- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
- cross-posted to:
- unitedkingdom@feddit.uk
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Telling 15 year-olds what to do famously always works.
exactly
By that logic we shouldn’t ban anything for teenagers. But we do: smoking, gambling, alcohol, etc.
Teenagers do all those things constantly.
They do those things to some degree, but those things remain banned for under 18s, which I suppose reduces harm, even if it doesn’t fully eliminate harm.
social media bans for teenagers is never about safety and always about blocking access to queer support systems and stifling dissent.
It’s technically impossible, so a pretty pointless discussion.
And it’s dangerous too. Even if they legislated them off the major platforms, there’s a million other ways to communicate online. Hundreds of DMs, talkers, games, live chats, streams, even IRC still exists. And pushing them into the darker corners makes it far more likely for them to be exposed to coercive and controlling types. Extremism, child abuse, bullying, suicide encouragement and so on.
Or even worse, they might come to lemmy!
cringe
Get off the Fediverse Zuckerberg. It’s as dangerous for mental health as cigarettes are for physical health.
This doesn’t make sense. Forbidding social media is as stupid as forbidding video games, it’s old people not trying to find the real cause and instead passing measures which will be completely useless. Social media doesn’t necessarily mean Meta
You’re saying that social media is not the real cause of the youth mental health crisis? Do you propose a different cause? Because I know of a good few, very well-qualified people (of varying ages) that might explicitly disagree with you…
As a 17 year old who only really uses Lemmy, Youtube and IRC I think social media is the least of my problems. I wouldn’t spend so much time online if there was anything else to do. The outside is a suburban wasteland that offers nothing. The most I can do is walk to the library an hour away and read a book there.
Depends where you’re from
Yeah I guess. North American suburbs are not built for youth. It sucks here. I wish I was born in the Netherlands or something but where I live I have no way to actually safely leave my subdivision since its divided from the nearest city by the Highway 401.
What mental health crisis?
The one you’re too lazy to search?
You’re the one bringing a fact, you’re the one supposed to source it. Anyway, your source doesn’t talk about any increase of prevalence, how can we know there’s a crisis from your source? Could be just that we diagnose more cases these times (or even the same digits, since we don’t have evolution data in your source). Even worse: your source literally state Digital media as a means of preventing mental health issues by spreading educative content. Nowhere does your source state that digital media is THE cause of the young mental health “crisis”.
From my own personal view I find it very difficult to disagree with every part of your second sentence.
So you agree with some part ?
Yes.
Whether that’s true is irrelevant. This isn’t something the government should be getting involved in, outside of prosecuting parents for neglecting their kids.
I don’t let my kids use social media because they aren’t ready for it. If they are ready for it, but my government says they can’t, I’m going to use technical means (i.e. VPN, having them use my account, etc) to subvert the law. It should be my choice if my kids can access something, not the government’s.
If the government wants to tackle this, they should be working with parents on the issue. Maybe sponsor a FOSS content blocker or work with social media orgs to create a concept of custodial accounts, and have some way for that to work w/ the FOSS content blocker. But don’t unilaterally ban something because you think it’s harmful.
If I want to smoke, that should 100% be my right, provided I’m not bothering other people. If my kids smoke, that should be 100% on me for being a negligent parent and allowing them to do something harmful (assuming I should know about it). The government shouldn’t be making parenting decisions for me, that’s my responsibility.
I can get behind that, but that’s not typically the way it works currently. Typically laws restrict children from the use or purchase of certain harmful substances. Same thing with access to pornography. With the data on what SM does to mental health in children it makes no sense restrict those other things but not this.
it makes no sense restrict those other things
Agreed, but not in the way you intended.
If a kid wants to smoke or drink, they’ll smoke or drink. The laws that exist won’t really stop that, so they mostly punish innocent people. If I want a 6-pack of beer and I trust my kid to get it for me, I can’t just give them cash and send them down to the corner store to get it. I used to be able to do that, but now I can’t, and yet kids still have access to alcohol and tobacco.
Social media is similar. If kids want to be on social media, they’ll find a way. They’ll falsify evidence, use VPNs, or get someone else to sign up for them. It largely hurts the innocent who now have to show ID to sign up, potentially violating their privacy in case the site doesn’t properly secure or delete the data.
In both cases, the real solution is w/ poor parenting. The way you stop a kid from smoking, drinking, or getting addicted to social media is the same: you build trust, explain the risks, and teach them how to interact with it responsibly through being a good example. Legislative solutions aren’t solutions, they’re feel-good measures that end up doing more harm than good IMO.
Yeah this is gonna work as well as “you must be over 13 to use this site”
Looks like they think this will work better than telling social media companies that they have a social responsibility
of course it will, the real scam meat is in the 30-60 year olds.
They also don’t deserve to be scammed, but once again asking the companies to police their own content is “impossible.” Musk still needs the cash for a new political party when his current toy breaks
They can require ID verification of all users, as is done in some states in the US to access pornography sites.
And that is a gross overreach
How soon before other countries also follow suit …
I thought they already did this in Australia
The bill has been passed, but doesn’t come into effect until next year.
There have been a lot of bills around this general idea. In my state in the US, for example, we passed a law but I don’t know what enforcement looks like.
I’m against it in all its forms. Parents should be the ones responsible here, not governments.
Lmao maybe they should wait and see how Australian ban later this year turns out to be because it’s looking like an absolute clown show rn.
It’s basically unenforceable so I presume not a whole lot will change
I call for a ban on police chiefs
Kids are growing up, testing limits and learning, That is what kids do!
I think that a ban won’t fix this, but instead ban anonymous use. If you have to use your real name, most behave much nicer. You become accountable, and that is a good thing for everyone to learn.
Also perhaps a minimum age of say 13 could be a good idea - you need to reach a certain age before you are able to foresee consequences and understand how your actions effect others.
