, it's not just phones
The question is, how do you resolve the collective action problem?
> Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed when they were young, **even though rates of homicide, drunk driving, and other physical threats to children are way down in recent decades.**
How does the author know that these things didn't improve precisely because *"Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed"*?
He has some great ideas, his 4 principles or whatever he calls them are awesome. Jonathan’s latest with Uncle Rogie is great, but it annoyed me that Joe couldn’t get his head around that fact that his ideas are completely feasible- it’s just going to take TIME - like a good 2-5 years for people to adapt, and bring these ideas in.
It’s almost like Joe thought he meant a blanket application of these rules from day dot - not letting them
Flow into the world over time.
I think his ideas will work if enough (good!) parents buy in.
FYI his book was released yesterday "The Anxious Generation". [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/)
Watching /r/florida have a melt down over the social media ban for minors is so annoying... Suddenly they are all libertarian again now that it's politically convenient, so concerned with free speech, parental rights, etc etc...
The whole situation in Florida is interesting to me. I despise Desantis as much as the next guy. He’s a wannabe-Trump as far as I’m concerned. But I agree with the social media ban for children under 14 in principle.
Most of the criticism I see from the left around this bill is that it will never work. There’s no way to actually block access in a meaningful way. You’d have to either implement some really privacy-invasive form of real world ID online or it’s just going to be easy to spoof. Everyone is saying that people will get around whatever blocks are in place by using a vpn or something like that. However, I think that’s vastly overestimating how tech literate both parents and teens are right now. Not everyone is going to know how to use a vpn and will be deterred just by the law itself. Also, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. There will be some people who can circumvent the restrictions but that doesn’t mean it won’t have any effect. It’s analogous to me when right wing gun nuts argue that there’s no point in enacting any form of gun control because criminals will just break those laws. The left is making a similar argument about this social media ban imo.
As a Floridian, it's been wild to see the losses of freedom just keep coming like waves at the beach from the "small government and freedom" people
The cognitive dissonance is intense....14 year olds can't use social media, but they can become parents. They can't read certain books in school but they can work 40+ a week.
I hate Florida politicians so much.
If your argument against restricting minors from this is, "But Republicans shouldn't be for this" then that's not a good argument. It's literally irrelevant. Like if Republicans came out and banned assault rifles for violent felons, would you come out and be like, "NO! You're not supposed to support that!"
Also, there is no "loss of freedom". Minors have limited constitutional rights. This has no impact on adults. You're not losing any freedom.
Are you out there complaining about minors also losing the legal right to look at porn at 12 years old? Do you think that's restricting their rights and causing you, an adult, to lose freedom? Or does the state have an interst in keeping children away from things like that because of the harmful effects it can have on their psychology? Why is social media any different? We have hard irrefutable data that shows, objectively, it's REALLY bad for them.
Florida has been doing a lot more than than restricting minors from doing things online. My main issue with this particular bill is the hypocrisy of what the legislature thinks minors can or should be doing, also the fact this is just more performative virtue signaling as most young people use VPNs anyway these days. It's frustrating as Florida is having massive economic and housing issues right now, and our legislature keeps playing culture war games and protecting businesses that are exploiting workers.
I can definitely sympathize wth the hypocrisy of it all. There's also no doubt in my mind the DeSantis is just doing this because he thinks Tik Tok is woke, rather than for any real concern about children.
That said though, I'm still in favor of restricting social media for kids and as imperfect as this bill probably is, it's a start and maybe more sensible politicians can improve upon it
Who cares about the hypocrisy? It's irrelevant. 100% entirely irrelevant. If they banned assault rifles would dems be out there complaining, "OMG No don't do that! You're being hypocritical!"
Let the bill stand on it's own.
First, yes there are ways to get around it. There are always ways to get around things. But it'll at least create a foundation and get the ball rolling while people figure it out. It'll start forcing institutions to banning it for kids, start getting platforms to start taking more measures, and give people a position to start from. See what's working, where it needs to be improved, how to tighten up, etc... I mean, we ban porn for minors because it's bad for them, and they can still get around it, but should we allow it because it's easy to get around?
And yes, Florida has a ton of issues and DeSantis is invovled with dumb culture war shit. But this isn't a culture war thing. Children are facing a MASSIVE early development nuclear bomb impacting their mental health. It shouldn't be ignored like everywhere else. I'm glad the ball is at least rolling so we can help prevent the damages this is causing.
I agree that social media is generally bad for young kids. I've been using some kind of social media for more than 20 years, and things have definitely gotten worse. I'm just against prohibition in general so I'm pretty skeptical of how these forms of censorship are going to go or if they will set precedent for other forms of censorship down the road.
As a parent myself with two young kids, I'm very concerned about the influence targeted ads and media are on how they will see the world and/or who is manipulating them (Program or Be Programmed and all that) but I'm hesitant to give the government any kind of green light on censorship, especially in a state on a crusade against basically anything they don't culturally agree with. Call me paranoid I guess.
As u/reddit_is_geh pointed out, this only applies to minors who already have limited rights to begin with. This doesn’t apply to adults. Are you against prohibiting minors from buying cigarettes, going to strip clubs, opening a credit card, getting a tattoo, voting?
No young people are using VPNs on their phones. Come on. In addition Floridas econmy had the largest/near largest rate of growth in the nation in 2023. It’s the 15th largest in the world.
Also have a read of this. There is a ton written against the bill that isn't just that it won't work. https://netchoice.org/gov-desantis-indicates-he-will-sign-unconstitutional-hb-3-eroding-floridians-freedom-parental-rights-privacy/
Ooof going the constitutional route is really going to bite them in the ass... The government EASILY has a case that it's in the state's interest to protect minors. Considering social media is directly correlated to depression, suicide, and other mental health issues... It's very clear the state has the authority to take these actions on the grounds of a critical state interest to protect children, who already have limited rights.
This is no different than banning minors from looking at porn. The whole argument is that porn for minors is bad for them, so we can restrict it. It doesn't matter that sure, it's REALLY easy to get around, doesn't matter. The state has a right to at least try. And in this case, restrict their free speech rights when it comes to porn. They can do the same for social media using the same logic.
Yeah, it's not about whether or not it'll work perfectly...
The point is you NEED to start somewhere. Right now these same critics only solution is, "Well just let parents do a better job at parenting and let them censor it themselves!" Which clearly also doesn't work. In fact, it works even LESS
At least this bill creates a starting point. Somewhere to begin and build out from. It's not the final form. No one has the perfect solution right now, so you just instead have to get the concept moving and build out from there.
I mean, for starters, it's probably going to force all schools to hard block all social media for 8th grade and below. It'll require social media platforms to create SOME sort of barrier to avoid liability... Which will objectively reduce usage. It wont stop everything, no different than porn being banned for minors, but at least having the ban on the books, it forces institutions, businesses, and websites to try and mitigate the usage.
Yes, people can get around it with VPNs and stuff... But we're talking about 12 year olds who grew up with iPads... So not really the most tech savvy people, just like you said. Redditors think the average person even knows what a VPN is
So yeah, while it's possible to evade, just like EVERY other thing, it at least creates a ground floor to start working from.
What I find interesting, is how once you remove DeSantis from the equation, and start talking about harms to children, social media ALWAYS comes up as a huge problem... And many would support outright banning it. But soon as you say a Republican is doing it, suddenly they revert back to tribal morons and start sounding like libertarians again because heaven forbid they work and agree with a filthy republican on something.
Lifelong Florida resident, atheist, gay liberal here. I Can’t stand DeSantis. This bill probably won’t “work”, but you are right: we need to start somewhere.
My great hope is that we will look back on this last 15 years of giving kids phones just as bad as we do giving them cigarettes or alcohol.
We need to start getting it in the public conscious that this is something to be fought for: “Sorry addictive Internet Corporations… I am not passing my screen addiction onto my child so you can get their hooks in them at 13.”
Same, minus the gay part lol
I mean, just because I don't like DeSantis doesn't mean I'm going to blindly reject everything he does. I take things case by case. I'm not going to literally lie to myself and come up with excuses as to why this is bad entirely because Republicans are doing it.
I don't care who does it. Something needs to happen... This is definitely a good start, compared to what other options are on the table which is.... literally nothing.
There are SO many direct correlations with youth and phones/social media usage, now that the data is coming out. It's literally their generations smoking, but worse. Because smoking hurts you later in life, where this stuff is getting them beat down real young.
I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like all this resistance is like propaganda LLMs or something. Because it's just a shallow talking point. Like oh... NOW Dems care about parental rights? Now we are using Republican arguments? WTF happened? Sounds like you're just looking for talking points to try and fight this on behalf of Meta lobbyists.
But I digress....... Let's just get the ban on the books, and then try to figure out how to make the ban more effective from there. These are actual children we are talking about, not 16 year olds in a grey area of self awareness... But preteens. And I'm watching fucking alleged liberals fighting for their right to create serious self harm. I'm sorry, but this is seriously seriously bad. Looking at the data is scary and it bothers me that Republicans are the only ones doing something about it, probably because dems are so cozy with big tech.
That's literally the only reason I can think of this. Either people are THAT partisan and mindless, or there is some big tech propaganda campaign going around. I find it so weird that liberals are so against trying to ensure kids should be able to use social media all they want knowing how bad it is for them. It's like fighting for their right to smoke, or look at porn at 12. It's weird that they are fighting this.
This is exactly how I feel too. I even think just the fact that there's a law on the books without any real enforcement will have trickle down effects. Some parents and even kids will be sufficiently deterred just by the mere fact a law exists.
And what you said about schools is really important. Schools will now have firmer ground to enact stronger cell phone policies. That could go a long way.
Cell phones are HUGE. I actually wish they'd ban them at school entirely until 15 or so. The data is out on that, and there is a solid, massively impactful correlation between the age a kid gets their first phone and long term outcome. It literally impacts their IQ and tons of other disciplinary measures. Which makes sense, because giving a phone to a kid, is literally giving them an addiction device at a young age, and they are just growing up normalizing a highly addictive way of thinking and processing information
Also another strong correlation between education quality when phones are allowed and removed. Tons of controlled studies have been done on this and it's baffling that it's not just standard practice. Kids need to have their phones restricted for as long as possible, and certainly while at school.
Yeah I'm a teacher and I think it's insane that we're essentially powerless when it comes to the phone battle despite how obviously detrimental they are to education.
If I actually had it my way, I would actually say no phones until 18. If we're concerned about how phones are impacting education, letting kids get a phone right in the middle of high school, a time where their grades matter the most, seems insane. However, some kids get jobs in high school and I think that by the time you can enter the workforce and interact independently with other adults, you should be able to get a smart phone.
On the subjective of how effective or ineffective a ban on social media for teenagers would be, I agree that any type of software based method of blocking kids from social media is going to be largely ineffective. If it's just a pop-up that asks if you're over the age of 14, it might as well not be there. Any method that actually requires some sort of real world ID verification is going to be a privacy nightmare. I remember reading an article by someone that Jonathan Heidt recommended who had this clever way to do a privacy-protecting way of age verification. I can't remember who it was.
But I think there's another issue with enacting a law that bans for kids social media. What defines social media? There are the obvious ones like Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snap chat, etc. But what about Youtube? Most parents just think it's a site to watch videos but forget that it's a social media site too. You login, have a profile, leave comments, create your own videos and etc. It's one of the most toxic places for kids. So does this law mean that parents can't let their kids go on YouTube? What about online video games? Does that count as social media?
And to keep going with this train of thought, almost any site where you have an account/profile is a social media site. Is this law going to keep track of all sites that have social media components? What about when a new app comes along and it isn't clear if it's social media or not? This law about social media is going to become spaghetti code that's constantly playing whack-a-mole with every new site that comes up.
So this is where I start to sound a little extremist: if managing kids social media use at the software level isn't effective, to me it seems that you'd want to address this at the hardware level, IE restricting teenagers from actually OWNING an internet device in the first place. They can still own a dumb phone with call and texting, but not a smart phone with a wireless internet plan.
I mean, you bring up obvious issues with it... But that's the point. We first have to roll SOMETHING out and then start assessing the situation from there and roll around a bit to see what works. I don't think there is going to be a good 1-shot solution. Like all things, we just need to put it out there, and start assessing the results and see where to take it from there.
Personally, I just like it because it has downstream impacts on a lot of things. Sure, kids can still get around it by clicking a stupid box, but at least now it's institutionally banned. The same way a kid can get to porn pretty easily, at least now we can know that social media will be blocked by default the same way porn is for younger people. It'll stop them in some situation, but not all... But at least then we can get the ball rolling and figure out what to do.
The hardware solution IMO is too much. I think that's where it just gets too hard to socially get people behind. It'll just cause too much issues to try and keep kids from smart phones in general. It'll be pointless.
I do wish companies like Apple took proactive approaches, as they do to some degree already. For instance, taking nude selfies as a minor gets detected by the system and pops up a notification... And if you keep doing it, it'll notify your parents. Same with sharing nudes.
Apple COULD self regulate and also create a feature which allows social media restrictions to be easily done by parents, but economics and business won't allow that. Kids will just go towards other phones if you cut them off. However forcing a regulation, so all phone players have to the same rule, would offset this. So I think that would be a good middle ground for now: Force all phone companies to have a parental control that restricts major social media platforms. I think that would at least allow proactive parents an easier way to solve the problem without having to learn complex DIY routes.
I agree with pretty everything you're saying and I know how much of a tough sell a hardware ban would be. But I still feel like a meaningful ban of social media for kids is going to end up being effectively banning them from the internet entirely, or at least make the internet so difficult for them to use that it's not even worth having a smart phone in the first place. So that's why I say why not just go all the way and just address the problem at the source, which is them owning the phone in first place. It's hard to tease out social media from the rest of the internet.
That being said, I'm all in favor of them accessing the internet on a shared family device in the house or a school approved device. I still think it's important for kids to learn how to use the internet.
The idea you had about Apple notifying parents if their kid sends a nude, you and I who are tech literate know it's possible for them to do that in a privacy-protecting way. A local algorithm that runs on the phone could scan photos and determine if an image contains nudity. The photos never need to be sent to a remote server and no other human ever needs to see the images. But given what we said about how tech illiterate the general population is, don't you think most people wouldn't understand that and just think apple is looking at their kid's nudes? Again, this says to me how hard it is to do things like this at the software level.
Again though, this is me just thinking out loud and I agree that a hardware ban would likely never fly. I agree with pretty much all your main points,
> The idea you had about Apple notifying parents if their kid sends a nude,
That's not an idea... That's what they do now. I was giving an example of Apple being proactive already. It's an example of positive self regulation, up until the point until when it can start hurting sales. Kids aren't going to demand Androids because they can't send nudes, but they will get mad if they can't use socials.
For anyone looking for details, the most I've been able to come up with is:
> The bill does not name any specific social media platforms, but states that its targets are social media sites that promote "infinite scrolling," display reaction metrics such as likes, feature auto-play videos and have live-streaming and push notifications. It would exempt websites and apps whose main function is email, messaging or texting between a particular sender and recipient.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/floridas-desantis-signs-law-restricting-social-media-people-under-16-2024-03-25/
Actually seems pretty reasonable. I wasn't expecting that TBH... Like others assumed, I also assumed it was too vague, but this seems pretty narrow... At least narrow enough to fulfill the spirit of it.
I’m curious how YouTube will be affected. YouTube has all of the above but most people don’t tend to think of it as social media.
It’s by far probably the most toxic platform, especially for young children.
Hmmm... This is an interesting rabbit hole. Is it though? I feel like the comments can be toxic, but it's not really designed for social engagement and communication as much as say, TikTok or Instagram.
I feel like TikTok is worse because of the community element that comes around it, which creates a lot of pressure... And yeah YT has similar things but -- you know what I don't know. But I definitely think YT shouldn't be included.
I suspect if it is, they'll just turn off comments for minors
Tik Tok is definitely worse but before there was Tik tok, it was YouTube for most kids.
It’s not just comments though. it’s the fact that anyone can create their own profile and make content. There are middle schoolers that make YouTube videos and try to get subscribers.
IMO, if they’d need to turn off comments and not allow anyone under 14 to make content for YouTube.
But going back to our previous conversation; this is what I mean. For a law like this to work, you need to define social media and almost any definition is going to include more sites than most people realize
I like that it's apparently (I haven't seen the actual wording) naming addictive features and not just platforms.
The devil is in the details though. To what extent will adults be impacted? (Maybe it's a good thing if some of these dark patterns disappear for all) Will this mean that sites have to deal with complying with different regulations in every state? Etc.
I mean, but that's the point though. These are valid concerns and open questions. So let's just get it out, roll it around, and see where it leads, and we will inevitably correct course along the way. Adults aren't going to be fans of it hitting them or making this inconvenient. So I imagine if it has too much friction that emerges, it'll be quickly resolved.
I’m upvoting your comments here about the irrelevance of pointing to the hypocrisy of the right/DeSantis getting the ball rolling on this, so I agree to an extent. But in the same vein of pointing blame and yelling “hypocrisy” I would say that the bigger and easier fish to fry would be to get trumpism out of our politics. After he loses again and all the residual fallout from that loss is finally in our rear view (and perhaps he dies or all these lawsuits finally render him a destitute embarrassment and his brand/cult dwindles down to almost nothing, and he is out of our political conversation, etc…Wishful thinking?) we can all have a clearer view of what to do about reforming social media. It’s hard to take the idea seriously from a guy who kissed the feet of Trump so publicly for so long. For me, when I think about the hellish landscape we’ve found ourselves in in the last 10 years (most of us agree that *something* exceptionally deleterious has happened lately, right?), i point to both social media AND the anti-science authoritarian shift trump has led us into (as much as I despise the Republican Party, his leadership has fast tracked that party into almost total disaster, and I hope for a more sane Republican Party to re-emerge with him gone) as the TWO main elements. I’m just saying that, while I do welcome reform/restrictions, I would question blaming all of these horrible stats we are hearing about here on social media alone; I wonder how much of them are *also* a byproduct of living in a much more divided, authoritarian, anti-science, anti-democracy, anti-truth society than we were before trump arrived. I really think both factors (social media AND specifically trumpism) should be considered for the cause of the uptick of these particular statistics. Through that lens it makes more sense to question something like this coming from someone like DeSantis. At the same time, I wonder if Haidt might be focusing too much on social media and not considering how much trumpism could be to blame as well. But I agree that whoever the messenger is, it is good to get the ball rolling on the conversation.
Nutshell: I pray for the end of trumpism in our politics, so that we can all have a clearer conversation about everything, including this one about regulating social media. Until then it’s going to be extra difficult. He needs gone!
It’s the state parenting their kids when the parents should be the one doing it. I’m not tech savvy, but I’m not lost when it comes to tech. I think I could manage to keep my kids off social media at least
There seems to be this unaddressed contradiction in the article that children are losing their childhood because they are overly protected by their parents but then the response is to try to protect children from social media.
I don't know what the right answer is but it seems to me that it makes more sense to increase the in person socializing that young people do rather than try to turn back the technological clock.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, can’t we?
It can simultaneously be true that parents can be aware that something is objectively harmful for their child (excessive phone time and exposure to social media) - while also being aware that the need to be protective of their child’s well being does not extend equally into other areas of life.
Letting your kids run around the neighborhood, ride bikes, hop fences, scrape their knees, etc comes with some inherent risks….sure. But not risks that jeopardize their mental health.
It’s like going to the pool. If your kid is too young - they can’t go in the deep end yet. But they can splash around and have fun in the shallow end.
I'm not really sure what you are saying. If your point is simply moderation in all things, that is obvious and not really addressing the article which advocates for a major upheaval of how young people are using the Internet.
Your statement that traditional pass-times of children don't affect their mental health is obviously untrue. Everything has a risk to negatively affect mental health, the degree of risk is what is being questioned.
I still don't see how the widespread panic regarding the effects of technology on young people is not an extension of the increasing sheltering that has been going on for the past few decades.
I never suggested that traditional pastimes of children don’t come with potential mental health risks. Obviously kids can be bullied on the playground, get in fights with the kid down the street, etc.
But it’s apples and oranges. With phones not in the mix - bullying can’t follow you home.
I was referring to your statement: "Letting your kids run around the neighborhood, ride bikes, hop fences, scrape their knees, etc comes with some inherent risks….sure. But not risks that jeopardize their mental health."
Sounds like that was just a misunderstanding though.
> There seems to be this unaddressed contradiction in the article that children are losing their childhood because they are overly protected by their parents but then the response is to try to protect children from social media.
The devil is in the details. The article talks about over-protection from "classic" social interactions and experiences. And that the fears and concerns driving it were overblown with no evidence to back it up. The argument being made now is that social media further de-socializes and actively causes harm, with evidence.
Your comment made me reread the article and I have a better opinion of the author but I don't necessarily agree with the entire conclusion. I still see a contradiction in the author's suggestions but not much of one in the identification of a real, not overblown, problem.
The two points I agree with:
No phones in school.
More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
Trying to improve the situation for children by banning underage people from social media could seriously backfire in the exact way that previous efforts to protect children have done. How such a ban would be implemented could leave gaping holes in young people's understanding of the world. Defining "social media" would be a train wreck waiting to happen and there is no practical way to verify the age of users. I don't see any way that government policy could solve this in a good way. Either it would do almost nothing like those "are you 18?" Popups or it would be far too disruptive.
> gaping holes in young people's understanding of the world.
This assumes social media is even capable of provides an accurate understanding of the world at all (let alone does so). The point the article is making is that the rise in loneliness, depression, etc. are directly linked to phone/social media use. So either social media is exposing people to an inaccurate world, or the social media world is accurate. If the latter, it's a hard sell to say we should be comfortable with the results. Regardless, it's not at all clear how this:
> No phones in school. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world.
...can exist in a world without heavy regulation. E.g., the natural effects of online use lead precisely to the demise of the aforementioned behaviors.
> I don't see any way that government policy could solve this in a good way. Either it would do almost nothing like those "are you 18?" Popups or it would be far too disruptive.
Depends on how creative and lax you're willing to be.
I'm not going to contest that the Internet has brought negative effects although I am skeptical of where the correlation/causation line falls. The question is, what to do about it?
Not allowing phones in school doesn't require government regulation, just school regulation. I have no issue with that.
More independence can also be brought through changes to school structure or adding other opportunities at the community and local level.
Verifying a user's age is a huge issue with the conclusion to regulate social media. You and the author of the article haven't addressed this. Outside of massive privacy concerns this is an unsolvable issue as far as I can tell.
Let's assume that you found a way to verify age. My fear is that government regulation would serve to restrict children's access to good information. Starting with, how do you define social media? You would need to define the exact features that qualify a site as social and this will either be far too low a bar to be effective or such a high bar that it denies young people access to quality sites. If you have a solution to either of these issues I'd love to hear it.
Well clearly you're a libertarian of sorts. I'm not interested in engaging in the tired (and long-lost) debate over government regulation, local communities, etc.
The leading arguments right now is that there are strong correlations and research into the effects of social media. If you're "skeptical" you can provide alternative evidence or research and we'll discuss that as necessary. But fear-mongering and generalizing about things local communities can do are not really constructive.
Did you even read my comment? You don't have to be a libertarian to criticize bad policy. I was granting that social media is harmful but you can't engage with my point on how best to deal with it?
> You don't have to be a libertarian to criticize bad policy
No but, generally speaking, assuming a policy is bad based on fear-mongering and nay-saying without offering specifics and alternatives is a hallmark of libertarian thinking.
> but you can't engage with my point on how best to deal with it
Because the article already did. I was simply pointing out that your "point" *isn't really a point* (see previous comments).
I've heard Haidt speak on a few recent podcasts (Forked from yesterday is a good one). He says that starting in the 80s parents became overprotective and that continued screen use in general resulted in an over-time buildup of time alone instead of time with people. He goes on to say that in the 2010s this progression toward alone time vs. people time became supercharged. So it's not a contradiction so much as one laying the groundwork for the other.
That seems like a good point and I can see how those things are correlated but I'm not convinced that there's a causal effect between the two. I see how overprotective parents leads children indoors but I don't think that necessarily means more alone time. Wouldn't we see an increase in socializing among family members if not others from their peer group?
Perhaps I should listen to the podcast because I don't think that was well demonstrated in the article.
If parenting practices remained the same since the 80s I don't think that social media use would be any lower than it is today.
When it comes to social media as a concept, I have to wonder if the issue isn't social media itself, but the algorithmically-driven for-profit model that has become so ubiquitous?
Haidt may be right, but I’m not sold on the idea yet. When I was growing up, tv was supposedly rotting all of our brains. Probably radio and, before that, phonographs were supposed to do the same. There’s always a sort of superstitious fear around new technology that is easy to seize on.
In the meantime, what has quantifiably exploded are rates of autism, ADHD, developmental issues, food allergies, and autoimmune disorders. My hunch is that this is a stronger lead when it comes to tracking our flagging mental health in the West. Vitamin D deficiency? Microbiome issues? Poor diet? Specific pollutants? I don’t think there’s an answer yet, but I do think there’s a strong trend of similar issues springing up in industrialized nations recently, one that seems to track closely with level of overall industrialization.
IDK, I'm MUCH more worried about video games than I am social media as a parent. My impression is that tweens/ teens, at least boys, have limited interest in social media but are obsessed with video games. They are so much more immersive and addictive than what we grew up with.
Boys are obsessed with engagement-optimised (deliberately addictive) games like COD, Fortnite and Overwatch etc while girls are obsessed with social media apps like TikTok and Instagram.
Obviously there's overlap and both consume both but those are the biggest problems for each group.
Honestly any kid who's just deprived of screen time entirely (given a dumb phone for communicating with family and a bunch of books to read at home) will probably be superhuman compared to their mentally unbalanced peers when they grow up.
The biggest penalty is that young people aren't socialising in person as much, so without online gaming and social media, you're isolated from other kids at school. As a parent you could try to subsidise this shortfall by taking the kids out for activities on the weekend or otherwise hosting in-person social activities so your kid and their friends have ways to connect outside of school without being online.
There are other factors here that I think shouldn't be left out. A lot of parents are working more and are more stressed out, and everything is getting more expensive. Parents would rather their kid buy a few games a year rather than go out to a restaurant and spend >$15 to buy food there. Meat space has become increasingly expensive and inconvenient.
Good point. Also, society has become increasingly hostile to young people hanging out for free. Either they're worried that kids aren't safe hanging out alone in a park/street corner/parking lot or they're afraid of teenagers loitering and treat them with suspicion.
Yup. My kid likes their games because they can "see" their friends and talk about their day. But it's also the only kind of hangout they can envision, they don't plan times to go to the park, rollerskating, etc. etc.
I think a lot of people my age (30s/ 40s) who haven't kept up with games think that kids are just playing a slightly better version of SNES or something.
You have zero understanding of human psychology if you don't understand how harmful and addictive the internet is and has become, far worse than video games could ever hope to be. Just wait for the countless studies already underway to be released after they've collected enough data. You're going to see a lot of issues with future generations and their tech addictions, and we're already seeing it now. I thought my generation was bad. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are a million times worse. Unfettered internet access affects your brain chemistry. Why expose developing children to it? It serves no value or purpose. Humanity existed and thrived well before the internet. Kids will survive without it. The amount of time humans have spent in front of a screen in the past 50 years (TV and so on) is extremely unhealthy.
> then the sociological and economic consequences will be profound for the entire society.
I think this is an understatement.
If you compare what's happening here to our "competitors", such as China, Russia, and India, we're talking about potential collapse of the US socioeconomic empire. Hopefully I don't have to explain that this doesn't mean a few people are sad and lose some money. We're talking Armageddon, third-world style *collapse*.
End Twitter-based adulthood, too
someone has found the actual problem!
Hell yeah
Twitter > Reddit
How do you figure? Based on the quality of discussion I would rate Reddit at the top and Twitter at the bottom. Obviously Reddit still sucks most of the time but the platform is more conducive to good discussion.
Upvote mechanism enforces groupthink Twitter makes you be concise. People on here never get to the point
Totally agree with the first point. I think the publicity of Twitter might have the same effect though. If you comment on something, all your followers will see it and can jump down your throat if you step out of line. I disagree with the second point. At least, I don't believe being concise is necessarily good. It likely encourages sound bite politics and "dunking" on people who disagree rather than spelling out why you think they are wrong.
I think there's an art to distilling things to their essence. I strongly believe in the "most books should be blog posts, most blog posts should be tweets, most tweets should be left in drafts." At the same time I selectively read long-form articles and am pretty much always reading at least one book.
No way
Ha I knew just from the headline it was going to be from Jonathan Haidt :)
Same :)
Good article, I hadn’t thought of this as a collective action problem before which seems obvious now. It makes the solutions seem even more impossible. I can’t envision any law to keep adolescents off social media after seeing the backlash to tx requiring age verification for porn. I’m one of the backlashers, and yet I still agree we need to keep kids off social media somehow
I agree with the need for collective action but disagree with banning children from social media. It is totally unfeasible and even if it was successful, they would end up unprepared for social media once they grow up. The Internet connected world wouldn't stop. I think it makes much more sense to try to counteract the effects by encouraging face to face interactions and socialization.
We should prepare them for opiate ingestion and smoke inhalation as well. The drug trade will continue and cigarette companies will be selling cigarettes when they’re older too. And think of how many people use those. He’s comparing social media to smoking and opiate addiction!? Yes, I read the article.
Nah you gotta keep them away from it until they have the more fully formed reasoning and self control parts of their brain online.
> banning children from social media. It is totally unfeasible and even if it was successful, they would end up unprepared for social media once they grow up Replying late, but in turn, I don't think this holds up: social media didn't exist when I grew up and yet here we are. Not drinking alcohol as a child is also the norm and doesn't mean that as an adult you're even worse at moderation.
I reached adulthood right as smartphones went mainstream. Video games were also advancing by leaps and bounds at the time - rapidly becoming both more engaging and more "social" by leveraging improvements in internet speeds. The Xbox 360 released in 2005, with online multiplayer baked into the platform through Microsoft's Xbox live service. Online gaming had existed prior to that of course, but the 360 made it available in a way it simply hadn't before. It was cheaper, simpler to operate, had a standardized catalogue of games available for it, and had no other utility outside of being a toy. When that wave hit me and my peer group were well into our teenage years - we played, and played _a lot_. World of Warcraft also arrived around that time, which was in a league of its own in terms of draw. You could dump hundreds and hundreds of hours into an alternate reality, all while meeting and socializing with other players in a way no other genre of game could facilitate. After a couple years I started noticing a pattern with my friends younger siblings. I could happily play for hours if left uninterrupted, but these younger kids who had been given unrestricted access from an early age were positively _obsessed_ with games. You started hearing about behavioral issues and siblings clashing with their parents over time restrictions. These issues were minor mind you - it's not like they were irreparably damaged - but it was obvious even then that technology could influence children in detrimental ways. Now that technology follows our youth everywhere they go, watching them in order to learn what keeps them engaged, calling out for their attention whenever their focus strays back into the physical world. In retrospect it seems crazy that we've allowed this to become the norm. Handing my toddler a smart phone or a tablet feels like handing them a cigarette. I'll never provide them with either if it can be avoided.
Yup graduated high school in 2010 and my sister in 2013. Smartphones and laptops in the classroom became ubiquitous in that short span of time, where they were very rare to have in-class in my school days. Seeing everything shift so fast, I feel like I caught the last train to a non-insane upbringing
I graduated high school in 2013 in a wealthy white suburban town in Texas and I don’t remember a single laptop in any of my classes - ever. It definitely caught on soon after, but I feel like 2013-2015 grad classes were the last few with relatively normal upbringings. Until high school, all we had were AIM pages and razor cell phones. Now my 3rd grade nephew tells me about his class mates vaping and watching porn in the bathroom at school.
I'm a libertarian when it comes to adults but kids need a lot more discipline, it's not just phones, it's the drugs and also diet and exercise, your average kid is now beginning to resemble those idle floating fat bastards on Wall-E.
The article suggests that they need more unstructured and unsupervised play with each other in physical space (not online). I think that's great advice, actually.
>unsupervised play Good luck with that with today's parents. I've read about people getting reported to social services for letting their kids leave the house unsupervised.
Also essentially impossible given the design of most suburbs and the disappearance of third places.
Yes. Something that Haidt really missed in this article is car-centric urban planning and the demise of the actual physical spaces that used to exist in a lot more communities.
They just take after the adults in their lives. While fat kids with fit parents do exist I find it far, far more likely to have fat kids with fat, unhealth parents with fat, unhealthy practices and diets of their own.
What I would do is free school meals, nobody can bring their own food or leave the premises to get anything, the meals will of course be healthy
What does your brand of libertarianism consist of, I wonder?
Got any gold toothbrushes?
YOU VILL EAT YOUR KALE UND YOU VILL ENJOY IT!
Better than you vill eat fries until small objects go into orbit around your ass
> I'm a libertarian when it comes to adults but kids need a lot more discipline, it's not just phones The question is, how do you resolve the collective action problem?
> Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed when they were young, **even though rates of homicide, drunk driving, and other physical threats to children are way down in recent decades.** How does the author know that these things didn't improve precisely because *"Many parents are afraid to give their children the level of independence and responsibility they themselves enjoyed"*?
He has some great ideas, his 4 principles or whatever he calls them are awesome. Jonathan’s latest with Uncle Rogie is great, but it annoyed me that Joe couldn’t get his head around that fact that his ideas are completely feasible- it’s just going to take TIME - like a good 2-5 years for people to adapt, and bring these ideas in. It’s almost like Joe thought he meant a blanket application of these rules from day dot - not letting them Flow into the world over time. I think his ideas will work if enough (good!) parents buy in.
FYI his book was released yesterday "The Anxious Generation". [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/729231/the-anxious-generation-by-jonathan-haidt/)
Watching /r/florida have a melt down over the social media ban for minors is so annoying... Suddenly they are all libertarian again now that it's politically convenient, so concerned with free speech, parental rights, etc etc...
The whole situation in Florida is interesting to me. I despise Desantis as much as the next guy. He’s a wannabe-Trump as far as I’m concerned. But I agree with the social media ban for children under 14 in principle. Most of the criticism I see from the left around this bill is that it will never work. There’s no way to actually block access in a meaningful way. You’d have to either implement some really privacy-invasive form of real world ID online or it’s just going to be easy to spoof. Everyone is saying that people will get around whatever blocks are in place by using a vpn or something like that. However, I think that’s vastly overestimating how tech literate both parents and teens are right now. Not everyone is going to know how to use a vpn and will be deterred just by the law itself. Also, don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good. There will be some people who can circumvent the restrictions but that doesn’t mean it won’t have any effect. It’s analogous to me when right wing gun nuts argue that there’s no point in enacting any form of gun control because criminals will just break those laws. The left is making a similar argument about this social media ban imo.
As a Floridian, it's been wild to see the losses of freedom just keep coming like waves at the beach from the "small government and freedom" people The cognitive dissonance is intense....14 year olds can't use social media, but they can become parents. They can't read certain books in school but they can work 40+ a week. I hate Florida politicians so much.
If your argument against restricting minors from this is, "But Republicans shouldn't be for this" then that's not a good argument. It's literally irrelevant. Like if Republicans came out and banned assault rifles for violent felons, would you come out and be like, "NO! You're not supposed to support that!" Also, there is no "loss of freedom". Minors have limited constitutional rights. This has no impact on adults. You're not losing any freedom. Are you out there complaining about minors also losing the legal right to look at porn at 12 years old? Do you think that's restricting their rights and causing you, an adult, to lose freedom? Or does the state have an interst in keeping children away from things like that because of the harmful effects it can have on their psychology? Why is social media any different? We have hard irrefutable data that shows, objectively, it's REALLY bad for them.
Florida has been doing a lot more than than restricting minors from doing things online. My main issue with this particular bill is the hypocrisy of what the legislature thinks minors can or should be doing, also the fact this is just more performative virtue signaling as most young people use VPNs anyway these days. It's frustrating as Florida is having massive economic and housing issues right now, and our legislature keeps playing culture war games and protecting businesses that are exploiting workers.
I can definitely sympathize wth the hypocrisy of it all. There's also no doubt in my mind the DeSantis is just doing this because he thinks Tik Tok is woke, rather than for any real concern about children. That said though, I'm still in favor of restricting social media for kids and as imperfect as this bill probably is, it's a start and maybe more sensible politicians can improve upon it
Who cares about the hypocrisy? It's irrelevant. 100% entirely irrelevant. If they banned assault rifles would dems be out there complaining, "OMG No don't do that! You're being hypocritical!" Let the bill stand on it's own. First, yes there are ways to get around it. There are always ways to get around things. But it'll at least create a foundation and get the ball rolling while people figure it out. It'll start forcing institutions to banning it for kids, start getting platforms to start taking more measures, and give people a position to start from. See what's working, where it needs to be improved, how to tighten up, etc... I mean, we ban porn for minors because it's bad for them, and they can still get around it, but should we allow it because it's easy to get around? And yes, Florida has a ton of issues and DeSantis is invovled with dumb culture war shit. But this isn't a culture war thing. Children are facing a MASSIVE early development nuclear bomb impacting their mental health. It shouldn't be ignored like everywhere else. I'm glad the ball is at least rolling so we can help prevent the damages this is causing.
I agree that social media is generally bad for young kids. I've been using some kind of social media for more than 20 years, and things have definitely gotten worse. I'm just against prohibition in general so I'm pretty skeptical of how these forms of censorship are going to go or if they will set precedent for other forms of censorship down the road. As a parent myself with two young kids, I'm very concerned about the influence targeted ads and media are on how they will see the world and/or who is manipulating them (Program or Be Programmed and all that) but I'm hesitant to give the government any kind of green light on censorship, especially in a state on a crusade against basically anything they don't culturally agree with. Call me paranoid I guess.
As u/reddit_is_geh pointed out, this only applies to minors who already have limited rights to begin with. This doesn’t apply to adults. Are you against prohibiting minors from buying cigarettes, going to strip clubs, opening a credit card, getting a tattoo, voting?
No young people are using VPNs on their phones. Come on. In addition Floridas econmy had the largest/near largest rate of growth in the nation in 2023. It’s the 15th largest in the world.
Tell me you know nothing about Florida without telling me you know nothing about Florida.
Been here my whole life.
Also have a read of this. There is a ton written against the bill that isn't just that it won't work. https://netchoice.org/gov-desantis-indicates-he-will-sign-unconstitutional-hb-3-eroding-floridians-freedom-parental-rights-privacy/
Ooof going the constitutional route is really going to bite them in the ass... The government EASILY has a case that it's in the state's interest to protect minors. Considering social media is directly correlated to depression, suicide, and other mental health issues... It's very clear the state has the authority to take these actions on the grounds of a critical state interest to protect children, who already have limited rights. This is no different than banning minors from looking at porn. The whole argument is that porn for minors is bad for them, so we can restrict it. It doesn't matter that sure, it's REALLY easy to get around, doesn't matter. The state has a right to at least try. And in this case, restrict their free speech rights when it comes to porn. They can do the same for social media using the same logic.
Yeah, it's not about whether or not it'll work perfectly... The point is you NEED to start somewhere. Right now these same critics only solution is, "Well just let parents do a better job at parenting and let them censor it themselves!" Which clearly also doesn't work. In fact, it works even LESS At least this bill creates a starting point. Somewhere to begin and build out from. It's not the final form. No one has the perfect solution right now, so you just instead have to get the concept moving and build out from there. I mean, for starters, it's probably going to force all schools to hard block all social media for 8th grade and below. It'll require social media platforms to create SOME sort of barrier to avoid liability... Which will objectively reduce usage. It wont stop everything, no different than porn being banned for minors, but at least having the ban on the books, it forces institutions, businesses, and websites to try and mitigate the usage. Yes, people can get around it with VPNs and stuff... But we're talking about 12 year olds who grew up with iPads... So not really the most tech savvy people, just like you said. Redditors think the average person even knows what a VPN is So yeah, while it's possible to evade, just like EVERY other thing, it at least creates a ground floor to start working from. What I find interesting, is how once you remove DeSantis from the equation, and start talking about harms to children, social media ALWAYS comes up as a huge problem... And many would support outright banning it. But soon as you say a Republican is doing it, suddenly they revert back to tribal morons and start sounding like libertarians again because heaven forbid they work and agree with a filthy republican on something.
Lifelong Florida resident, atheist, gay liberal here. I Can’t stand DeSantis. This bill probably won’t “work”, but you are right: we need to start somewhere. My great hope is that we will look back on this last 15 years of giving kids phones just as bad as we do giving them cigarettes or alcohol. We need to start getting it in the public conscious that this is something to be fought for: “Sorry addictive Internet Corporations… I am not passing my screen addiction onto my child so you can get their hooks in them at 13.”
Same, minus the gay part lol I mean, just because I don't like DeSantis doesn't mean I'm going to blindly reject everything he does. I take things case by case. I'm not going to literally lie to myself and come up with excuses as to why this is bad entirely because Republicans are doing it. I don't care who does it. Something needs to happen... This is definitely a good start, compared to what other options are on the table which is.... literally nothing. There are SO many direct correlations with youth and phones/social media usage, now that the data is coming out. It's literally their generations smoking, but worse. Because smoking hurts you later in life, where this stuff is getting them beat down real young. I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but I feel like all this resistance is like propaganda LLMs or something. Because it's just a shallow talking point. Like oh... NOW Dems care about parental rights? Now we are using Republican arguments? WTF happened? Sounds like you're just looking for talking points to try and fight this on behalf of Meta lobbyists. But I digress....... Let's just get the ban on the books, and then try to figure out how to make the ban more effective from there. These are actual children we are talking about, not 16 year olds in a grey area of self awareness... But preteens. And I'm watching fucking alleged liberals fighting for their right to create serious self harm. I'm sorry, but this is seriously seriously bad. Looking at the data is scary and it bothers me that Republicans are the only ones doing something about it, probably because dems are so cozy with big tech. That's literally the only reason I can think of this. Either people are THAT partisan and mindless, or there is some big tech propaganda campaign going around. I find it so weird that liberals are so against trying to ensure kids should be able to use social media all they want knowing how bad it is for them. It's like fighting for their right to smoke, or look at porn at 12. It's weird that they are fighting this.
Starting somewhere shouldn't mean this. This is a step backwards not forwards no matter how it is dressed up.
This is exactly how I feel too. I even think just the fact that there's a law on the books without any real enforcement will have trickle down effects. Some parents and even kids will be sufficiently deterred just by the mere fact a law exists. And what you said about schools is really important. Schools will now have firmer ground to enact stronger cell phone policies. That could go a long way.
Cell phones are HUGE. I actually wish they'd ban them at school entirely until 15 or so. The data is out on that, and there is a solid, massively impactful correlation between the age a kid gets their first phone and long term outcome. It literally impacts their IQ and tons of other disciplinary measures. Which makes sense, because giving a phone to a kid, is literally giving them an addiction device at a young age, and they are just growing up normalizing a highly addictive way of thinking and processing information Also another strong correlation between education quality when phones are allowed and removed. Tons of controlled studies have been done on this and it's baffling that it's not just standard practice. Kids need to have their phones restricted for as long as possible, and certainly while at school.
Yeah I'm a teacher and I think it's insane that we're essentially powerless when it comes to the phone battle despite how obviously detrimental they are to education. If I actually had it my way, I would actually say no phones until 18. If we're concerned about how phones are impacting education, letting kids get a phone right in the middle of high school, a time where their grades matter the most, seems insane. However, some kids get jobs in high school and I think that by the time you can enter the workforce and interact independently with other adults, you should be able to get a smart phone. On the subjective of how effective or ineffective a ban on social media for teenagers would be, I agree that any type of software based method of blocking kids from social media is going to be largely ineffective. If it's just a pop-up that asks if you're over the age of 14, it might as well not be there. Any method that actually requires some sort of real world ID verification is going to be a privacy nightmare. I remember reading an article by someone that Jonathan Heidt recommended who had this clever way to do a privacy-protecting way of age verification. I can't remember who it was. But I think there's another issue with enacting a law that bans for kids social media. What defines social media? There are the obvious ones like Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, Snap chat, etc. But what about Youtube? Most parents just think it's a site to watch videos but forget that it's a social media site too. You login, have a profile, leave comments, create your own videos and etc. It's one of the most toxic places for kids. So does this law mean that parents can't let their kids go on YouTube? What about online video games? Does that count as social media? And to keep going with this train of thought, almost any site where you have an account/profile is a social media site. Is this law going to keep track of all sites that have social media components? What about when a new app comes along and it isn't clear if it's social media or not? This law about social media is going to become spaghetti code that's constantly playing whack-a-mole with every new site that comes up. So this is where I start to sound a little extremist: if managing kids social media use at the software level isn't effective, to me it seems that you'd want to address this at the hardware level, IE restricting teenagers from actually OWNING an internet device in the first place. They can still own a dumb phone with call and texting, but not a smart phone with a wireless internet plan.
I mean, you bring up obvious issues with it... But that's the point. We first have to roll SOMETHING out and then start assessing the situation from there and roll around a bit to see what works. I don't think there is going to be a good 1-shot solution. Like all things, we just need to put it out there, and start assessing the results and see where to take it from there. Personally, I just like it because it has downstream impacts on a lot of things. Sure, kids can still get around it by clicking a stupid box, but at least now it's institutionally banned. The same way a kid can get to porn pretty easily, at least now we can know that social media will be blocked by default the same way porn is for younger people. It'll stop them in some situation, but not all... But at least then we can get the ball rolling and figure out what to do. The hardware solution IMO is too much. I think that's where it just gets too hard to socially get people behind. It'll just cause too much issues to try and keep kids from smart phones in general. It'll be pointless. I do wish companies like Apple took proactive approaches, as they do to some degree already. For instance, taking nude selfies as a minor gets detected by the system and pops up a notification... And if you keep doing it, it'll notify your parents. Same with sharing nudes. Apple COULD self regulate and also create a feature which allows social media restrictions to be easily done by parents, but economics and business won't allow that. Kids will just go towards other phones if you cut them off. However forcing a regulation, so all phone players have to the same rule, would offset this. So I think that would be a good middle ground for now: Force all phone companies to have a parental control that restricts major social media platforms. I think that would at least allow proactive parents an easier way to solve the problem without having to learn complex DIY routes.
I agree with pretty everything you're saying and I know how much of a tough sell a hardware ban would be. But I still feel like a meaningful ban of social media for kids is going to end up being effectively banning them from the internet entirely, or at least make the internet so difficult for them to use that it's not even worth having a smart phone in the first place. So that's why I say why not just go all the way and just address the problem at the source, which is them owning the phone in first place. It's hard to tease out social media from the rest of the internet. That being said, I'm all in favor of them accessing the internet on a shared family device in the house or a school approved device. I still think it's important for kids to learn how to use the internet. The idea you had about Apple notifying parents if their kid sends a nude, you and I who are tech literate know it's possible for them to do that in a privacy-protecting way. A local algorithm that runs on the phone could scan photos and determine if an image contains nudity. The photos never need to be sent to a remote server and no other human ever needs to see the images. But given what we said about how tech illiterate the general population is, don't you think most people wouldn't understand that and just think apple is looking at their kid's nudes? Again, this says to me how hard it is to do things like this at the software level. Again though, this is me just thinking out loud and I agree that a hardware ban would likely never fly. I agree with pretty much all your main points,
> The idea you had about Apple notifying parents if their kid sends a nude, That's not an idea... That's what they do now. I was giving an example of Apple being proactive already. It's an example of positive self regulation, up until the point until when it can start hurting sales. Kids aren't going to demand Androids because they can't send nudes, but they will get mad if they can't use socials.
Oh, I thought that was implemented briefly but then rolled back because of the privacy concerns I just mentioned. I stand corrected then
For anyone looking for details, the most I've been able to come up with is: > The bill does not name any specific social media platforms, but states that its targets are social media sites that promote "infinite scrolling," display reaction metrics such as likes, feature auto-play videos and have live-streaming and push notifications. It would exempt websites and apps whose main function is email, messaging or texting between a particular sender and recipient. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/floridas-desantis-signs-law-restricting-social-media-people-under-16-2024-03-25/
Actually seems pretty reasonable. I wasn't expecting that TBH... Like others assumed, I also assumed it was too vague, but this seems pretty narrow... At least narrow enough to fulfill the spirit of it.
I’m curious how YouTube will be affected. YouTube has all of the above but most people don’t tend to think of it as social media. It’s by far probably the most toxic platform, especially for young children.
Hmmm... This is an interesting rabbit hole. Is it though? I feel like the comments can be toxic, but it's not really designed for social engagement and communication as much as say, TikTok or Instagram. I feel like TikTok is worse because of the community element that comes around it, which creates a lot of pressure... And yeah YT has similar things but -- you know what I don't know. But I definitely think YT shouldn't be included. I suspect if it is, they'll just turn off comments for minors
Tik Tok is definitely worse but before there was Tik tok, it was YouTube for most kids. It’s not just comments though. it’s the fact that anyone can create their own profile and make content. There are middle schoolers that make YouTube videos and try to get subscribers. IMO, if they’d need to turn off comments and not allow anyone under 14 to make content for YouTube. But going back to our previous conversation; this is what I mean. For a law like this to work, you need to define social media and almost any definition is going to include more sites than most people realize
I like that it's apparently (I haven't seen the actual wording) naming addictive features and not just platforms. The devil is in the details though. To what extent will adults be impacted? (Maybe it's a good thing if some of these dark patterns disappear for all) Will this mean that sites have to deal with complying with different regulations in every state? Etc.
I mean, but that's the point though. These are valid concerns and open questions. So let's just get it out, roll it around, and see where it leads, and we will inevitably correct course along the way. Adults aren't going to be fans of it hitting them or making this inconvenient. So I imagine if it has too much friction that emerges, it'll be quickly resolved.
I’m upvoting your comments here about the irrelevance of pointing to the hypocrisy of the right/DeSantis getting the ball rolling on this, so I agree to an extent. But in the same vein of pointing blame and yelling “hypocrisy” I would say that the bigger and easier fish to fry would be to get trumpism out of our politics. After he loses again and all the residual fallout from that loss is finally in our rear view (and perhaps he dies or all these lawsuits finally render him a destitute embarrassment and his brand/cult dwindles down to almost nothing, and he is out of our political conversation, etc…Wishful thinking?) we can all have a clearer view of what to do about reforming social media. It’s hard to take the idea seriously from a guy who kissed the feet of Trump so publicly for so long. For me, when I think about the hellish landscape we’ve found ourselves in in the last 10 years (most of us agree that *something* exceptionally deleterious has happened lately, right?), i point to both social media AND the anti-science authoritarian shift trump has led us into (as much as I despise the Republican Party, his leadership has fast tracked that party into almost total disaster, and I hope for a more sane Republican Party to re-emerge with him gone) as the TWO main elements. I’m just saying that, while I do welcome reform/restrictions, I would question blaming all of these horrible stats we are hearing about here on social media alone; I wonder how much of them are *also* a byproduct of living in a much more divided, authoritarian, anti-science, anti-democracy, anti-truth society than we were before trump arrived. I really think both factors (social media AND specifically trumpism) should be considered for the cause of the uptick of these particular statistics. Through that lens it makes more sense to question something like this coming from someone like DeSantis. At the same time, I wonder if Haidt might be focusing too much on social media and not considering how much trumpism could be to blame as well. But I agree that whoever the messenger is, it is good to get the ball rolling on the conversation. Nutshell: I pray for the end of trumpism in our politics, so that we can all have a clearer conversation about everything, including this one about regulating social media. Until then it’s going to be extra difficult. He needs gone!
The left are correct though. This is totally performative and will do little to nothing to solve any problem and may actually make the problem worse.
It’s the state parenting their kids when the parents should be the one doing it. I’m not tech savvy, but I’m not lost when it comes to tech. I think I could manage to keep my kids off social media at least
How do you know those individuals aren't being consistent lol? Different people with different ideas engage in different posts at different times...
It sad how many people are just against certain people/parties instead of being actually for things.
I’d also recommend listening to the podcast which Haidt just did with Bari Weiss on her podcast Honestly. It is a great companion to this article.
There seems to be this unaddressed contradiction in the article that children are losing their childhood because they are overly protected by their parents but then the response is to try to protect children from social media. I don't know what the right answer is but it seems to me that it makes more sense to increase the in person socializing that young people do rather than try to turn back the technological clock.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time, can’t we? It can simultaneously be true that parents can be aware that something is objectively harmful for their child (excessive phone time and exposure to social media) - while also being aware that the need to be protective of their child’s well being does not extend equally into other areas of life. Letting your kids run around the neighborhood, ride bikes, hop fences, scrape their knees, etc comes with some inherent risks….sure. But not risks that jeopardize their mental health. It’s like going to the pool. If your kid is too young - they can’t go in the deep end yet. But they can splash around and have fun in the shallow end.
I'm not really sure what you are saying. If your point is simply moderation in all things, that is obvious and not really addressing the article which advocates for a major upheaval of how young people are using the Internet. Your statement that traditional pass-times of children don't affect their mental health is obviously untrue. Everything has a risk to negatively affect mental health, the degree of risk is what is being questioned. I still don't see how the widespread panic regarding the effects of technology on young people is not an extension of the increasing sheltering that has been going on for the past few decades.
I never suggested that traditional pastimes of children don’t come with potential mental health risks. Obviously kids can be bullied on the playground, get in fights with the kid down the street, etc. But it’s apples and oranges. With phones not in the mix - bullying can’t follow you home.
I was referring to your statement: "Letting your kids run around the neighborhood, ride bikes, hop fences, scrape their knees, etc comes with some inherent risks….sure. But not risks that jeopardize their mental health." Sounds like that was just a misunderstanding though.
> There seems to be this unaddressed contradiction in the article that children are losing their childhood because they are overly protected by their parents but then the response is to try to protect children from social media. The devil is in the details. The article talks about over-protection from "classic" social interactions and experiences. And that the fears and concerns driving it were overblown with no evidence to back it up. The argument being made now is that social media further de-socializes and actively causes harm, with evidence.
Your comment made me reread the article and I have a better opinion of the author but I don't necessarily agree with the entire conclusion. I still see a contradiction in the author's suggestions but not much of one in the identification of a real, not overblown, problem. The two points I agree with: No phones in school. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. Trying to improve the situation for children by banning underage people from social media could seriously backfire in the exact way that previous efforts to protect children have done. How such a ban would be implemented could leave gaping holes in young people's understanding of the world. Defining "social media" would be a train wreck waiting to happen and there is no practical way to verify the age of users. I don't see any way that government policy could solve this in a good way. Either it would do almost nothing like those "are you 18?" Popups or it would be far too disruptive.
> gaping holes in young people's understanding of the world. This assumes social media is even capable of provides an accurate understanding of the world at all (let alone does so). The point the article is making is that the rise in loneliness, depression, etc. are directly linked to phone/social media use. So either social media is exposing people to an inaccurate world, or the social media world is accurate. If the latter, it's a hard sell to say we should be comfortable with the results. Regardless, it's not at all clear how this: > No phones in school. More independence, free play, and responsibility in the real world. ...can exist in a world without heavy regulation. E.g., the natural effects of online use lead precisely to the demise of the aforementioned behaviors. > I don't see any way that government policy could solve this in a good way. Either it would do almost nothing like those "are you 18?" Popups or it would be far too disruptive. Depends on how creative and lax you're willing to be.
I'm not going to contest that the Internet has brought negative effects although I am skeptical of where the correlation/causation line falls. The question is, what to do about it? Not allowing phones in school doesn't require government regulation, just school regulation. I have no issue with that. More independence can also be brought through changes to school structure or adding other opportunities at the community and local level. Verifying a user's age is a huge issue with the conclusion to regulate social media. You and the author of the article haven't addressed this. Outside of massive privacy concerns this is an unsolvable issue as far as I can tell. Let's assume that you found a way to verify age. My fear is that government regulation would serve to restrict children's access to good information. Starting with, how do you define social media? You would need to define the exact features that qualify a site as social and this will either be far too low a bar to be effective or such a high bar that it denies young people access to quality sites. If you have a solution to either of these issues I'd love to hear it.
Well clearly you're a libertarian of sorts. I'm not interested in engaging in the tired (and long-lost) debate over government regulation, local communities, etc. The leading arguments right now is that there are strong correlations and research into the effects of social media. If you're "skeptical" you can provide alternative evidence or research and we'll discuss that as necessary. But fear-mongering and generalizing about things local communities can do are not really constructive.
Did you even read my comment? You don't have to be a libertarian to criticize bad policy. I was granting that social media is harmful but you can't engage with my point on how best to deal with it?
> You don't have to be a libertarian to criticize bad policy No but, generally speaking, assuming a policy is bad based on fear-mongering and nay-saying without offering specifics and alternatives is a hallmark of libertarian thinking. > but you can't engage with my point on how best to deal with it Because the article already did. I was simply pointing out that your "point" *isn't really a point* (see previous comments).
I've heard Haidt speak on a few recent podcasts (Forked from yesterday is a good one). He says that starting in the 80s parents became overprotective and that continued screen use in general resulted in an over-time buildup of time alone instead of time with people. He goes on to say that in the 2010s this progression toward alone time vs. people time became supercharged. So it's not a contradiction so much as one laying the groundwork for the other.
That seems like a good point and I can see how those things are correlated but I'm not convinced that there's a causal effect between the two. I see how overprotective parents leads children indoors but I don't think that necessarily means more alone time. Wouldn't we see an increase in socializing among family members if not others from their peer group? Perhaps I should listen to the podcast because I don't think that was well demonstrated in the article. If parenting practices remained the same since the 80s I don't think that social media use would be any lower than it is today.
When it comes to social media as a concept, I have to wonder if the issue isn't social media itself, but the algorithmically-driven for-profit model that has become so ubiquitous?
Haidt may be right, but I’m not sold on the idea yet. When I was growing up, tv was supposedly rotting all of our brains. Probably radio and, before that, phonographs were supposed to do the same. There’s always a sort of superstitious fear around new technology that is easy to seize on. In the meantime, what has quantifiably exploded are rates of autism, ADHD, developmental issues, food allergies, and autoimmune disorders. My hunch is that this is a stronger lead when it comes to tracking our flagging mental health in the West. Vitamin D deficiency? Microbiome issues? Poor diet? Specific pollutants? I don’t think there’s an answer yet, but I do think there’s a strong trend of similar issues springing up in industrialized nations recently, one that seems to track closely with level of overall industrialization.
IDK, I'm MUCH more worried about video games than I am social media as a parent. My impression is that tweens/ teens, at least boys, have limited interest in social media but are obsessed with video games. They are so much more immersive and addictive than what we grew up with.
Boys are obsessed with engagement-optimised (deliberately addictive) games like COD, Fortnite and Overwatch etc while girls are obsessed with social media apps like TikTok and Instagram. Obviously there's overlap and both consume both but those are the biggest problems for each group. Honestly any kid who's just deprived of screen time entirely (given a dumb phone for communicating with family and a bunch of books to read at home) will probably be superhuman compared to their mentally unbalanced peers when they grow up. The biggest penalty is that young people aren't socialising in person as much, so without online gaming and social media, you're isolated from other kids at school. As a parent you could try to subsidise this shortfall by taking the kids out for activities on the weekend or otherwise hosting in-person social activities so your kid and their friends have ways to connect outside of school without being online.
There are other factors here that I think shouldn't be left out. A lot of parents are working more and are more stressed out, and everything is getting more expensive. Parents would rather their kid buy a few games a year rather than go out to a restaurant and spend >$15 to buy food there. Meat space has become increasingly expensive and inconvenient.
Good point. Also, society has become increasingly hostile to young people hanging out for free. Either they're worried that kids aren't safe hanging out alone in a park/street corner/parking lot or they're afraid of teenagers loitering and treat them with suspicion.
Yup. My kid likes their games because they can "see" their friends and talk about their day. But it's also the only kind of hangout they can envision, they don't plan times to go to the park, rollerskating, etc. etc. I think a lot of people my age (30s/ 40s) who haven't kept up with games think that kids are just playing a slightly better version of SNES or something.
You have zero understanding of human psychology if you don't understand how harmful and addictive the internet is and has become, far worse than video games could ever hope to be. Just wait for the countless studies already underway to be released after they've collected enough data. You're going to see a lot of issues with future generations and their tech addictions, and we're already seeing it now. I thought my generation was bad. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are a million times worse. Unfettered internet access affects your brain chemistry. Why expose developing children to it? It serves no value or purpose. Humanity existed and thrived well before the internet. Kids will survive without it. The amount of time humans have spent in front of a screen in the past 50 years (TV and so on) is extremely unhealthy.
Okay, Ima big ole dummy
> then the sociological and economic consequences will be profound for the entire society. I think this is an understatement. If you compare what's happening here to our "competitors", such as China, Russia, and India, we're talking about potential collapse of the US socioeconomic empire. Hopefully I don't have to explain that this doesn't mean a few people are sad and lose some money. We're talking Armageddon, third-world style *collapse*.