• biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    2 months ago

    I turned out perfectly fine without a phone until age 15, and I’m 17 now, I don’t really use social media other than reddit, Lemmy and YouTube on my phone and I barely use it, since I’m more likely to use my iPad at home exclusively.

    I feel as though more parents need to do the same mine did, restrict access to smartphones until ages the kid is more likely to explore the world more, specifically for safety, but still teach them to concentrate on stops while on public transport, on where they walk, etc. and not use their phone on the go apart from when time is able to pass and be stationary.

    I cringe at the fact kids a third or less my age are allowed phones, I shouldn’t even be allowed since my brain is still developing, i cant imagine the levels of braindead these children will be when they get to my age, since people my age are already horrific enough…

    • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      Why would using a phone affect brain development negatively? We aren’t talking about children sniffing Ketamine or drinking a fifth of vodka here.

      • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Socialization is a slow process. Many people who have good families and rich environments still have problems learning how to have face to face conversations. Look how many people on this site talk about not wanting to have a conversation over the phone or talk to a stranger in a shop.

        • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          What does this have to do with smartphones and the internet? The internet is a means of gathering information first, and a form of communication second. I don’t get what socialization has to do with the first one. If you want people to be comfortable communicating on the internet (or via phone or whatever) then presumably they need to start earlier.

          As for people struggling with phones, that’s because a) lots of people here are autistic, and b) voice phones are not an ideal form of communication anyway. Either way the answer is practice, not shying away from the problem.

          • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            2 months ago

            the answer is practice,

            There are only so many hours in the day. If a child spends eight hours a day glued to the phone, they aren’t going to learn social skills.

            • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              Okay first who said eight hours? I am not saying there shouldn’t be limits, just that banning the internet completely is a bad idea. Second communicating with technology is an essential social skill in itself, and being able to use technology and apply critical thinking to things you read is absolutely essential. Lots of people work from home using technology. Almost everyone will have to use technology to do research e.g. in college.

              • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                2 months ago

                Socialization is a slow process. Many people who have good families and rich environments still have problems learning how to have face to face conversations. Look how many people on this site talk about not wanting to have a conversation over the phone or talk to a stranger in a shop.

                That’s my original comment. Never said anything about banning the internet.

                • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  Yes in a thread about banning kids from having smartphones, which are the main way people access the internetwork nowadays.

      • biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        well since social media can affect attention spans negatively, as I’ve observed with myself recently, I don’t think the effects of such would translate positively into social or educational circumstances, arguably the most needed situations in a child’s life at that time, even if they are almost an adult.

        sure, alcohol and drugs do still affect a child quite intensely, though I’m saying that, is social media and the endless dopamine harvesting NOT a drug? if you think about it, it extracts, makes a person want to come back for more, causing addiction, further extracting more, losing its effectiveness and making it almost impossible to quit from there.

        people may say it isn’t addictive, but its just that it isn’t as noticeable since it is a society-wide phenomena which is seen as positive.

          • biggerbogboy@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            no, I’m not confused at all, I am meaning that the smartphone is the most accessible way to utilise social media, meaning due to its formfactor, it is the most convenient way to access it.

            are you more likely to use a desktop PC using android x86 (just an example) or use a smartphone? its almost like using a smartwatch to use Photoshop, its not the same as using a desktop, you know what I mean?

            • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              You are not a clever man.

              If you were in any way correct, we should be banning cars and trucks from the USA, because they’re the most accessible way drugs are transported. To stop drugs, we should ban cars. Cars are making it far too easy to get that nose candy.

              Yeah, no. Hardware has nothing to do with this.

              (I’m not even going to start with how insane your mentioning android x86 is; like somehow that esoteric version of an OS has something to do with social media. I’m guessing you think everything uses apps, and social media doesn’t run through web pages?)

            • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              You don’t need to run Android x86 to access a social media site on a computer. What are you talking about?

                • ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  except they don’t have the same software. Phones use ARM, not x86.

                  (amusingly, if you had just said “Android”, you would have seemed less insane. still insane, since you could have just said ‘linux’, but less. But even saying that would still make you insane, since the operating system isn’t the social media, and isn’t what you were talking about.)

        • areyouevenreal@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          sure, alcohol and drugs do still affect a child quite intensely, though I’m saying that, is social media and the endless dopamine harvesting NOT a drug? if you think about it, it extracts, makes a person want to come back for more, causing addiction, further extracting more, losing its effectiveness and making it almost impossible to quit from there.

          I don’t think you understand what drugs are or can do. They don’t all just blindly increase dopamine. They have many other effects on the mind and body that social media does not. This whole concept of dopamine detoxes and addiction = dopamine needs to die too. It’s not based on solid scientific understanding as addiction is far more complex than this and comes in multiple, separate forms. Even drugs like amphetamines that primarily interact with the dopamine system don’t always lead to addiction (ask anyone with experience of ADHD meds). Thinking dopamine is only about addiction and vice versa is like thinking electricity is only for heating and that all heating must be done using electricty.

          Raising children without access to the internet is both backwards for their education and actively dangerous. The internet has allowed minors in bad situations to escape or get help multiple times. It’s also made people realise their parents or guardians are insane or abusive including those who are members of dangerous religions and cults, are homophobic, or are abusive for other reasons. School in some countries is also packed full of propaganda, and even when it isn’t they can’t always help and are sometimes a source of abuse themselves. Restricting access to information isn’t a good thing.

  • tal@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    2 months ago

    My brief forays into both TikTok and YouTube Shorts have left me profoundly unimpressed with the short-form video.

    • thehatfox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 months ago

      It’s all vertical video as well. YouTube pushes Shorts fairly aggressively on the desktop website, and it’s a crappy experience.

      • Plopp@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Be glad Youtube still works on the desktop at all. A very large majority of users watch on their phones and YouTube only cares about profits.

        • thejml@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          I tend to watch YouTube on my phone while traveling, waiting, relaxing and don’t feel like turning on the TV… but always in landscape orientation. I can’t stand vertical videos.

        • Franklin@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          I already knew this but still what a terrifying prospect, I love my phone but there are some things a desktop is just better for

      • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD, can also easily cause depression by constantly seeing (usually) fake people flaunting their (usually) fake life and wealth.

        Not to mention the proliferation of insane conspiracy theories, absolute nonsense and usually harmful ‘advice’ of one kind or another, ‘being rich is the only thing that matters so here is a scam to show you how!’ of all kinds of flavors…

        Brain rot.

        • far_university1990@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          Literally proven to ruin attention span in children and essentially cause ADHD

          Please link source, interested in reading.

          • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            So, perhaps ‘essentially cause ADHD’ is a bit strong, but there are absolutely studies that show that exposure to / addiction to short form video content impair focus, cause/exacerbate attention deficits, cause/exacerbate difficulty maintaining attention, as well as impair the ability to study and perform academically, worsen overall mental health etc.

            Oh, and short form video content is also found to be addictive as well.

            https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0144929X.2022.2151512

            https://www.cell.com/heliyon/fulltext/S2405-8440(24)06377-1

            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9127725/

            In summary, brain rot.

            Theres also studies which show, hilariously, that a good amount of mental health ‘advice’ on such short form content platforms is garbage.

            This one studies the top posts on ADHD and finds half of them to be misleading.

            https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/07067437221082854

            And to round it out, heres a study on negative body image perception and self objectification amongst girls/women by short form content:

            https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144523000876?via%3Dihub

            In fairness, this study does find that negative self perception and self objectification increase with viewing either short or long form video content or images featuring ‘ideal’ women, which makes sense, as this sort of thing has been long studied before ‘social media’ even existed (TV, Magazines, Movies, etc).

            So, while objectification and body image problems from media exposure are not new, the proliferation and exposure amount are increased dramatically in the age of widespread social media.

            I would be willing to bet that had a similar study as this one been done on boys/men it would show similar results.

          • Plopp@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            2 months ago

            Having recently been diagnosed with ADHD I’ve taken part in several classes on ADHD to learn more about it. And the consensus is that no external factors like that cause ADHD. However, I’m sure this topic of algorithm driven addictive short form videos for a very young audience is being studied more now than ever so who knows what the consensus on that will be in the future. Causing ADHD or not, I don’t think it’s healthy either way.

            • ayaya@lemdro.id
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              Yeah it can certainly cause problems, it’s just not ADHD.

              ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.

              I have ADHD and I’ve had times where I’ve done the same thing for 14 hours straight (even forgetting to eat) when my brain decides it wants to latch onto that thing. You just need to be sufficiently stimulated, hence why stimulants can work as a treatment.

              • conciselyverbose@sh.itjust.works
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                ADHD doesn’t even really mean short attention spans, it’s more of the inability to willingly direct attention. It’s the same way people incorrectly use “OCD” to mean liking things clean and/or orderly.

                Both of these are the product of needing constant stimulation. I understand your point that hyper-focus is also part of ADD/ADHD, and I certainly am not going to make claims about how your brain is changing structurally without evidence behind it.


                So this is mere conjecture for a mechanism:

                What these apps (with short format video being the worst) do is train your brain to expect a constant stream of dopamine hits. Novelty (presumably even trash novelty like TikTok) triggers dopamine, your brain becomes dependent on that steady stream of dopamine fix, and your body starts craving it once you remove that pattern of behavior.

                This is very similar to ADHD, which is also strongly connected to problems with how dopamine is regulated. It’s not as simple as just not enough dopamine or poor uptake or whatever, but it’s reasonably clear that it plays a role.

                So both cases are a result of poor dopamine regulation causing a need for stimulation that has a negative impact on ability to function from day to day. They’re probably at minimum relatively similar.

                • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  2 months ago

                  This is my understanding of it all as well. Like, if your parents never stfu as a kid or you never had a chance to really be alone and quiet and safe as a baby, your brain, your very concept of self, is hardwired for constant stimulation such that it’s uncomfortable not to have it, to the point of sitting their for 14 hours reading Wikipedia pages or whatever because it’s more stimulating that it would be to stop and wash the floors or so the laundry, or maybe just talking your fingers in class or letting your mind read every sign and bumper sticker while you’re driving. It’s also why all the most effective treatments are about emotional regulation.

            • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              3
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              That doesn’t sound right to me. ADHD is a constellation of shared symptoms, grouped together and given a name for insurance and diagnostic purposes and because the treatment overlaps. The cause of those symptoms are obviously multifactorial, heavily correlated with both genetics and childhood stress. Bad news if your mom or dad didn’t ever stfu when you were a baby, hardwired you to be uncomfortable without constant external stimulation and validation.

              Schools at least where I live do a much better job of teaching kids to manage their emotions. And I hope parents of young children are doing a better job as well, seems like it to me, but I’m in a well off rural bubble.

              I imagine TikTok sets back any progress and I’m glad it’s banned. TikTok brain is a real thing. Human beings are meant to be able to focus intensely in one purposeful thing for several hours at a time and with practice anyone can learn to be highly productive and attentive if they can find a time and place to be free from distractions, and anyone can have a super memory if they set aside time and purposefully train their memory; memory is a product of focus.

    • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 months ago

      What a great way to dismiss an entire problems based that affects our society. It’s easier to just hand wave it away as someone else’s problem than to actually consider it…

      When a problem becomes systematic it’s now a societal and cultural problem and not an individual responsibility problem. Individual responsibility isn’t working so it’s now down to the society this is occurring in to solve the systematic problem in a systematic way.

      That’s how almost everything works

    • RaoulDook@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      Yeah none of those kids should have cell phones. They should be about old enough to drive before they get one even.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Yup. I have kids (three under 10), and the only time my kids use my phone is when I’m literally there with them, letting them pick a video (usually Pat and Mat, Bert and Ernie, or similar). It’s not every day, and never more than 30 min, usually like 15-20 min, and we take turns picking.

        I’m not letting my kids have their own phone until I trust them with one, and that doesn’t seem to be happening anytime soon with how many of our other rules they break.

    • Buttons@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      Yeah, parents are getting ruined by social media algorithms too.

      Our government seems to be moving towards an “we only care about the children, but everyone, including adults, upload your government papers” approach.

      Y’all got any of those protections for adults? I remember reading regulations that companies couldn’t show children advertisements. Can I have some of that regulation too?

      I just can’t stop being cynical that there is little focus on homeless or underpaid adults, or other adult issues, but the one problem we’re focused on just so happens to include everyone giving up anonymity on the Internet.

      We do need to help kids with social media, but there’s a lot of other challenges they will soon face as adults that we’re ignoring.

      • slumberlust@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Are there any examples of ‘for the kids’ legislation that isn’t just something like backdoor encryption masquerading as protecting the young?

        • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          2 months ago

          Uhh, yes, in fact I’d say most. There’s entire systems of childhood health legislation, education, labor, you name it. This is an availability bias showing through. Think about it for five minutes and I bet you can come up with a dozen examples.

      • ArxCyberwolf@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Children can’t do that if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing. Y’know, the bare minimum of parenting.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          if you’re a responsible parent that keeps an eye on what their child is doing.

          Unfortunately you can’t run a society based on how people should behave. That’s the entire reason we have a legal system and the means to implement safeguards for our population.

        • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          That’s sort of true, but “rules for thee and not for me” just kicks the can down the road. They’re going to copy you, so it’s really important to set a good example, at least when your kids can see you.

          • andros_rex@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            2 months ago

            It’s not “rules for thee and not for me,” unless you consider that true for things like drinking alcohol. It’s protecting children from something they are not cognitively developed enough to be dealing with.

            • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              edit-2
              2 months ago

              The difference is that it’s easy to point to reasons why a child shouldn’t be drinking alcohol (illegal, liver immaturity, etc), and less easy to point to why they shouldn’t be on social media, esp. if their friends are using it.

              Where the line is more fuzzy, I think parents should set a more strict standard for themselves, at least in front of their children.

              • andros_rex@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                I think the line is, TikTok pulls a video at random it thinks you’ll want to watch. This means that you may be exposed to basically anything a person felt like filming. This includes violent or pornographic content, which children should not be exposed to.

                Being a parent is telling your children no sometimes. Being a parent means that you should vet the media that your child is being exposed to, which is impossible on a platform like TikTok, and sometimes make the decision for them that they are not old enough to be exposed to certain material.

                It really feels like folks don’t want to be parents - they want to hand the iPad over to the screaming toddler so that they can be babysat by their own phone. I don’t understand why one would have children, if they weren’t interested in doing the work of parenting those kids.

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        2 months ago

        Childless young people downvoting this, perhaps not able to admit they’re just like mom or dad?

        For most of us I’m sorry but it’s true! Kids are mirrors; apples don’t fall far from trees. Not all of them. Some carry.

  • phoenixz@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    The TikTok van isn’t bad, it’s great for humanity, it’s great for kids.

    Can we now do the same with Instagram and Facebook and the likes? Basically all of social media?

    Can we also please start banning kids from the Internet now? Since 20 years ago I’ve been saying that kids under 14-16 should not be on the Internet, or if they do, with monitoring and very limited time and access. The Internet is NOT a healthy place for kids. Hell, today they Internet isn’t a healthy place for adults, but that is a different story.

    I hate desantis, but that Florida kids and social media ban is great

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Can we now do the same with Instagram and Facebook and the likes? Basically all of social media?

      No. In fact, we’re going to gear up our marketing campaigns for IG and YT so that we can reroute all that profitable children’s traffic to a Good American Liberty Loving Social Media Company.

      Can we also please start banning kids from the Internet now? Since 20 years ago I’ve been saying that kids under 14-16 should not be on the Internet

      I can’t imagine how this would be enforced, much less whether arbitrarily cutting kids off from what will (let’s face it) be an essential part of their lives as adults is actually good for them.

      To pull from an old XKCD, simply giving people a novel form of communication isn’t what’s bad for them.

      This shit is what’s bad for them

      And you need to moderate content in order to avoid this sort of shit. Simply banning it all makes about as much sense as banning your kids from looking at magazines, because Playbook and Heavy Metal exist.

      I hate desantis, but that Florida kids and social media ban is great

      If you consider how Florida actually enforces its laws, I think what you’ll find its actually really awful. You’re going to have a bunch of lower-middle class parents and teachers getting random filings against them for things they have very little control over.

      • spez_@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        We need to ban the internet for select communities. Starting from those who are under the age 25. Other properties should be selected too eventually.

  • Hal-5700X@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    The next generation is so fucked. Wait…they be the ones who take care of me in the old person home. I’m fucked as will.

    • UsernameIsTooLon@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Nah, social media is like a hydra. Another “TikTok” will just be born from the ban.

      Nothing is changing drastically until we have better data protection laws.

      • anon987@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        Ban all Chinese/Russian social media companies. GG EZ.

        Edit: sorry my bad, I didn’t realize you were one of the people that thinks all social media is the same.

        You realize that tik toks sole purpose is to brainwash western youth right? This is propaganda 101.

      • jaschen@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        Wait, is there another psyops software the CCP has deployed in the US?

        • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          Probably plenty. Tik tok is just the biggest owned by a foreign government that also is showing pretty immediate extreme negative effects on children’s attention spans and learning capabilities.

          But people are still gonna whine because they’re 25 year olds who need to watch 80 videos of unboxing shoes in 4 minutes . That’s really the only pro tik tok argument there is.

          • neo (he/him)@lemmy.comfysnug.space
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            0
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            It sets a pretty chilling precedent that non-American competition can be forced to sell to Americans for (insert arbitrary reason here).

            I am in favor of TikTok at least becoming restricted to adults only if not outright banned, just warning about the consequences of doing it this way.

            • BlueJayOakerson@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              2 months ago

              It really doesn’t set a bad precedent forcing a foreign adversary to have less control over the US population. We should really force the sale of a lot of Chinese properties in the US as well. A foreign government should not have so much control over rental and housing prices in the US.

              Why are you pro foreign adversary controlling the daily lives of Americans? It’s a very odd stance to take and openly say unless you’re not American obviously.

    • endhits@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      2 months ago

      “In my household, the only addictive spyware we use is made in the USA!!!”

      Edit: everyone below me is proving my point exactly.

      • ealoe@ani.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Unironically yes, at least the US government is something we can openly criticize and attempt to change while living within its borders. Try criticizing the Chinese government from within China, let me know how that works out for you. I’ll take homegrown American spyware any day.

      • Bonskreeskreeskree@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        People love to repeat this, but US companies aren’t coming from a place of hostile intent like china’s special brand of tik tok for the states.

        • endhits@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 months ago

          They’re both focused on profit. The only reason you see the other one as scary is because it’s owned by the scary scary Chinese. Red scare all over again.

          • jaschen@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 months ago

            No tiktok is not focused on profit. It literally has one of the worst/non existent monetization systems.

              • jaschen@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                2 months ago

                Case in point. Vine literally can’t survive and so shouldn’t TikTok. Unless of course it’s getting propped up by a government with endless funds and not focused on profits.

            • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              0
              ·
              2 months ago

              Because the USA strong armed them into giving their platform handling to Oracle Corp, a top tier US govt contractor.

              But since pro-palestine cries can’t be silenced on TikTok as easily as Zio media, taking control of the platform is no longer enough

                • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  0
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  2 months ago

                  It’s the same thing, the international one was called TikTok and the US version is handled by Oracle

                  It’s called douyin or something idk in China but it’s the same shit

  • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    2 months ago

    What does “on tiktok” mean?

    Unsupervised with their own accounts? I feel like that’s difficult to believe. Watching a few tiktoks before dinner with their parents? That doesn’t really strike me as a problem.

    While I don’t entirely disagree with the author, I feel like this is a far too superficial look at what is a larger societal problem: young people have checked out.

    He makes the argument that mental health is in decline, and I’m not sure if that’s true or we’ve just removed the stigma from therapy… But of more concern to me is that young people just DGAF, and I think that’s because older generations have left nothing for younger generations to inherit, besides ruin. Kids 5-7 aren’t gonna understand that, but they’re gonna pick up the vibes from their parents.

    • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      I don’t think its difficult to imagine 30% of 5 to 7s with their own phones on tiktok nearly all the time.

      Raising kids is hard, especially when youre poor and stressed out or tired all the time, its waaay easier to just get them a phone.

      The number of people I’ve met in the last couple of years? Yeah, I live amongst the poors, the abusive parents and single moms and drunk/drug addicted dads… all their kids either have their own phones or the family has one for all the kids, who basically fight over it and get smacked by a parent or older sibling when theyre being too rowdy.

      A few weeks ago I was walking, puffing on a nicotine vape. A school bus pulls up and drops off what could not have been older than 2nd graders, who began hounding me: Lemme hit that wax bro, Share your wax!

      These are those 5 to 7s that are on TikTok, or close to it. I didnt even realize what Wax was at first, literally had to scurry home and lookup that wax is now the term for basically dab pens.

      So yeah, theres huge segments of the population where 7 year olds want a highly concentrated dose of MJ from a literal random person theyve never seen before.

      Devo: It’s a beautiful world we live in… for you, but not for me.

      • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        2 months ago

        I mean, that’s kind of my point - in situations like that, it seems like using Tiktok is small potatoes compared to the more significant issues that’d cause problem behavior. The Tiktok consumption is just another symptom, and if it wasn’t tiktok it’d be some other escape mechanism.

        To me, the article seems lazy, complaining about a superficial problem without spending effort to even consider or mention underlying root causes that could give rise to it and must be solved first.

        And to be clear I’m not blaming the parents, they’re not the “root cause” I’m talking about. They’re victims too, in large part. They and their kids are stuck in a harmful cycle, and people with the ability to break that cycle are unwilling to do so.

        • sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          edit-2
          2 months ago

          You explicitly said you couldnt imagine 30% of 5-7 year olds having essentially unfettered access to TikTok, and you said the TikTok problem is a symptom of general mental health decline in youths.

          You did not say your point was that 30% of 5-7s are using TikTok habitually, you expressed incredulity to this, to which I responded.

          Anyway, you want a root cause?

          Poverty, drug addiction, poor parenting.

          Yeah, I am going to blame the parents, at least partially.

          Oh you have kids and you are not able to actually raise them, hand them off to TikTok instead? You shouldn’t have had kids you can’t actually raise.

          Obviously, this would happen a lot less if maybe we redistributed some wealth from the top to the bottom, actually had an economy and society that allowed for all people to live well.

          Sure the article is superficial in the sense it isnt exploring root causes, but it doesnt really purport to try. That would probably end up being a completely different and much more complex piece of writing.

          Further, this is honest-broker, a website for basically well to do yuppies who were born into connections and managed to maintain the socio economic strata they were born into, where they fret about how the poors are poor because theyre stupid, and minutiae about their investments.

          What did you expect?

          • PeriodicallyPedantic@lemmy.ca
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            Yeah, I know I shouldn’t expect much from a site like that, but since it’s shared here I felt like I should shine a little light on the deeper issues.

            This kind of superficial “journalism” rage-baiting boomers for clicks is really frustrating to me. Shit like this is brain-rot at least as bad as Tiktok is. It has always existed, but the extent to which it has replaced actual analysis and investigation is depressing.

            Yes, the parents are partially at fault, of course. But as you indicated, there are significant societal pressures that force families into dynamics like this and it’s not realistic to expect an overwhelming majority to be able to resist it, alone. And since we’re not about to engage in class-based eugenics, it’s up to society to give them a serviceable ladder to climb out of their situation.

            So, TLDR; I wanted to shine a light on deeper issues, so that people don’t think that this is solely a moral failing of parents, and that they DO understand that we have a collective responsibility to help families.

  • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    I managed to almost completly keep my children away from it for now (8 and 10). But it is a struggle. And I will soon lose that struggle. So many children at age 8 or 9 have smartphones for fs sake.

    I plan to slowly introduce them to stuff like this, so they will be able to deal with it. I did so rather successfully with the other bullshit, like Roblox. They are only allowed to play it when I am in the room, and I check that they follow that rule (they do).

    Feels like walking on the edge though. Still unsure when to open the TikTok thing. Too early is bad, but too late and they will somehow already he on tiktok and I just don’t know about it.

    • tmcgh@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      ·
      2 months ago

      Do you have any tips? My kids are still pretty young (3 and 2) and I really want to avoid them having acess to these sorts of things.

      • vimdiesel@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        0
        ·
        2 months ago

        the main thing for you is to stay off your phone as well. Kids watch their parents closely and humans have an in built need for “fairness”, if they see you addicted to it they will never stop wanting to do the same.

        • tmcgh@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          0
          ·
          2 months ago

          Yea, that makes sense. Whenever I’m home from work, I make sure the phone goes on the counter. Thankfully, I’m not into social media all that much.

          • The Menemen!@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            2 months ago

            I’d add the “have clear rules” concept to this and enforce the rules. Don’t be wishy washy. But communicate the rules and be prepared to explain the rules.
            But also accept that theory and practice are not the same. Imo you should allow them enough, that they don’t isolated from their friends experiences. That is why I allow them to play Roblox under supervision or why I set up a Minecraft Server so that they can play online with their friend in a safe environment (but only on weekends for a fixed time period).

    • TubularTittyFrog@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      0
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 months ago

      my siblings managed to keep their kids away from smartphones until 4th grade. And even that was a struggle.

      sadly it just falls into the camp of ‘everyone else is doing it’. and if your kid isn’t they will be socially ostracized.

      • tamal3@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        2 months ago

        Some kids also get obsessive about phones once they get one, or obsessed with other people’s phones until then.

  • daltotron@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 months ago

    I dunno I’m just gonna drop a 50 minute video link on this one and bounce, 'cause if I chronically post my dogshit opinions every time one of these boomer ass articles gets posted here and gets upvoted a million times by the masturbatory elder millennial ex-redditor linux userbase, then I’m gonna be here for a fuckin eternity

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    0
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    edit-2
    2 months ago

    How many kids have been on TV for decades?

    Why the assumption that this is worse and not better?

    Why do the same people who profited from destroying the planet expect kids to be both aware and “happy”?