I once sat next to a dean of private school on a plane—she mentioned that the ~100 parents that sent their children to the school signed an agreement that they would restrict their children's access to social media until 9th grade.

I have no idea how well it was adhered to or enforced, but it surprised me that the parents of the school and the dean were trying to collectively organize action around this issue to prevent the problems described above. I had never heard of that before.

And at 9th grade it's a free for all? Looking back the high school years would have been the worst for my own self esteem, angst, etc. Glad none of it was recorded. :)

I've found my blog posts as an angsty teen from 2000->2002 thanks to LiveJournal still existing. They were definitely not worth being recorded, but it was a great wakeup call to the general idea that I was fairly mature back then.

6th and 7th grade are pretty brutal developmental years. You get a lot more autonomy but also spend a lot of time grappling with who you are and what your identity is, particularly in monoculture suburbia.

Agreed, but what’s the alternative though? Just going full Amish on them until they’re 18? 25? Look at all the Baby Boomers and older Gen X’ers that got on the Internet in the past ten years and instantly had their brains rotted despite decades of life experience. Should there be some kind of emotional intelligence test everyone has to pass to earn their internet license?

This is why I think that taking steps to keep kids off social media is delaying the inevitable. Just as there’s no safe age to start smoking, there’s no truly safe age to start using social media as it currently exists. So either we accept the negative aspects of these platforms’ existence, or we remediate them.

Being a GenXer, my friends and I have regular contact outside of social media because we already had those habits ingrained in us before the current crop of social media platforms ever existed. I can't imagine being a teenager today having to deal with everyone in high school being on the same social media platforms and dealing with the pressure to fit in. We had cliques for good reason.

Yeah, you've got to look at percentages here. Some boomers get sucked into the pit of social media, but far more teenagers do. More life experience (and brain development in the case of young people) won't always help, but it often will.

> you've got to look at percentages here

Exactly. Just because you have a bunch of kids smoking doesn't mean the anti smoking advice and practices don't work on most of them.

> Just going full Amish on them until they’re 18? 25?

Seriously false dichotomy. You understand that you can access FB/IG from a computer, right? You don't need a smartphone to do that. And if you have a smartphone, you can turn it off at night, or put it on the table.

And you can use social media without taking and posting selfies. Or at least, doing so excessively.

> Look at all the Baby Boomers and older Gen X’ers that got on the Internet in the past ten years and instantly had their brains rotted despite decades of life experience. Should there be some kind of emotional intelligence ...

But that's only the highly visibly subset of them who don't resist social-validation, confirmation bias, mindlessly forwarding viral crap, slurs and gossip. The other X% that behave reasonably and refrain from 24/7 ideological foodfights, we don't notice. Certainly, the big social media with quantified vote-counts, followers, shares, and in the absence of fact-checking, are incentivizing the death of civil discourse based on, uhh, facts.

It's pretty obvious one of the main necessary habit is skepticism: inquiring for the precise source and attribution of claims, checking facts, scrutinizing your own susceptibility to want to believe a specific claim (or source) without objective proof. And by extension, picking the group of people you associate with online to be like that.

Haidt also documents how socialization and playing among children [in the US] has stopped being face-to-face and moved online within that decade. This is something that can be reversed at ages 8, 12, 14 etc. Coordinated action by schools, classes and parent groups would be great.

> there’s no truly safe age to start using social media as it currently exists.

*Only as it currently exists in 2022, not as it used to be pre-2012*, which is the exact point Haidt repeatedly hammers home. People didn't complain about MySpace, Friendster, et al: why? The culprits Haidt mentions in passing: making counts of likes, upvotes, followers visible (let alone prominently showing them like as if they're the defining thing), and the (artificial) pressure to constantly post (selfie image) content that juices them, and to compare to other people's. Also, (for adults) retweeting other people arguing. We (= US Congress) can easily mandate switch FB/IG back to a 2012 interface. (Of course, they'd lose lots of advertisers and users, boo-hoo. Push the financial incentive to them to suggest solutions.)

Consider also how widely US COPPA law [0] is flouted in allowing under-18s or under-13s to register a profile and self-certify a fake age over 13 or 18: imagine if that had to proven in person with ID, just like buying alcohol or tobacco, or driving, or buying a gun. But can anyone remember a criminal prosecution of either a parent, or a social network which knew or had reasonable knowledge that one of its users was under-13? Where is basic enforcement? COPPA doesn't appear to have criminal penalties. Why shouldn't COPPA have criminal penalties, on both the parent and the social-media company (gasp)? (in conjunction with mandating changes to remove the pressure for likes, upvotes, followers). Or, less drastically, social-media can monitor its individual users' use patterns and suggest them when that becomes unhealthy or excessive ("You've been looking at influencers for the last 4 hours. Time to do something else?").

  [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children%27s_Online_Privacy_Protection_Act

Agreed, and that other generations also struggle with social media is additional evidence that it should be shut down, or at least heavily regulated (or regulated out of existence). There's nothing inevitable about any of this: we don't have to let malicious companies like Meta or TikTok or whoever build products that hijack your emotions for profit.

Except Facebook has since been observed as having deleterious effects on mental health even before it was available to the public, and you'd be hard pressed to describe the Facebook of that period as a malicious company hijacking our emotions for profit. Nor is it clear that they reasonably could have known the effects it was having for quite some years (to be clear, they most certainly qualify as malicious now)

I guess I don't really care. Deep down we all know it's bad, and has been since its inception even if part of that knowledge is in hindsight. I would venture to guess that Zuck knows this too, which is part of the reason he's so strongly pivoting to VR.

It's frustrating, because every time this comes up we have these long, expansive threads about what social media is or isn't 100% responsible for (as if the standard is 100%), or if we can't exactly identify the precise mechanism by which this or that algorithm is predatory, we just throw our hands up and say "well shucks, it's a tough question!" It's really not. Social Media in this current form is a net detriment to human civilization. I'm open to a steel-manned argument that earlier iterations - without the algos, without the doom scrolling, without the tracking - are okay, or even a good thing.

"Deep down we all know it's bad"

Really? I have never felt that way about social media (esp. Fb), it's only the studies demonstrating the harmful effects that have convinced me that, at least in their current incarnations, at a population level the cons of social media outweigh the pros. That there's still no good alternative to FB for taking advantage of its "pros" is my biggest concern.

You didn't think the facebook feed was weird? Not sure how old you are, but my first experience with facebook was probably back in 2009, when it had just expanded to other colleges and had added some features like the "like" button. And it became very very obvious that "liking" things made it more prominent in the "feed". To me and my friends it was obvious that this would be manipulated on both ends of the equation, those liking things to boost them and those making things to be boosted.

I still need to be convinced that there actually exist some "pros".

Never paid much attention to the feed and almost never "liked" things, but found it a helpful way to connect with certain people, organize/advertise events, etc. etc. Still do, though far less than I used to.

I mean, Facebook orginated as a platform for Zuckerberg and his frat bros to rate the attractiveness of female classmates without their knowledge or consent. It has always been toxic.

Fair point. That the company is still run by the guy who was sufficiently motivated to create a tool for that purpose initially explains a lot.

I also see a lot more older folks walking around outside not staring at their phones. So while having built up habits without phones isn't a cure all for later ills, I think it can help.

Children not using social media is not "going full Amish" though. To use your example, there is no safe age to start smoking. Would you suggest that just because you can't avoid it as adults anyways, we just get rid of our restrictions on smoking for children? Society needs to recognize that social media is a vice and we should treat it as such.

I wonder if alcohol is a better parallel than smoking here. A vice that you speak with children about and make sure that any relationship they have with is a healthy one.

You can leave children to discover it on their own or you can talk them through what it is, what it can do, etc.

I had a close friend who came to drinking later than peers, but then hit it hard. He became absolutely unbearable with almost any amount of alcohol. Might've been a personality thing or predisposition to it, but felt like the circumstance of him starting drinking harshly like he was making up for lost time was a catalyst.

I agree that alcohol would be a better parallel here and I was simply using the parent comment's example.

Alcohol is considered a vice and we not only have laws which prohibit children from its consumption, at least in the US, it's culturally accepted that it's generally not appropriate for children to be drinking. In the US, I do think that straight prohibition-style banning of all alcohol from children is also not a good idea largely due to the example you've given where once children become adults and have free access to alcohol, their lack of experience with the substance can cause issues.

I'm personally planning on letting my children consume small amounts of alcohol while they are under our supervision to give them experience. That way, once they do have free access, the novelty is not so great and hopefully they'll be able to behave more responsibly. Treating social media as a vice doesn't have to mean full ban until they're adults. It just means we need to acknowledge that it is and think about how we want to deal with it.

Maybe, but middle school is often thought to be the worst. Kids are so young at that age but also smart enough to be exposed to all kinds of things.

As undeveloped mentally as highschoolers are, they have years more development more than middleschoolers

Middleschoolers are suddenly blasted with hormones, and are basically accelerating at breakneck speed. Everyone's body is changing wildly, you're thinking and feeling new things every day, and it's all a total mindfuck.

By highschool, the hypernovelty has worn off. Yes, they're still developing and figuring things out, but it's not quite as much of the surreal existential body-horror that middleschool is.

There's a slump in classroom performance and psychological well-being around 6th-8th consistently-observed enough that it's got one or more names in the fields of education and psychology ("middle school slump", "middle school malaise", "middle school plunge", et c.) Mention it to a teacher and they'll likely know what you're talking about.

Don't let perfection be the enemy of good.

Yup, I was the WORST when I was in 9th grade.

I really don't envy my parents for having to deal with that version of me, and I did so much stuff I regret.

My self-esteem back then was hair-thin; I use to obsess about EVERYTHING, from what I say, to how I talk, to how I smell, to how I walk, to the music I listen to, etc

Thanks for obsessing about your smell though, I just stood in a room full of smelly people.

I don't think you should be thanking me; I much prefer the smell of body odour to what I was doing back then, which is douse myself with unhealthy amounts of Axe Dark Temptation bodyspray, lol! I am sure my teachers suffered especially since all the boys in the class were doing that, especially after we played sports, so the whole classroom smelled like a chemical spill mixed with sweat.

The smokers in my class (thankfully I never smoked), use to use even more Axe to cover the smell of cigarettes after they smoke, but the funny thing is that we could still smell the cigarettes on them, but now it's mixed in with headache inducing levels of body spray

Any advice for parents of a kid going through a similar period?

Get a sense of how hierarchical their view of their peers is - and, if they are open enough, how they think about themselves in that picture. If they dont have all the expensive jackets and shoes, unpack how that affects their interactions. Have they even been in a distinctly expensive house, or a poor household? Ask if they know anyone on sports teams, or anyone in the art department, those who were homeschooled, are highly religious, etc. - try to get a sense of where they have gravitated and where they have animus. Do they view social butterflies that go between cliques as inauthentic? What happens when they see the odd-ones-out get made fun of? Careful there especially, but that is kind of the crutch of it all. Treat it all like it was your career and you were angling for a promotion or to not be fired, but are pulling your hair out from stress and imposter syndrome.

Just do all you can to get ahead of the idea that they are in a concrete hierarchy, because make no mistake, they are in a hierarchy. Maybe even talk a bit about guanxi, and how people that freak them out now, will change a lot.

I know high school teachers. Obsessing about your hygiene is probably a good thing. But stop using so much deodorant boys!

At my kid's school the target is no phones until 8th grade. It seems many people adhere to the guidance, but that is only based on what we see casually, and we'll see how it looks over the next few years. Some 3rd/4th graders have smart watches which allow comms but not meaningful apps. Not sure it is a great compromise for my family, but interesting to see what results other folks find as we all navigate it.

> At my kid's school the target is no phones until 8th grade.

Public or private?

I've got a lot of insight into local school districts in my area and a little into local private schools (good ones—not poor-quality evangelical schools for parents who don't want their kids taught about evolution, or something like that) and the public schools have all completely given up on policing phones and wouldn't dare suggest that parents ought not be giving their 3rd graders smartphones, while the private schools both police them more heavily and seem to serve way fewer families inclined to give preteens a smartphone to begin with.

Feels like the beginning of an even-greater class divide in education, to me.

Public, but a very small separated section of a larger school district - only one grade school and one high school. So it is basically a public school that feels private. Having attended private school myself, I think the distinction you are making sounds about right.

It will increase with this 'equity' push in education as schools attempt to get rid of accelerated learning classes as well.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/california-math-curric...

In my kids’ public schools (one ends at grade 5, the other at grade 8), electronic devices found during the school day are confiscated.

Not sure about other public schools in our area, but I suspect this type of enforcement is only possible if the majority of families are on board.

My local Middle School sends out what feels like weekly (or more) emails about poor choices with phones at school, using them in the bathroom, etc.

My kid doesn't have a phone. But we get inundated with these emails and new plans on what to do and so on.

I wish they'd just confiscate them and only return them to the parents, or have some sort of phone not allowed without good reason (and revoke it if someone breaks the rules), but they seem averse to that kind of thing. The new rule is that they have to be powered off during school hours. I'm sure that will be complied well by the same students who already don't care.

> I wish they'd just confiscate them and only return them to the parents, or have some sort of phone not allowed without good reason (and revoke it if someone breaks the rules), but they seem averse to that kind of thing.

A lot of parents will throw a fit if schools try to take them away or ban them, and, contrary to public perception in some circles, public schools really hate upsetting parents. It's part of why private schools tend to have a lot more success enforcing phone-related rules or restrictions, since they can just tell a family to pound sand if they don't like it (they all have waiting lists anyway, if you're not some huge donor they don't need to give a shit what you think if it's not in-line with their approach and mission)

It makes sense to me that they would do it at the school level.

The pressure to use social media and etc will come from those around them. Being the one student not on social media would have it's own pressures I imagine.

I'm in my 30s, but still remember being the only Senior in highschool without a cell phone. It made it really hard to meet up with people, go to parties... really do anything. Social media was really just starting though and was something people maybe spent 1/2 hour on at night. The iphone had just came out, so no Instagram and apps like Snapchat. I can't imagine going through that hellscape now.

As a parent to a 12 year old girl, I’ve been fighting the “no social media” fight since she requested at 9. Every single one of her friends have social media and I think it is negative to be isolated in that way. But I also notice that she seems to have positive benefits over her friends, but of course it’s tough to measure.

It’s strange to me because I’ve talked about this literature and whatnot with other parents and they just shrug and say that their kid won’t abuse it and will withstand the negative effects. Of course, many of these are posting on social media quite a bit themselves.

It’s tough for parents but I’m encouraged by more evidence on this subject and hope that there’s soon public health guidance about when to allow social media.

This is really baffling to me, because social media sites have an age limit of 13 in most western countries.

...and this is by the companies themselves, if they are found out to be "marketing to children", they get hit with a whole another set of legal issues. Epic just got hit with this because of Fortnite and has to pay over $200M fines.

The only issue is that there is zero oversight on the age limit, there is no way to report underage users on social media sites - and even if there is, nothing happens until someone goes through the courts.

How are girls actually using social media? My impression is that the problem isn't so much obsessively posting as merely scrolling through content, thus a social media account for the purpose of infinite-scrolling isn't necessarily going to appear to be for someone underage or even be surfaced to anyone who would even care enough to report it.

Obsessively posting is really common. Kids’ friends post all the time, especially including Snapchat. It seems bizarre to me as there may be 10-20 posts per day per kid.

You definitely can report an underage user.

I tried to do it on WhatsApp (age limit 16 in the EU), but guess what?

You can only report YOUR OWN CHILD: https://faq.whatsapp.com/695318248185629

Other Meta properties are better at this though.

> if you're not the parent of this child, then we strongly recommend that you encourage a parent to contact us using the instructions above.

Given that the instructions are to prove ownership over the phone number as well as trying to at least somewhat link that to an underage child how exactly could this reasonably be accomplished by someone other than the parent? If you know enough to be confident that a given account is linked to a minor then there's basically zero chance that you won't also know of a way to contact their parents about it. Given the e2e nature of WhatsApp any other implementation would be akin to the "But think about the children!!!" reactionary calls to ban e2e encryption.

"we strongly recommend" jumps out to me as careful wording in a legal sense to avoid obligations on their side. They'd use different wording otherwise. "We didn't say people HAD to do exactly this. We still technically accept reporting of underage users by non-parents..."

It's a way too common practice by kids to create WhatsApp groups with EVERYONE in their contacts as members.

Then you're just added to a group with complete randos who can immediately see your phone number and they can start posting whatever.

I've had cases where my kid has been added to a group along with older kids and their posts have not been exactly SWF. I've got zero recourse in those cases, I don't know who any in the group are. I taught my kid to remove themselves from any suspicious groups immediately and that has curbed it for now.

This is surprising to me too as Google and social media sites have methods for approximating age so they should be able to easily discern all the under 13s using their products.

I expect that at some point law firms will invest enough to do a class action suit to show these tech firms knowingly allowed and even marketed to under13 kids.

That and it seems like as fraud as advertisers are paying to show ads to 13+ and they are being shown to kids.

This seems like a large amount of tort given tens of millions of kids.

Or maybe once more damages studies come out, state attorneys general will sue like they did for tobacco and opioids.

While the generations are a bit dated - https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/09/why-generation-y-yuppies-are-...

> Social media creates a world for Lucy where A) what everyone else is doing is very out in the open, B) most people present an inflated version of their own existence, and C) the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best, while struggling people tend not to broadcast their situation. This leaves Lucy feeling, incorrectly, like everyone else is doing really well, only adding to her misery:

> (image)

> So that’s why Lucy is unhappy, or at the least, feeling a bit frustrated and inadequate. In fact, she’s probably started off her career perfectly well, but to her, it feels very disappointing.

> ...

> Ignore everyone else. Other people’s grass seeming greener is no new concept, but in today’s image crafting world, other people’s grass looks like a glorious meadow. The truth is that everyone else is just as indecisive, self-doubting, and frustrated as you are, and if you just do your thing, you’ll never have any reason to envy others.

---

Thus, the "set reasonable expectations" along with "realize that what is on social media is a constructed reality reflecting the masks people wear in that environment." The "what people see on Facebook" is almost as scripted as any romcom movie - just that most people realize that the movie is a constructed fabrication yet tend to expect that they can live day to day the same as what people project into the constructed reality of social media.

This article is the classic "millennials are sad because they have unrealistically high expectations" drivel that I thought we had buried for good. Even for 2013 it seems pretty trashy. Lucy doesn't think she's unusually wonderful, and to assume so is completely unfair to Lucy. Lucy was told over and over and over that all she needed to do was go to college and work hard at anything somewhat respectable, and financial stability and personal comfort would follow. She only ever wanted a decent liberal arts education, and after that a decent career. You know who fed her that BS? Her delusional parents.

Yes, it's easy to get unrealistic expectations from social media. But that's not the point of the article, for anyone tempted to click and read.

> You know who fed her that BS? Her delusional parents.

I thought the Wait but Why article made a point of calling that out. It didn't come across as blaming Lucy for her delusions, saying "she has _been told_ all her life that 'she's special'".

"Been told" seems to put the blame for that squarely on those doing the telling.

The high expectation drivel fed by parents is something that in that context is something that the millennials needed to overcome. That, however, is only part of the story.

Setting aside the expectations of "you are special and can be anything you want to be" from parents there is also the "the world around you is crafted to a degree that previous generations didn't deal with."

Recognizing that part of it is also important. If you compare yourself to influencers and expect to be able to live a life like them, you will likely be unhappy. Correspondingly, if you compare yourself to the crafted image of your peers all the time, you may feel that you're not doing as well as they are.

That part isn't a millennial issue but rather a "everyone who uses social media to compare or boast about their current social situations."

You don't have any kids yet do you? If you do, what dreams do you fill their heads with if not that of a happy life?

The flip side of that, is that there are a fair amount of parents, who get incredulous if their child doesn't have the dream social standard that they themselves found it easy to achieve. How many people in their mid-20s today are homeowners without student debts?

It's tough to tell, but it looks like you're partially blaming choice of career in humanities.

While this may be true for some people, it's not all roses in tech. I know this may not be your intended thesis, but I think it's worth pointing out some things that many people in high paying careers find out (not just tech, lawyers, business pros, ect.)... just to add to your point:

1. You're not going to have ANY time to relax, if you're trying to really get ahead, and take care of chores, let alone hobbies (which can even feel like chores if you like relax time)

2. Even if you don't care about advancing your career, or making money, there's a good chance you will feel like there's no other option... it's up or out

3. You may not find a partner, or at least a good supportive one, which makes some of these things easier (helping around the house, providing an anchor for an uncertain career)

4. Even if you find a good partner, things can change. It can make things even worse, due to heartbreak, or the pressures of living with someone you don't get along with; or you can lose your kids and/or be stuck with a big bill for your hardship.

5. There's a good chance you will grow apart from your friends. There's a lot of reasons for this, work, family, etc. It can be hard to find time in the best of cases

6. There's a pretty good chance you spend all of your money, or else you won't have the lifestyle you're expecting.

7. Health problems. They can start pretty early in adulthood, make it hard to feel comfortable, and end relationships / careers.

Just to add to your point: Even with "the career" things can wind up being pretty bleak. I have a lot going for me, but I don't live that crazy a lifestyle, own a house, etc. I suffer from some of these problems in varying degrees.

While some of the above is unavoidable, and has always been (eg. health). Other things seem fairly new. Like people with high paying jobs not owning houses, or having to choose between that, travel, etc.

Social networks are at an all time low point. Not for everyone, but it's been a growing trend.

I don't think that owning a house, occasionally traveling, with a supportive partner, while spending time with your friends, and having a few hobbies is "unreasonably high" for someone in a high paying career.

I'm not saying these things are unattainable, and it is asking quite a lot. However even if you play your cards well in life, you can easily end up falling very, very short.

> the people who chime in the most about their careers are usually those whose careers (or relationships) are going the best

I'm skeptical about this. I suspect that it's more likely that such people are presenting an image of their lives that is much better than the reality.

In my experience, people who are living great lives rarely feel the need to tell everyone how great their lives are. Even when they're teenagers.

“Career (superficially?) going great” doesn’t imply “living a great life”. Communicating it merely gives the (superficial) impression of doing so. But the more relevant point is, among those who communicate about their career/life, there will be a bias towards successful careers/lives.

I'm not convinced that any of that is bad.

>the people who chime in the most about their careers are those whose careers (and relationships) are going the best

As it should be. Only a very small minority of people have careers or relationships worth emulating, and they should be setting examples for everyone else to aspire to.

Lucy is upset because she knows that she can do better. She sees people who are no smarter and no better than her getting much more out of life, and she is rightfully disgusted with her mediocrity.

Personal anecdote- at one time I made 30k a year, and I actually thought that was good. I thought it was good because I made more than my friends.

Then I started hanging out on Blind and /r/cscareerquestions. I got a CS degree and a job paying $70k a year, but felt like a failure because everyone on Blind seems to make more. As soon as I could I hopped to a higher paying role, but still felt poor.

But I'm not complaining now. Peer pressure from social media pushed me to build a great career, even if it made me feel miserable and inadequate for a time.

Is it better to be happy and complacent? I don't think so.

Most people's social animal brains cannot really deal with being consistently shown to be low status individuals without starting to act like low status individuals: defensively and risk-aversely.

This is an unconscious reflex, you cannot control how anyone perceives your social worth, including yourself.

The problem is that it tends to be a vicious circle: once you start behaving in a weak way due to illusions, people will perceive you negatively and it will become harder to bounce back for real.

there's a lot to unpack in this comment but I'll pick off one point and maybe others will contest the rest

> Only a very small minority of people have careers or relationships worth emulating, and they should be setting examples for everyone else to aspire to.

Of those that have relationships worth emulating I doubt they are parasocially broadcasting it for the world to see. To the contrary, most of these images that you see on social media are heavily curated and manicured and don't really reflect reality.

Disclaimer: Not a parent, did not grow up during the era of social media

As a kid, I was bullied, outcast, left out. Oddly enough, I don't think I was depressed. Sure, I was sad sometimes. But given that my options didn't include doing things with kids from school, I did things on my own. Fortunately for me, I also had access to a (relatively) safe outdoors to explore. Or if the weather wasn't cooperating, I would play with toys inside.

But it sounds like social isolation can lead to mental illness/depression, so I don't know if enduring that is an acceptable alternative to the near certain mental illness that being part of the internet-connected social scene seems to cause.

Should we redirect our attention to figuring out how to keep kids mentally healthy despite likely social isolation that's going to happen no matter what? Is that possible?

This is an interesting thought. It sounds like your childhood was similar to mine. A big turning point in my life was finally realizing or accepting, at 15 or 16 years old, that it was OK to not be popular or be part of a big group of friends. It was OK to have just a few close relationships. It was OK to sit quietly by myself in the cafeteria during lunch and do my homework if my few friends didn't have the same lunch period. Ironically, I started to have more conventional social success after that, in addition to doing much better academically after a rough freshman and sophomore year of high school.

I've shared that advice with younger people, but not my own kids yet. I don't know if it helped, or if you can really teach that.

It must be frustrating to see this problem approaching and not knowing what to do. I wonder if at some point the only way out is to radically change one's family's lifestyle. Maybe homeschooling, very limited technology at home, living in a community with like-minded people, something like that?

As a parent of a 13yr old girl, we've tried with mixed success during her preteens to find her interests/activities she liked where she could get good at something and have a source of self esteem that came from somewhere outside her peer group interactions.

But yeah, the interest dies away a bit by 13 and we're not fully sure it worked. But we can see that her peers that didn't have earlier hobbies/skills had even lower self esteem. Shrug

You might want to look into sewing/textiles/fashion as a creative and intellectual activity. It's a nice combination of history, creativity, technical work, and learning from/with adults.

You might want to look into electronics/woodworking/rock climbing/astrophotography/playing an instrument/ice sculpture/welding/open-source research and investigation/archery/scuba diving/optics and lasers—insert any relevant option here that features history, creativity, technical skills, and mentorships—as a creative and intellectual activity. It's a nice combination of history, creativity, technical work, and learning from/with adults. Also, it wouldn’t be so immediately on-the-nose misogynistic as something like “sewing and fashion” to suggest for someone whose only known traits are that she’s a thirteen-year old girl.

this model breaks down because you have to enter society eventually. transitioning from homeschooling to highschool junior year and then into a large university was very difficult in my personal experience.

Yeah, I see that side of it too. I'm an Army officer, and there's an interesting phenomenon in our ranks. Officers who attend West Point live under some extreme restrictions, whereas officers who are products of ROTC and OCS tend to a have a normal civilian college experience. You can guess who gets into the most trouble after they graduate and enter the "real Army" with all the freedoms that young officers have. We have a long history of tinkering with how much freedom to give new enlisted troops during their basic training and specialized job training, trying to balance "discipline" with the fact that it's counter-productive for us to graduate new troops who immediately go wild when they get to their first real unit.

It worked well for me. Homeschooled until 7th grade. It helped me make friends, because I had no concept of cliques at the start. Also gave me a good "bullshit" meter for some of the crap public school has started teaching.

This was very much my observation of my nieces and nephews who went through that experience. They went all the way to adulthood home schooled, and the net result was they were wholly unprepared to be adults in modern society. They made it, mostly, but it was a rough couple years of adjustment.

On top of that, far from acquiring the values their parents hoped they'd get, they ended up with the reverse. Their attitudes are largely polar reversed from their parents, and they're incredibly resentful of having had those values pushed on them for the entirety of their childhood.

I've been through the whole gamut.

Homeschooling to private middle school was rough, mainly in my social circle going from a polite mixed-age group to a crass morass of the local rich kids. 18 months of that did more for my toilet humor repertoire than four years in the military.

Private to rural public school was a bit more relaxed. Less fistfights and emotional distress, but the academics were truly lacking - the district didn't have any more course material beyond Algebra 2 so I spent 8th grade math as a study hall. Chill, but ultimately wasted time.

Switched to a public charter for high school, and did a combination of home study and local community college courses. By that point I knew what I was "missing" from regular institutional education and was fine with the trade-off.

My own experience of transitioning from homeschooling throughout high school to a university degree in Mathematics/CS with honours was quite positive. I arrived at university with the personal drive to direct my own education and the wherewithal to orchestrate my own finances.

Admittedly, I was somewhat socially awkward until I met my wife, but it’s not clear that the social pressures of public school would have improved this. My interest in computers made me an outlier everywhere I went.

Homeschooling doesn’t have to mean social isolation. My own grade school children are confident speaking to senior citizens, adults, teens and other children alike, because they regularly socialize across their age groups. Being surrounded by people roughly your own age in school is an artificial construct that mostly doesn’t repeat thereafter.

That's exactly how we've positioned ourselves so far, for a variety of reasons that mostly reduce to not feeling like our values fit in well with American society at-large. It's not perfect, but I hope you're right and it helps with this issue.

Let's find a solution that does not involve expanding the Amish model.

The Amish kinda slap, they didn't invent addictive social media, put a game show host in charge of nuclear weapons, or have a bunch of corporations change their icons to rainbow icons while still being shitty.

They literally realized 300 years ago that they should opt out of the nonsense America descended into

I know that's meant to be funny, but the Amish community is a nightmare, from the outside looking in, very closely. I live in an area where there is a large Amish community; they outnumber "English" about 4:1.

Patriarchy in all decisions. The old men make choices for families based on what they know is best, and you follow that rule, regardless of your own views. Women are not allowed a voice in formal decisions. Children are a tradable commodity. If you upset an elder, your life is over.

You're raised speaking German first, so that you can "learn your heritage" (read: always feel the divide between yourself and the rest of the country). You get up to an 8th grade education and nothing more. Only if it doesn't interfere with your chores. If you are sent off to college for whatever reason (my neighbor was a college educated Amish; he was the legal representative for the community) they treat you like an outsider. You are not allowed a voice in community votes, if they have them. You get the scraps. If you start a business, and someone else wants to start the same thing, you give it over to them, no questions asked.

God forbid you disagree with the elders. Imagine being in your 30's, with just an 8th grade education, and your entire community, family, and support system turns their back on you and yours. You're screwed.

If the bishop believes another community could use your skills, or doesn't like your family, you have to move, possibly hundreds of miles. That's after selling everything you own, usually at a loss. But that doesn't matter, because the community itself and the church actually own everything, you are just renting your own business and/or home from the church.

Absolute rule by the male elders. Lies and buried secrets. That's the way of the Amish. But they get a pass, because their beards and hats look funny.

How’s their teenage girl depression stats?

Given the rates of child sexual assault, probably not great.

Some of this varies by the exact community and sect. But there are some good lessons in there too. Health-wise they are great, with some of the lowest costs, low chronic disease, and getting about double the recommended 10k steps per day.

So we don't want to emulate them in every way, but we can take some lessons in certain areas.

If you truly want resilient kids, that lifestyle will do it. Safety is another thing though. I saw a 1 year old just fall 3 feet off a playset and it only cried a little. The parents weren't very concerned. I guess when you have 6 kids, it's like you have "spares". Not that it's the right way to look at it, but ignoring balance of other concerns they will be tough.

> The parents weren't very concerned. I guess when you have 6 kids, it's like you have "spares".

As a parent of 4, having multiple children does tend to put things in perspective, but really what makes the biggest difference is probably that you can't physically helicopter all of them. So you have to give up that mindset. Not that you don't still need to keep an eye on them.

"So we don't want to emulate them in every way, but we can take some lessons in certain areas."

Living tight as a community is probably what they are doing right, I "just" would use a different approach to power.

> You get up to an 8th grade education and nothing more...Imagine being in your 30's, with just an 8th grade education

This at least would be a massive improvement for most people in the US who only read at a 6th grade level and have a comparable level of skill in math and science.

https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/08/02/us-literacy-rate/

https://people.com/parents/most-parents-math-and-science-kno...

You're assuming that the average Amish are great at school, which based on nost communities around the world, is most likely false.

I.e. the average highschool graduate probably reads at 6th grade level but the average middle school graduate probably only reads at 5th or 4th grade level is a reasonable assumption.

You're right, it assumes that teaching to an 8th grade level means they've learned to read/write at an 8th grade level.

There's also an assumption that the Amish are more rigorousness in their teaching and that they would make sure kids learn to read at the level expected from them which may or may not actually be true.

Although a few minutes with Google didn't give me a lot of firm numbers, it did return results which suggest that the Amish may be more concerned with making sure their students are literate and that they care very much about ensuring their children are well educated as a matter of cultural identity. I didn't see anything to support the idea that they would perform worse than non-amish children at least. It also mentions that they're nearly all fluent in two languages which is a bonus.

> Yet illiteracy is virtually nonexistent in Amish settlements. Without television and computers, they read more than most Americans. They have a remarkable ability to learn new skills—even complicated ones—and value lifelong learning. Amish parents are heavily involved in their children’s education: they donate the land and building supplies for the school, visit regularly, attend school events, and take turns caring for the facilities.

> In the book Amish Society, John Hostetler wrote, “On several standardized tests, Amish children performed significantly higher in spelling, word usage, and arithmetic than a sample of pupils in rural public schools. They scored slightly above the national norm in these subjects in spite of small libraries, limited equipment, the absence of radio and television, and teachers who lacked college training.” (https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/columns-and-blo...)

> That is one thing that sets our culture apart from the Amish. The Amish grow up writing. And yes, I grew up writing too but in the Amish culture reading is one of the biggest things in their culture. And even as adults such as Eli and Anna in the article; they participate in circle letters with people that have the same background, interests, or anything else that the have in common.(https://edblogs.olemiss.edu/jmswartz/2020/09/04/literacy-and...)

> On several standardized tests, Amish children performed significantly higher in spelling, word usage, and arithmetic than a sample of pupils in rural public schools.

I was watching this show on African-American troops during WWI and The Powers That Be were really[0] concerned that the ones from the cities were consistently performing better on the standardized tests than the rural white folks.

Think the rural schools aren’t the best at educating the youths.

[0] They were also concerned about the French treating them like real people too so, yeah…

The western model is built on patriarchy, they just continually import people from patriarchies to supply western work forces. Without patriarchy the western model would collapse because westerners aren't interested in creating a non-patriarchal model of society which might reduce their standards of living and force them to expend labour on things like childrearing.

It's an out of sight, out of mind patriarchy. The amish are so offensive partially because they genuinely are extreme, but also in part because they're self-sustaining so they can't hide and abstract away such cruelty. In any case, there's perhaps a middle path between the extremes of amish society and "Patriarchy for the poor" western society.

>The western model is built on patriarchy, they just continually import people from patriarchies to supply western work forces. Without patriarchy the western model would collapse because westerners aren't interested in creating a non-patriarchal model of society which might reduce their standards of living and force them to expend labour on things like childrearing.

I'd advise that you try to find a new term to replace "western" here.

There have been plenty of experiments within a "western" context to do things differently, but few of them have spread broadly. In addition, there are plenty of long-lived patriarchies outside whatever you might consider "the west" to be.

>Patriarchy in all decisions. The old men make choices for families based on what they know is best

Is this not a thing where you are? Americans(and I am one) speak much about patriarchy but still uphold it strongly. Even countries like Indonesia and Pakistan have already elected female leaders. I see people say things like this, and yet many American women would still call it a patriarchy in every sense.

>Children are a tradable commodity.

? That's kind of a huge accusation and I'm not sure what it means. That could also be describing surrogacy which is widely accepted in our society.

>If you upset an elder, your life is over.

This is true in a lot of places-- including the US senate-- and is often the result of power concentrating in the hands of those with the most tenure. While they may lean on this more in their culture, it's still not exactly unrecognizable behavior.

>You're raised speaking German first, so that you can "learn your heritage"

There are immigrants(and most European countries) that do that. It's hard to teach a second language once a child is speaking English with their peers. If you teach the non-english language first, it's easy for them to learn English as a second language in school where they'll pick it up naturally speaking with peers.

> If you are sent off to college for whatever reason (my neighbor was a college educated Amish; he was the legal representative for the community) they treat you like an outsider.

Sounds difficult. I won't deny there I'm sure there are peculiarities about their culture worth disagreeing with.

>Imagine being in your 30's, with just an 8th grade education, and your entire community, family, and support system turns their back on you and yours.

Doesn't this happen to trans youth all the time? Minus the education thing.

>But they get a pass, because their beards and hats look funny.

That's not why they're not discussed more often. It's because they mostly stick to themselves so people don't bother looking into their communities. This can happen with highly insular communities, it's not an excuse but it is what it is.

Sounds awful, and yet 30% of Amish girls don't want to kill themselves. So we can go off on the Amish, provided when we finish we admit we do an even worse job of protecting our daughters' wellbeing. And the Amish are a politically and culturally irrelevant minority, who exist in the general consciousness primarily as a punch line, which makes me wonder if we couldn't come up with a more constructive way of avoiding the issue.

STRONG agree on the beards.

> and yet 30% of Amish girls don't want to kill themselves.

You can't swap in a lack of evidence as "evidence of zero."

We have no reliable information on how many Amish girls want to kill themselves, so there's no way to compare the two groups in that specific aspect.

Fair enough, although it seems unlikely, being such an extraordinary number. Perhaps we could at least agree that the increase due to excessive social media use among the Amish is likely much lower (as it is in those in the general public who do not partake?).

In any case, the Amish are not a serious social comparison, they are a curiosity, and nothing we can say or speculate about their failings will make ours any less. Does China have this problem? Did the US have it 20 years ago? [SPOILER: no] Is turning our children over to exploitative corporations and addictive algorithms likely to result in good outcomes? Do we have any data about this?

> you're raised speaking German first, so that you can "learn your heritage" (read: always feel the divide between yourself and the rest of the country).

This isn't a fair take IMO. The Amish are not the only groups of Pennsylvania Dutch that are native German speakers, and many of these groups are not counter culture isolationists like the Amish are. The Moravians for example were banned from the colony of New York because they went there to represent the Mohicans when the New York colony tried to illegally rob them of the lands they'd been promised in treaties. Like many of the non-anabaptist (that's Amish & Mennonite sects) groups of Pennsylvania Dutch they were fully on board with participating in broader US culture as long as they could do so while speaking German and engaged in all the same businesses, government/legal/military roles that the rest of society did.

People just think of the Amish by default in these conversations because in part they're more visible, and in part because the non-isolationist groups scaled back the German speaking in the wake of the two world wars.

> Patriarchy in all decisions

In the non-anabaptist communities this is not like that anymore than it is for broader culture. Traditional medicine practitioners in the Pennsylvania Dutch- for example the pow-wowers, were socially expected to only train an apprentice/protégé who is of the opposite sex, and further socially expected to provide their services for free. To stray from either of those was (and still is) a major taboo.

Some of them have opted out of nonsense like reporting sexual assault to authorities, as well.

From "Child Sexual Abuse in the Amish Community: A Hidden Epidemic":

> “I’ve learned that sexual abuse in their communities is an open secret, spanning generations,” she wrote in the 2019 article. “Victims told me stories of inappropriate touching, groping, fondling, exposure to genitals, digital penetration, coerced oral sex, anal sex and rape—all at the hands of their own family members, neighbors and church leaders.”

[1] https://www.aetv.com/real-crime/child-sexual-abuse-amish

What’s the term for a weeaboo but for the Amish?

Protestants

> The Amish kinda slap

For anyone else who was confused by this: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/slap/

Slap means really good in this context, e.g. "this song really slaps".

This makes me want to make a generational/chronological slang chart now

Thanks, just edited my post to link to the definition.

Guess I'd fall under the generation that would have said "rock" instead (although the Amish most definitely do not rock).

That's kind of glossing over the nonsense they did opt into.

lol, the Amish are not competitive on the world stage and if left to run the country, we'd have actually been invaded a dozen times already - or at the least, we'd be a vassal state.

opting out of "the nonsense" is fun to think about, but not when competing countries have robotic factories.

The ridiculous Amish model of being conservative with new technology and considering as a community if it has benefit to the society before introducing it?

Inconceivable. If a new technology comes out, we need to adopt it in 0.1 seconds, or we'll be Stone Age caveman losers!

Are they just conservative though? Or paleoconservative? I.e. not 5-15 years behind current tech (okish), but more like a century (catastrophic)?

Mennonite with a cell phone:

https://youtu.be/Pt_XU4W4DBA?t=858

I'm a father of a non-verbal autistic son. We have chosen a non-traditional path for him to avoid bullying and he is generally doing quite well (and slowly becoming a bit more verbal). It helps that he has siblings that love him as he is.

Our kids have a mix of private schooling, tutoring, and homeschooling. They spend a lot of time outdoors and have very limited access to screens and no social media. We chose this path because the typical classroom has 25-30 barbarians and 1 civilized person, if you're lucky.

Most social media appears completely overrun by highly tribal barbarians.

> We chose this path because the typical classroom has 25-30 barbarians and 1 civilized person, if you're lucky.

If you ingrain this kind of superiority complex into your kid then they will have major problems when they enter the real world where they have to cooperate in a world of “barbarians”.

Have you spent time around high school and jr high students? Barbarians is putting it nicely.

There is a reason homeschooling pods are in fashion with middle class and above right now.

It's a growing trend.

They wouldn't be out of the loop if enough other girls did the same thing. They you'd have your own group.

Let’s be honest though. That would simply never work. You’d have to get a group of teen girls to make a pact to all be out of the loop. Not one of them can sneak a peek at social media!

Knowing what teens are like I’d say that experiment would last a week. Social media is addictive probably even more so for teens and fomo is real

I have witnessed the same with my wife, we only have one girl.. the only thing I have imagined could work is keeping her busy and teaching her how to be attracted to decent communities that may not necessarily be who she goes to school with.

edit: but I have literally no clue what I am going to do, I have like another 5 years or so.

What do you mean you have witnessed the same? Do you mean a decline in mental health?

Yes, sorry. But she now uses it all a lot less after getting on depression meds and being able to clearly see it’s impact on her mental health.

In mid 2022 I started doing what I called Facebookless Fridays.

Eventually that progressed to also on a Saturday afteroon-ish I'd update my status to "See You Noon Tuesday"* and then not do FB til noon Tue, in addition to FL Fridays.

It was odd at first. But then it's liberating in the sense you realize how much junkfood for the mind and soul it is. Mind you I'm not a 12 y/o but perhaps if it was a group / family effort you can pull back enough to develop healthier perspectives not based on SM and only SM?

* Yes, it's any intentional play on see you next Tuesday ;)

Same. It have no idea what I'm going to do about it.

So we know that social media causes depression and anxiety and we know that kids will want to be on social media so we have to teach them the skills to regulate their emotions.

Most importantly that they can identify when they need to ask for help and will ask for it. We need to normalize asking for help.

Right now kids can learn these skills in therapy but that is not the only place those skills should be taught or reinforced. Schools for example are a good place for that.

Remember that cliques in school were reinforced by the telephone and just like the game of telephone a lot gets lost in communication. Social media is an extension of that.

I don't even have the skills to regulate my emotions

So I guess you know where to begin then and that is with you.

It’s ok for a 12yo to be out of the loop for a few hours. They see their friends every day at school.

"Oh my god, did you see what Stacy posted last night!"

But your daughter missed it because "you didn't let her have an Instagram account!" It seems to me that such worries are well-founded. At best, she made the decision herself and still feels the pain of it.

That's letting kids parent themselves.

You're looking at it in isolation because you are not privy to the kids' social circle. What the gp is describing is a social cost imposed on the non-participant kid. If repeated often, this will lower their status within their social circle and (much like chickens) the least popular kids become the default target for emotional abuse and bullying. If they withdraw form their social circle to cut their losses, then they potentially become a general bullying target, because they are not part of a protective circle.

It's easy to be dismissive of these ideas, but there is an extensive and rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics. A good introduction with a strong quantitative/mathematical orientation is Social and Economic Networks by Matthew Jackson. Arguing on the basis of your own developmental experience in which significantly different conditions obtained (eg the non-existence/availability of social media or the internet) is equivalent to just wishing the problem away.

  It's easy to be dismissive of these ideas, but there is an
  extensive and rigorous literature on network topology and
  dynamics.

Parenting through rigorous literature on network topology and dynamics?

  Arguing on the basis of your own developmental experience
  in which significantly different conditions obtained (eg
  the non-existence/availability of social media or the
  internet) is equivalent to just wishing the problem away.

Actually, it was a description of having fixed the problem, because it wasn't as much of a problem as people believe beforehand through network topology that simulates k-12 social circles. When parents love their children, talk to them, are privy to their kids' social circles, and make decisions in the best welfare of their children, those children are able to recover from the intense loss of missing what Stacy posted last night.

Ah, sarcasm.

The problem comes down to putting kids in forced confinement with a bunch of other kids for 6 hours a day with no way for them to escape. Mandatory "education" of teens is harmful on the net. It wastes some or the most energetic and productive hours of life while teaching very few useful skills (and those could be taught in a fraction of the time).

I'm a parent, and I was what you call a "non-participant" kid who was bullied when I was in junior high and high school. Here's the thing: School ends. It's a tiny part of one's life. I know, when you're in it, it feels like it takes forever, but once you graduate high school, nobody on earth gives a shit about where you were on the social totem pole. In the grand scheme of things, the cliques and social circles are entirely unimportant, and I plan to teach my kid that. Keep your eye on the prize. K-12 school is something you simply endure until you are an adult in the adult world.

When your kid leaves high school at 18, 2/3 of their life will have been hell to endure. Yeah, no thanks.

I get what you're saying but we shouldn't escalate this into a type of prison gang situation, there's significant middle ground.

When the research is becoming clear that these dynamics and these years of a teen life cause so much harm, we can't be so fatalistic to say that giving in is mandatory.

Oh, I'm certainly not suggesting just giving in to it. But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously, because even though the cliques don't have importance in society, they have impacts on those within, and our understanding of how cliques operate is surprisingly under-appreciated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachary's_karate_club

Now combine the natural fact of cliques and fissures in small groups with the amplification/reinforcement effects that social media provides, and you can see the potential for acceleration/intensification of social stresses during formative years - like Mean Girls but potentially spread across the entire internet, or at least similar cohorts.

> But in contrast to the person I replied to, I think we should take teens' perspectives on their social cliques seriously

Of course I take teens' perspectives seriously. There really is no reason for you to personalize things in that way. You have talked about being accepting, yet you have consistently 100% dismissed the lived experiences of parents who disagree with your opinions.

I responded to your original comment of 'That's letting kids parent themselves' with an in-depth answer, and then you later went off on me in quite a sarcastic way. A very short comment like that doesn't give others very much to go by.

Kids setting their own bounaries and deciding what and when they can do literally is kids parenting themselves. Parents are more than just older people who ask kids what they want to do, tell them they are perfect, and give them money.

What does it mean to parent anyway?

Even chatgpt knows.

(prompt:) what does it mean to parent?

  To parent means to raise and nurture a child from infancy to adulthood,
  providing them with love, care, guidance, and support as they grow and
  develop. Parenting involves a wide range of responsibilities and
  activities, including providing for a child's physical needs, such as
  food, shelter, and medical care, as well as their emotional and
  psychological needs, such as love, affection, and encouragement.

  Effective parenting also involves setting boundaries and rules, providing
  discipline when necessary, and teaching children important life skills,
  such as communication, problem-solving, and decision-making. As children
  grow and mature, parents often adjust their parenting style to meet their
  children's changing needs and help them develop into independent and
  responsible adults.

ChatGPT has no idea what parenting means. It parrots what other people have written about parenting.

That's a good point.

Honestly, that sounds exactly like most parents I know these days (just doing what other parents are doing).

Problems are problems. On the one hand, you find out stuff yourself. On the other hand, sharing with your peers(parents) and getting info from them can help an enormous amount too. shrug

It's universalizing agency.

It never gets old hearing HNers lament being bullied by their children into rethinking unpopular parenting decisions.

I feel similarly to seeing parenting advice from people who clearly aren't parents.

Funny thing is, I'm not a parent and have no plans to be one. Just seems kinda obvious to me.

It is way more difficult and nonobvious then you think.

I’m not a parent but it’s pretty easy to see why there is no obvious solution here.

"For every problem, there is a solution that is simple, obvious, and wrong."

Parenting is by far the most difficult, stressful thing I've ever undertaken. My kids are mostly not too difficult, but they're very different nonetheless. My son is Mr. Compliant and is exactly the kind of kid that makes people think they must be rockstar parents. My daughter, on the other hand, routinely makes me feel like an ineffectual failure at parenting. I love her more than anything in the world, but she might well be costing me a few years of lifespan :).

One major problem, at least from my perspective, is managing the transfer of responsibility as a child progresses from toddler to adult. It's not like you throw them the keys at 18 and say 'good luck!'. So there is ongoing give-and-take, rules, negotiations, and extending trust. My kids are 10 and 12, which is an exciting time for sure. Puberty is a wild ride whether you're the victim or not :)

Haven't let her get a smartphone yet, but this is an ongoing battle. Because when she says 'but all my friends do!' she's not lying. I have to temper my fears and try to remember what it's like to be a kid. As an adult I had largely forgotten what it was like in middle school.

Thanks for sharing!

> Parenting is by far the most difficult, stressful thing I've ever undertaken.

From my observations, I don't think this can be overstated, at least from an American perspective. It is easily the single largest factor in my decision-making on this topic, and seems to be something which many people underestimate.

Getting back to why we're all here: at least "make" them jailbreak or root the device to get around some of these apparently arbitrary limits!

It’s time to develop a backbone. You’ll need one when she starts dating someone with a motorcycle and leather jacket, or modern equivalent.

Not all 12 year olds are in a single social group. If one is being left out because they don't have an instagram account, there's another social group they can gravitate to that has other interests besides instagram posts.

> there's another social group they can gravitate to that has other interests besides instagram posts.

no, there isn't

Most likely there is in nicer schools. There are social groups around swim competitive clubs, ski race teams, hockey teams, ball hockey, summer long duration live in camps etc.

In many ways hanging out with kids who are banned from social media is hanging out with kids from a pretty exclusive club. This is why unless you homeschool it is REALLY worth it to put your kids into school where parents are from a similar group as you are.

I have a daughter who's 11 years of age and has plenty of friends at school. She doesn't have an instagram account and hasn't asked me to get her a device so that she's able to create an account and log on. So I really doubt there aren't social groups in school and other settings where instagram isn't a primary focus.

Then they get to blame the parent. "I want to use social media but my lame parents won't let me." Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent. That ship sailed a long time ago.

The "lame parent" is so much better than the "cool parent". I've got plenty of "cool parent" friends, and they all have one thing in common: their kids are assholes.

> Then they're left out of some things, but they get to deflect that social stigma. I'm willing to accept being the lame parent.

I know this is anecdotal, but my experience doesn't show that pans out. I am on the older edge of the millennial cohort age-wise and had a very strict parent growing up who would not allow me access to TV, most movies, and contemporary music. Which meant I never listened to what my classmates did, wasn't familiar with their pop culture references, couldn't go with them to movies, sometimes had to sit out movies shown in class (!) and none of my classmates, all of whom picked up on it and most of whom bullied me for it, cared that it was my parents forcing the situation upon me.

Strangely, I was given unmonitered and unrestricted access to the pre-social media internet and used it to associate online mostly with adults and found it very rewarding re: my education & hobbies. Until smartphones became popular it made me a firm believer in this idea that "the internet is infinite knowledge" and "once everyone gets it we'll be infinitely smarter!" The idea of "crap, X broke let's research online how to fix it" has saved me a lifetime of hiring people for car or home repairs.

Anyway I am starting to go off topic but I am very skeptical of this idea that "my lame parent won't let me" means much when bullies latch on to "hey, little Jane/Johnny over there doesn't know what X is!"

I can see that, but also being out of the loop on social media is incredibly fleeting. If you haven't seen Star Wars you'll feel left out of some conversations, if you don't know about the long nose dog meme or whatever, just wait a week until no one remembers it anymore.

Your daughter might do something that matters (to her, even!) instead of aspiring to be a TikTok influencer.

This feels very similar to a manager with late night emails. A type of hostage situation.

But then they are out of loop in the in person discussions that are predominantly focused on the happenings of whatever is on instagram at that time

Kids are a lot more susceptible to feeling left out of stuff. They don't know it's all the same crap everywhere yet ;)

There's also a spectrum of FOMO, from accidental to intentional. Some people feed off of excluding others.

Do they? Is social media being used in morning classes to plan lunch? Will a socially isolated student even have friends? I haven't been in school for many years so I don't know the social dynamic but it isn't hard to imagine.

They do seem to live on Snapchat lately.

No, phones not allowed on in class. Might be able to do for 3 mins between classes while walking.

Yeah and no games were allowed on my ti-83.

Do you really think kids are “planning lunch” over social media, when they sit at the same tables every day? And the cafeteria is providing it? Sounds like you’re grasping at straws to make it seem relevant.

The kids here communicate via imessage and rarely during class.

I absolutely believe that lunch seating is a manifestation of social hierarchy and that positions are determined in advance, yes.

Those things are chosen via looks, athleticism, and charisma in person. Not planned each morning via internet points, right?

No? If the communication can happen in person it can happen online. There was no shortage of gossip on MSN Messenger when I was in school.

If social media is as important to these kids as it sounds then follower count or posting style may be as important as athleticism and charisma.

Putting BigTech profits before child welfare, nice. Another look at the linked piece may be in order?

At one time, everyone thought smoking was important as well, to fit in. Now we know better.

Did you reply to the right comment?

When I was in school, kids whose parents chose not to expose them to cable TV were ostracized. I can imagine something similar happening today with social media.

I definitely felt left out not having an N64 or Playstation growing up, but in hindsight I didn't actually miss much. What stings at the time is the feeling that you're missing out.

As the Father of Three girls ; I propose a screen-age limit. Just like the drinking limit, and I think that certain sites should have a limit of 10 years old.

Only educational sites and videos should be available to anyone under 10.

I KNOW this is a horrendously hard problem to solve - but kids should EARN sceen time by 'playing outside time' or something.

Kids born to cities are fucked. kids born to dense 'no-nature'access' environs are fucked.

But growing up in the forrests of california and being a latch-key kid in the 80s was a godsend to my imagination and thus my IQ.

Nature is the best solution by far. Everything else is a half measure IMO.

The thing that these devices take away from us is time to think, or 'boredom'; we're meant to walk everywhere. The only solution is to restore that, what better environment to do so than a forest?

> Only educational sites and videos should be available to anyone under 10.

I don't think you could enforce this anyway, but it's also a terrible idea. I can't imagine what my life would have been like if my local library or bookseller felt like you do about the internet and I was trapped reading fiction way below by level.

The solution to the problem isn't censorship and holding inquisitive children back, it's parenting and guiding children safely while they explore their interests and the world they live in.

Agreed - its knee-jerk..

But what is a better solution? (honest Q)

Like, should we have immediate death to those who violate the young? (the other extreme)

+1 to that, but hardly implementable....

So, What Do?

This assumes that children are “held back” by not having unlimited access to screens. It also equates books with the internet which is absurd.

Social media, and the internet as we know it, have only been a part of children’s lives for about 15 years, less than a single generation. The idea that it is now an indispensable part of their development, and that depriving them of it is going to harm them us utterly ridiculous. As if every generation before now consists of drooling ape-men that could have been what this current generation of apparent Uber-children will become if only they too had access to TikTok and YouTube.

It assumes that children would be "held back" by not being able to access content they are mature enough for until they reach an arbitrary age determined by someone other than the child or the child's parents. Nowhere did I suggest that children should have "unlimited access to screens". In fact I explicitly mentioned that it should be parents who ensure that their children are exposed to things safely.

I have no doubt that the children growing up with access to the internet (including youtube and twitter) had greater opportunity to be better educated, more exposed to art and culture, and to be better prepared for their life as an adult in the world than the children who grew up without the internet. Those things were made much easier by having access to the internet. I say that as someone who grew up without internet access for many years. I know not having access to the internet we have today as a young child placed limitations on what I could have reasonably attained. That doesn't mean we should set every child lose on the internet without any thought to what they're seeing.

Also, the internet is very much like books, but I'd remind you that libraries and even bookstores offer many other forms of media as well.

This is the Chinese approach and this is one of few things where I'm not creeped out by it. Enforced max screen time and content is forcefully educational, fun, age-appropriate.

Nobody likes this but the consequences of not taking action are huge.

One strategy that should help is to load them up on extracurriculars. Keep them busy with extra math tutoring (russian school of math, kumon, etc.) and physically active in a healthy way with enough sleep (swimming, track, soccer).

That way there is not a lot of dwell time to be depressed about missing out on stuff.

Also taking away privileges due to not passing grades, not keeping up with math tutoring, etc. is a great way to get them out of the social media loop.

It gives them a highly plausible and relatable reason to not be active on these platforms (i.e. uggh, I "wish" I could have seen that instagram post but my parents are soo strict!).

Having a big important swim meet or soccer game early Saturday morning is a great reason for not being at Friday's drinking party.

So much for the "play based childhood", then. (And no, of course assigned sports don't count)

In another thread I mentioned the need for organized (in the sense of same place, same time) unstructured activity. Gather at the basketball court, if practice or a game break out that's good, if not that's OK.

It seems like everyone wins in that scenario, it's healthy but playful and low stress while accommodating parents' need for scheduling.

Is such a thing common? I don't hear about it much.

Agree, its unfortunate that most of the after school sports program start getting to be like prepping for professional/collegiate level sports once they reach high school.

Middle school and junior varsity high school sports coupled with math tutoring is probably enough to keep them busy enough and out of trouble/off social media.

This seems like a solid option. A fair bit of my childhood was like this, actually, and it was great for us. I don't hear about similar things much, but I bet we will eventually.

How different is this from most out of school care? When we've had our kids in what here is called OSHC (out of school hours care or similar), it's been pretty free-form and vaguely supervised. Some kids do art, some muck around on the oval, some roam in nature play (with a supervisor in the general area), some watch a movie.

I guess you're talking about a little bit more organisation - today, muck around with racquets and shuttlecocks, tomorrow muck around with calligraphy brushes and ink.

I always remember once in unstructured art time (1980s, substitute teacher...) around the age of 11-12, we were all nailing together strips of masonite, making cross-shaped projectiles about 500mm across, and then flinging them around the oval. They would've been absolutely deadly if that wasn't shut down!

I think the challenge is that these programs phase out by middle school even though they should really continue to mid-high school. Really people just need a nice space to study, learn, grow, etc.

That's true. By that age, kids can be disruptive and unmanageable. You'd need a far more engaging and hands-on program, that would be a lot more expensive to administer.

I think free range parenting is great in theory and/or if you are writing a book on free range parenting and have dedicated your life to understanding how to do it properly.

For the rest of us - particularly for dual income parents with teenagers who no longer really "play" - there are organized after school activities.

Its really about odds. You won't get outlier results like Bill Gates or <insert other famous person> but on the flip side you won't get a teenager you have to bail out of jail or a teenager pranking people for Tiktok views. You'll get a decent young adult that can earn a decent living and live independently and confidently.

Is he wrong though? If the other kids aren't really playing, what's the point?

Play for the sake of playing toxic social media social games?

this is satire, surely?

Maybe you can ask their teachers to give them more homework? Then they will be too busy with homework to be depressed about being isolated from their peers.

This effect is just as true for adults as for kids. I largely lost touch with the music scene I was involved in because I didn't want to do everything on Facebook, and now Instagram.

Same. And the worst part of Facebook is that it managed to make everything very toxic. Not that my local music scene was great, but there were several day-long fights in local music Facebook groups. All because of bullshit that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

Instagram however had other problems. It's all about consumerism. When people started spending money on DSLR cameras to make stories about their expensive music equipment, that was too much for me.

Glad I quit both.

Part of it is never letting them start early in the first place. Stay strong and don’t give in. The old saying “If they were your real friends they wouldn’t care…” is more true than it is cliche. Try to make them understand that.

Or, instead of creating hyper rebellious kids who seek to go against your strong absolute rules - talk to them. Get them bored of social media. Explain what's really going on, what different forms of social media exist, how to talk to your friends directly in a safe way rather than go through the drudge of Instagram. What limits should exist when using any of these communication platforms. They'll understand.

Often we want to protect our family through rigid rules, but all that does is make them want to pull away more.

Having absolute rules doesn’t mean having rebellious kids. I have an absolute rule to look both ways before crossing the street and nobody had ever rebelled against that.

But I 100% agree you do have to explain and you do have to eat your own dog food and try not to be too much of a hypocrite. They need to see you believe it yourself. And try not to lie with tall tales. I think every time a non life threatening absolute statement is proven false by experience they will lose trust.

I read or heard once that if you always told your child to put a coat on before they have actually experienced the cold they naturally don’t understand why they need it and will resist wearing one. But if you let them experience the cold and involve them in the thought process they will want to put a coat on. “Let’s see how it feels outside? Oooo it’s cold! What should we do?” Etc etc. I’ve tried to do that with most things (within reason and when applicable) and I think it gives them more confidence and understanding. Like the whole tell/show/include thing. The more experiences like this where you proved to be right the more they trust you even when the disagree.

Some people really just need to find out for themselves. All the talking it through will not convince them. Everybody is different. Even between my two boys, one is going to do it anyway, and one will be too busy thinking about it to do it.

Speaking of different, I do remember friends as a kid that went through a phase where they believed "no, they won't hit me or else". The "or else" was the driver getting in trouble, being sued, going to prison, something.

I never thought any of that would fix me, and continued to look.

Funny you should mention that, while we look both ways to preserve our survival due to understanding the dangers of cars, yet we will jaywalk at the same time.

A little rebellion is inevitable, just matters what it is. By acknowledging this inevitability, you have a much better chance of giving your family the tools to make smarter choices. Exactly like you said, demonstration is a fantastic tool to utilize.

It's the difference between rebelling against your friends peer pressure obsession with posting so much on social media because you knew how it made them miserable, as opposed to rebelling against your parents for banning social media when it looks like your friends are having so much fun without you.

Middle School educator here. I can assure you that your daughters will not be alone when it comes to a moratorium on social media. However, the girls they may very well want to be friends with may be very much into social media and group chats. My advice is to be firm but also take steps to create social opportunities for your daughters. I have a 12yo and I host board game nights with amazing snack trays. I help her to play video games socially using air console.

You have to play defense. These apps are deleterious to your daughters self worth. I’ve seen too many hospitalizations and suicides to believe otherwise. But you also have to play offense. They will need guidance on how to be social in a world coopted by manipulation and deceit. Parenting these days is challenging but it’s possible to raise girls who thrive without phones.

Thanks a ton for this. As a father of a pre-teen daughter who begs for a smartphone every day, I’ve been anxious about how I’m going to deal with this situation. I’d only been thinking in terms of defence, and this article had me really worried. Planning for how to create the social opportunities is just as important. Defence and Offence. I really like it!

iOS has excellent parental control tools, down to time allowance on per app level.

Of course a decision to use restriction would ideally be one made together with the child so that they can truly consent.

My oldest is 10 and oldest daughter is 8, so we're approaching this challenge. We've talked to them in a broad sense about the issue, but your post made me realise that tackling it together is worth a shot. e.g., lots of talk about what the issue is, and what opportunities there are to address it. And then work together to devise a strategy. Not just them saying to peers "My parents say I'm not allowed to do x."

> Not just them saying to peers "My parents say I'm not allowed to do x."

Yes, that's the core of it. Working together on facing the issue while supporting increasing the agency of the child.

Anything forced onto them is just an external force to deal with. A decision made together, with own interest and long-term vision in consideration, with rules derived from these goals, are a very different thing.

One trains the child to submit + secretly subvert, the other nurtures trust and trains collaboration, openness, iteration etc.

>that they can truly consent.

This is bullshit. They are not consenting. They are succumbing to coercion due to power dynamics at best or are straight up being overridden by what you want.

Parenting is not negotiating with an adult, especially if they are preteen/early teenage years. They are humans with terrible executive functions that would be wards of the state without you.

You can certainly explain why you’re making a decision, but it’s really just your decision.

Don't take consent too literally here.

You get a lot further by engaging and explaining things with a child, and proceeding with their agreement.

"Because I said so" is not a good approach, which I think the op meant

You're right that kids can't make decisions yet. However, they should be taught to, and in order to learn something, you should be able to attempt it, even if you fail.

thank you for sharing this sobering but hopeful perspective

Thanks for sharing this perspective. We have a 9yo and it's already the case some of her classmates have devices that are connected to social media. Very handy advice!

> using air console.

This one, yeah?

https://www.airconsole.com

Sounds like some form of collective action could go a long way here to the point of being imperative. Get like minded parents and teachers and administrators together on this and work together to preview and encourage alternatives.

Tangentially, I’m curious if smoking went through a phase similar to this, where all the parents were doing it but there was still some recognition that children/teens shouldn’t and some parenting struggles against the ubiquity of cigarettes.

If so, what were the factors of success or failure? Did any progress in protecting kids from smoking have to wait until underage smoking was illegal or even the public push against adults smoking?

It really does feel to me like the smart phone and social media steer the cigarettes of the millennial generation.

I think you are on to something here. That's exactly what happened with smoking.

Factors for that being successful was mostly just repeating the information about how bad it was a lot in the beginning. Once everybody agrees about that, then you slowly start making it socially unacceptable.

I could see a similar thing happening with social media of awareness of the seriousness of the damage becomes as widespread as for smoking. As in I think it's possible that one day it will be totally socially unacceptable to be glued to your phone at a social event of some sort.

I‘ve got young boys, so I can’t speak directly to the fears that parents have about their daughters.

I think the door can swing both ways. While consumers can take tobacco as a playbook, there was recent reporting about the stickiness of iOS with Gen Z. I can imagine there a number of people want to (indirectly) keep it that way.

Platforms will come out with some feature that mitigates the social outrage, creates FUD around the true scale of the problem, and kicks the can down the road a little further while millions more get addicted for a little while longer.

Yea, interesting!

If there's something to this analogy, I feel like it'd be worth being more commonly known.

For me, as a Millennial/Xennial, I sure as hell criticised the elders close to me for their smoking and their taking up the habit in their youth. For parents now who have similar stories, it might be a helpful perspective to have on how these things tend to happen and what's required to actually address any problems.

It might also lead to some uncomfortable reflections on the world us Millennials are passing on.

Maybe the best first step for parents would be to quit social media / smartphones themselves and get more active in creating alternative ways of being (however easier said than done that is)?

Interestingly, I'm also struck at how unclear it might be as to which is the worst of these two "generational original sins".

Despite all the health effects, maybe no one lost the ability to think deeply or critically assess propaganda or fall into a cult or become obsessed with their appearance or spent thousands of dollars to throw perfectly functioning pocket computers in the bin for slightly bigger ones from smoking?

A funny image comes to mind of senile Millennials refusing to give up their social media smartphones despite their carers' best efforts, wildly declaring that they've been scrolling timelines since before the carers were born and have been fine.

Maybe become a full time father? Dual income is to blame here since parents started thinking schools are day care for kids until they can be kicked out of home for college. Men shouldn't shy from stepping up if traditional roles of mothers are eroding.

Edit: should -> shouldn't

I think this is orthogonal to the issue.

By early teens, peers are the largest influence on a child and they have more than enough opportunities to pressure for or use a phone at school or after school, regardless of the work status of either parent.

As both a parent and someone who interacts with middle school educators, I can confidently say that there may be gaps in your knowledge that you are unaware of.

Children today are often smarter and more technologically savvy than many adults give them credit for: and some of them will start “business” to sell “internet access” to others.

Just a comment form from dad fighting with similar issues.

My friend found an unexpected portable nintendo in his son's closet. It was loaded with a LOT of games. He figures his son was playing with it during homework/sleep time to his detriment.

Turns out his birthday money from relatives financed it. Even though he was about 11 or 12, he found a youtube video on how to get a credit card, then was able to purchase a system and create an online account to buy games.

I wonder if it's more about the usage then the tool. Group chats that are used primarily for communication with a social group seems like it could be healthier. But using it as a feed of content from internet celebrities the opposite. Social media platforms are all trending towards being a constant feed.

I'm curious what the research would say about discord for example. Something centered around a participatory activity or around a group of friends.

Is it correct for me to assume that you have your daughter without a smartphone right? How is she communicating day-to-day with her peers in school then?

You've hit on the conundrum. Damned if you do join the social network (for the known reasons) and damned if you don't (isolation from friends).

Until a major of parents remove access, this will always be the problem.

Btw, I had the same issue with games and my son. I could not let him play, but then he wouldn't have had access to the sole socialization his peer group had. Both decisions were bad, but one was worse. Letting him play video games was the least bad choice. Interestingly, we've had discussions about this, now that he's an adult and (I believe) he agrees with this analysis.

Video games and social media are two entirely different things.

Some of my best times with my friends is LAN parties as well as going together at demo parties, traveling, coding together.

Frankly, a ban on videogames is stupid as hell. Even today on discord and over the network, it?s stil entirely unlike social media.

/smh

I agree they are different, but they definitely share some things.

Moderation with video games is hard for young people. Same for social media. That's why I mentioned it.

And, I wasn't suggesting a ban on video games.

I have a four year old boy who absolutely loves games, just like I did at a young age. Any and all advice is welcome in handling this, so I appreciate your comments.

My current strategy has been steering him towards games that require a bit of thinking - like Kerbel Space Program, flight simulators, Kings Quest, etc. He gets to play a little Roblox as well, but only in very small doses. I have to help him a lot with them right now, but once he starts reading I'm hoping he'll choose these types of games on his own. In the warmer months this is easier to manage because he loves playing outside, but it can sometimes be challenging in winter.

I would contest one point in the article, and I admit this is dependent on where you live:

> But social media is very different because it transforms social life for everyone, even for those who don’t use social media, whereas sugar consumption just harms the consumer.

In countries with single-payer healthcare (or socialised healthcare), it's not true that it harms only the consumer. If it turns into obesity, diabetes, or other medical conditions, then it may transform social life by virtue of adding pressure to the healthcare system. This is a rephrasing of the argument against smoking, where the argument that was smoking harms nobody else, and the counter was that smokers created a healthcare burden.

Arguably this is the same case in insurance-based countries, but the payment structure keeps the onus on the individual, not the overall system.

The point being that social media has damaging externalities no matter how it's framed.

>This is a rephrasing of the argument against smoking, where the argument that was smoking harms nobody else, and the counter was that smokers created a healthcare burden.

Smoking also has much more direct second hand effects from releasing smoke into the area of the smoker. Poor diet lack such effects.

Which most people would agree - smoking in public is not a personal activity; but this debate raged on throughout the 90s and early 00s. The secondary effect is on the healthcare system some time after the fact, which is the same for sugar, alcohol, smoking...where it is a new generation that is funding the care.

I don't mean to distract from the main point, but sugar is not an innocent example, especially when lobbying happened to use sugar in favour of fat.

> In countries with single-payer healthcare (or socialised healthcare), it's not true that it harms only the consumer.

This is a fallacy. Public health measures benefit some individuals more than others; but everyone benefits. Free treatment catches TB infections, for example, which occur overwhelmingly among homeless people. We're all better off if there are no homeless people wandering around with TB.

I'm glad my neighbours all benefit from the NHS, and that I'm not surrounded by sick people.

You aren’t addressing the point they are making. They aren’t arguing that socialized healthcare is worse than no socialized health care. They are saying that the societal burden of providing said health care is distributed across the population, and while it may be preferable to do so, it still means that something like excess sugar consumption has a negative effect on others.

I can recommend the book “American Girls” by Nancy Jo Sales.

I don’t have any daughters, but I’ve worked at some big social media companies, and this was required reading at one of them. The boss there did have daughters, but it wasn’t only so we would understand. It was so we wouldn’t build Trust and Safety headaches in the first place.

My parents always told me “we can only control what goes on in our house”

I’d have that attitude — show your children this study and explain why they can’t use it in your home. “I won’t support making you mentally ill”

In reality, your kids will likely subvert you to some degree. That said if you set the clear boundaries and alternatives it might not be bad. Particularly, if you’re upfront and explain.

I personally send my kids to a school that where we signed an agreement for no tech in the classroom (or generally limit it at home). At the very least, that ensures kids can be kids at school. After that; I suggest getting them in activities and keeping them active.

In many ways connectivity is great, it’s the algorithmic enhancement and broadcasting that’s at issue. I doubt there’s mental health issues related to texting one-on-one for instance (or very limited issues).

I had my 12 year old daughter read the article and after she argued a while I said: Ok, write up your rejoinder and I will post it and see what others think.

For context we severely restrict access to social media in our house, but of course they find ways around this as expected (I don't pi-hole because I want them to learn to be hackers)

-----------------------------------

*Why I think it’s reasonable for me to have social media :)*

After reading the article, I still believe that I should be allowed to have social media for several reasons.

First of all, the article stated that people using social media moderately (half an hour to one and a half hours a day) had little to no decline in their mental health, compared to a large mental health decline in those using it a lot (3-5+ hours a day), and with the limit on my phone, I would be using it minimally, especially because I use a lot of my phone time daily to listen to music (like 5 [REDACTED], which I am listening to right now) and to text my friends, so I would only use it for 20 or so minutes a day, which is very low.

Another thing that the article mentioned is that people these days who do not have social media may feel excluded or left out, and may even miss things because they don’t have social media, which can lead to a decline in their mental health as well. It was also mentioned that not every social media user’s mental health is impacted, especially those who use it in moderation. Yet another point was that people will compare themselves to other people on there.

In case you hadn’t already noticed, I don’t really do that. I do find people pretty, but I don’t usually compare myself to them. Plus, most of them are significantly older than me, so I don’t expect myself to look like them anyway.

I believe that using social media could actually have greater benefits for me, such as being able to record Tiktok dances with my friends, or messaging people on Snapchat. I could also follow my friends and then help support whatever they do (for example, one of my friends has an account for [REDACTED]). Also, studies have shown that when people don’t get to do something as a child/teenager isn’t allowed to do or have something in moderation, they are more likely to do or have it in excess as an adult.

That's a very well-argued response, congratulations. I will only take issue with the last sentence. I don't know the studies, but most of my friends from school who were smoking in moderation back then, ended up as heavy smokers as adults. Those who avoided it completely (partly due to stricter parenting) largely seem to stay smoking-free in later life.

To be fair, you're bringing in the element of physical addiction.

I think smartphones, social media, and video games are the smoking of the next generation.

The smoking of the next generation is still smoking.

I love the way she saved her killer point for the end. She will go far.

I enjoyed thinking about this more than I thought I would.

> First of all, the article stated that people using social media moderately (half an hour to one and a half hours a day) had little to no decline in their mental health, compared to a large mental health decline in those using it a lot (3-5+ hours a day)

This is an excellent, solid point.

> Another thing that the article mentioned is that people these days who do not have social media may feel excluded or left out, and may even miss things because they don’t have social media, which can lead to a decline in their mental health as well.

Not convincing unless it can be demonstrated that the expected harm from being isolated from social media is greater than the expected harm caused by being exposed to social media.

> Yet another point was that people will compare themselves to other people on there [...] I don’t usually compare myself to them

This is not well reasoned in my opinion: this is described as a consequence of social media usage. It hasn't been shown to be a preexisting personality trait that, combined with social media usage, causes the mental health issues. That is, you may not compare yourself to others precisely because you do not use social media regularly.

All that said, however, the first point (moderate usage) combined with the last point (excessive usage later in life) is fairly persuasive for a strategy of allowing small doses of social media.

>First of all, the article stated that people using social media moderately (half an hour to one and a half hours a day) had little to no decline in their mental

I believe this is akin to "people who drink x% a day have no problems", it's _static_. What it totally ignores is that the addictive substance subtly changes behavior over time and x% of those people go on to become full blown addicts.

> I believe this is akin to "people who drink x% a day have no problems", it's _static_. What it totally ignores is that the addictive substance subtly changes behavior over time and x% of those people go on to become full blown addicts.

Great point, I had not heard that before.

Addictive substance in such tiny uses (a sip, the equivalent to 30 minutes of social media time/day), does not cause behavior changes over time. There is not a substantial study that demonstrates this. Remember, behavior changes are exceptionally hard to create.

Of course, alcohol guidance levels have been way too high for decades now, most modern orgs suggest less than 2 a week, and even use verbiage that states anything near or above 2/week increases health risks of all types - with zero upside. A dramatic difference from alcohol guidelines of yesteryear proclaiming a glass a day will improve your heart or whatever BS.

So this idea that full blown addicts are created by people who take a glass per week (the actual recommendation, not the alcohol industry funded one) or whatever is absurdity. Why were they using the substance in the first place? This will be a much bigger determining factor to their outcome - much like you can tell who social media is going to drastically affect by whether or not their support system embraces them.

That's a pretty nice rebuttal!

It would be interesting to have her comment on "Why Nerds are Unpopular - Paul Graham" [1]

[1] http://www.paulgraham.com/nerds.html

Gosh, your daughter is impressively eloquent and literate. I've come across rhetoric like that from a 12-year-old, but not very often. You should both be proud.

Just wanted to chime in and say that my wife is due to give birth to our first child imminently, and if at 12 he can reason and communicate in this fashion, I will consider myself to have totally crushed it as a parent.

Keep up the good work.

Yeah I was definitely not even half as articulate when I was 12.

Maybe she got that good by reading tons of discussions on social media

Thank you for the kind words

>and with the limit on my phone, I would be using it minimally, especially because I use a lot of my phone time daily to listen to music (like 5 [REDACTED], which I am listening to right now) and to text my friends, so I would only use it for 20 or so minutes a day, which is very low.

This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it, imagine how much more unhappy you'll be after having only 20 minutes. You'll only want to use it more and more once you're allowed to use it. You'll be thinking about those 20 minutes and what you'll do all day, you'll get mad when the 20 minutes is up etc.

>Another thing that the article mentioned is that people these days who do not have social media may feel excluded or left out,

That's a much easier problem to treat than social media addiction. The amount of harm you can experience on social media is unbounded, and also not readily anticipated. You don't really know how much it can harm you, and you are asking to allow it to harm you a little bit so that you can then later argue that amount didn't _significantly_ harm you so more access is fine.

>In case you hadn’t already noticed, I don’t really do that. I do find people pretty, but I don’t usually compare myself to them.

Have you considered other people "didn't do that" too, and that social media changed them? What if it changes you too? Do you _want_ to end up like them? "It won't happen to me" is a really common trope when dealing with addictive things.

>Also, studies have shown that when people don’t get to do something as a child/teenager isn’t allowed to do or have something in moderation, they are more likely to do or have it in excess as an adult.

Perhaps, but have you considered that adults shouldn't be using these platforms either? It's not as simple as "when you're old enough, you can now jump off a cliff", maybe... don't jump off the cliff? It's a silly metaphor but still, the default position shouldn't be to use these things.

>I believe that using social media could actually have greater benefits for me, such as being able to record Tiktok dances with my friends, or messaging people on Snapchat.

There's billions of silly dance videos on tik tok, your life isn't any worse for you not making number 9,999,234,255. Snapchat is for old people (zoomer-boomers) now, so you're also not missing much there anyways.

I'm with dad on this one, social media won't make you any happier and it's scientifically proven to make a lot of people less happy over time. If I could go back to a world where social media never happened I would choose that in a heart beat.

>Perhaps, but have you considered that adults shouldn't be using these platforms either? It's not as simple as "when you're old enough, you can now jump off a cliff", maybe... don't jump off the cliff? It's a silly metaphor but still, the default position shouldn't be to use these things.

I've noticed in my life when I was a teenager, I had this view of phases of myself. There was my current teenager self and then there was my future adult self. My view was that my adult self would be completely different than my teenaged self. I'd be an "Adult" with a capital A. Nothing can stop me then!

Then I learned that I am still very similar as an adult to my teenaged self. The things my teenage self would get addicted to and obsess over, my adult self also has those qualities.

My grandmother was quoted as saying (on her 64th birthday) "I'm beginning to not feel 16 anymore."

>This is a recipe for frustrating yourself. Social media is very addictive. You're currently unhappy and you're _not_ allowed to use it, imagine how much more unhappy you'll be after having only 20 minutes. You'll only want to use it more and more once you're allowed to use it. You'll be thinking about those 20 minutes and what you'll do all day, you'll get mad when the 20 minutes is up etc.

This rings pretty true for me. I grew up in the 90's and my parents heavily policed how much television I was allowed to watch. I was allowed 5 hours of TV a week. I'd borderline obsess over how I was going to spent those 5 hours each week. I would pour over the TV guide plan out exactly what I'd watch. I ended up angry and resenting my parents as a result.

I had a lot of the same complaints, "All my friends at school are going to be discussing what they watched, I'm going to be left out and excluded etc."

At the time a lot of the same arguments being levied against social media today were being made about television, it's addictive, it's bad for children's development etc.

I was the oldest child my parents had some very strict ideas on how they wanted to raise me, by the time my younger siblings were teenagers my parents had more or less given up or relaxed all of the restrictions I had.

I've seen that pattern too. A kid at a birthday party I had had, spent the entire time playing grand theft auto vice city; sleep be damned. He had never watched a violent movie, so the quests were uninteresting. That ~22hr game session was dedicated to roaming free, and what that afforded (simulated violence, prostitution, etc). I didn't see that happen with drugs at least - adderall, xanax, klonopin abound, but the sheltered kids I knew never dove into them the same way.

We're around the same age and my parents had pretty heavy restrictions on tv and videogames, I also got ticked off at the time, but I was certainly happy for it even by the end of my teen years. I imagine if your goal is to make your kid happy while they're still a kid, there's a good chance you'll screw up your kid. What makes a kid happy half the time is stuff they'll regret in short order. And yeah, more rules went out the window as each of my successive siblings were born, too. I also seem to remember kids who had NO tv whatsoever (or just PBS, which was arguably worse than nothing), and I don't seem to remember them being too bothered by it. As much as we teased them for not getting the simpsons etc jokes. In fact they seemed to develop, at a much earlier age, some independence from the crowd.

Yeah I have no doubt the way I was raised had an influence on my life as a result of I suppose boredom and the huge amount of free time due to TV restrictions I became heavily invested in electronics and technology, as a 13/14 year old I would buy computer and electronics magazines and read them cover to cover, I'd spend hours pulling apart and reassembling electronics. I would go to swap meets buy old broken second hand computers and upgrade/repair them and then resell them. My room used to be filled with old motherboards, keyboards etc stacked up to near the ceiling. I think it drove my parents nuts I had so much junk parts hoarded all over my room.

All of this led me to studying Engineering.

It's not really about spending at most the specific number of hours. Parents want their children (and maybe the children themselves too) to be the type of person that only spends that number of hours.

> people using social media moderately (half an hour to one and a half hours a day) had little to no decline in their mental health, compared to a large mental health decline in those using it a lot

this is at least in part because the type of person that spends 1.5 hours on social media vs the type of person that spends 5 is a different type of person that probably cares less about what's on there, i.e. selection bias.

Asian parents wouldn't have this debate. Why?

Any problem with a complexity level that has an answer - I don't know - gets to be thought about only after you have earned your black belt not before.

Is black belt a metaphor ?

Haha, no - way to stereotype. If you follow that it just leads to non-independent children.

That she was prepared to eloquently argue her case and demonstrate how much metacognition she has is a demonstration she'll probably be resilient to a lot of potentially negative influences in life. I'm less interested in the actual arguments than her thinking process and I would be impressed if my kids showed this level of self awareness.

Reverse it and write "Why I think it is reasonable for me to NOT have social media"

Honestly some good points. Knowing only what I can know about her from the response, I'd trust her to use social media. But I'd still keep limits in things ;p

Also good use of the 5 paragraph format lol. Brings me back.

"I believe that using social media could actually have greater benefits for me, such as being able to record Tiktok dances with my friends"

It was believable until the agenda was revealed :)

See, dinosaur me would insist that young girls should enjoy dancing together. Without a camera and without sharing this with the entire world. I do not even want to think about the legions of creepy old men watching that.

Nicely written !

Now, did she use chatGPT ? ;)

My opinion is: Give her anonymous social media (& general internet safety tips), i.e. reddit or maybe some special-interest discords. Sounds like interacting with strangers on the internet is a lot better than your friends. Help her decide what to subscribe to based on her interests. I was about that age when I started posting on anonymous boards, and I wrote terrible group fanfictions, talked about how great the Lord of the Rings soundtracks were, predicted what would happen in my favorite webcomics were, etc. Communities like this still exist, they're just in different places now.

This is interesting to me (I'm also a PhD student with research interests related to privacy and anonymity). Yesterday I was thinking something similar about the distinction, in terms of negative mental health effects, between places like HN where most of us are pseudonymous (if not anonymous) and places like Facebook, Instagram, etc. where your real persona is more of a factor and is usually tied to real photos of yourself, your friends, your home, etc. Like you, I also grew up on pseudonymous forums starting around age 12. I've always found forums like this to be somewhat addictive, but I think not nearly as addictive as Facebook and Instagram are for many people. I think it helps that I don't suffer in-real-life social consequences for what "warner25" writes on here, nor for who does and doesn't see it, and I could easily abandon this pseudonym tomorrow. So maybe that's healthier?

I'm just struggling with the idea because it runs counter to a couple other ideas: First, that social networking with people you actually know is the good part while broadcasting to the world through social media to collect likes and followers is the bad part. Second, that anonymity and pseudonymity bring out the most toxic behavior in people, so things like "real name" policies are better.

Personally I see real name policies as a 'simple, easy, and wrong' solution to a complex problem. It was relatively reasonable thing to try, it seemed like it is a straightforward way to get people to behave. But in practice people quadruple-down and toxicity becomes a part of their identity instead of blowing off steam or a side hobby, and openly changing their mind means losing face.

> people these days who do not have social media may feel excluded or left out, and may even miss things

Text-centric social media might be a good middle ground here. I only login to the FB web site a few times a year (mostly to add/accept new friends), because I realized that I was envious of everybody in my feed living the life I wished I were living but have been unable to acquire. (Over 35 yro when I did this, for context) But I have FB Messenger on my phone, so I can still communicate with people who use FB. I have missed events, mostly general-purpose/last-minute everyone-is-invited events of a large group I was part of. But friends would often forward events to me, and obviously if it were a party that they specifically wanted me, they would notify me.

Ultimately people want to be known and valued, and being part of a general, everyone-is-invited group does not provide that. It does provide an opportunity to find the people you want to know and value, but school already provides that opportunity (and the social groups online are going to mostly be the in-person groups anyway). So I'm not sure that the value of missing general events is outweighed by the risk, and like I said, your friends will tell you about things they know you would not have seen.

"It won't happen to me" said everybody who it happened to.

People always underestimate/overestimate their ability to deal with things. Your kid is very mature, but they're dealing with forces way beyond them nonetheless.

These services are built by people who know how to hook you. Young children and even teenagers cannot fully comprehend the long term damage social media can do, and are still in a stage of development in which the effects of social media can have long term, even life-long consequences.

These studies are honestly incredibly hard to do, because as the author points out, social media is simply part of the lives of the majority of people in the western world. It's impossible to isolate social media from the rest of the changes that happened in society. The attempts at doing "social media cures" and measuring the effects are cute, but since they only lasted a few weeks, are hardly good indicators of something (habits that don't stick are quite pointless to measure). Teenagers are increasingly under more and more stress with high stake testing, an increasingly competitive college admission process and increasingly grim prospects for economic mobility and long term environmental sustainability. Plus, the "smartphone revolution" lands bull's-eye on the aftermath of the 2007 Great Recession, which impacted a lot of families (was the teen depressed because of the smartphone or his house getting foreclosed?). To me, social media sounds like an incredibly convenient scapegoat to ignore all these deeper issues.

Now, your daughter drives a good point and is extremely eloquent.

There's two points where I feel like expanding what she said.

> First of all, the article stated that people using social media moderately (half an hour to one and a half hours a day) had little to no decline in their mental health, compared to a large mental health decline in those using it a lot (3-5+ hours a day)

I don't know how they measure time spent using social media (to me that's vague, is having iMessage running on my Mac "using social media"? If so I'm at at least 7 hours...). But if they measure "active use" (so let's say scrolling) 5+ hours is a lot. 35h/week, almost a full time job.

I'm wondering if the causality isn't reversed here (unhappy and depressed people in an environment where they aren't stimulated enough do end up scrolling 5+ hours a day as a consequence of their mental state).

To me, a kid that ends up on social media 5+ hours a day reeks of bad parenting. He/She should have hobbies and activities to fill that time.

> Yet another point was that people will compare themselves to other people on there.

In 2018 "obesity prevalence was [...] 21.2% among 12- to 19-year-olds." [0] according to the CDC. That's one out of 5 being obese, not just overweight. And it has more than tripled since the 70's [1]. I have to wonder if it's related. A lot of teenagers are bombarded with images of perfectly healthy bodies that, quite simply, won't match what they see in the mirror.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/childhood.html

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hestat/obesity_child_15_16/obe...

This is an excellent free response. I wish my colleagues could write this well (I am being serious).

I’m not a parent yet, but I worry the same thing. It’s also bigger than parenting. I know a lot of folks in their mid-late 20s who suffer from self esteem problems due to social media. In addition to the overt and obvious depression, there is a constant “not-good-enough”-ness and sense of nihilism that comes with having the best of the best in hobbies, the most social, most active, etc., people shoved down your throat day after day.

I would add that beyond the effects of it crushing one's self-image, it also messes with your world view. Social media presents the world as nothing but doom and gloom whilst in reality it's not that bad.

It may be a bit cynical, but the other option might be to make sure they're validated by social media, not depressed. Pay for photo shootings and makeup so they look larger than life and get lots of likes. Do that enough and they'll be the ones with the seemingly perfect lives, body and beauty that others get depressed by while liking their pictures, and thus sending them positive signals that will improve their self-esteem.

Might trigger some narcissism issues, but that might be an acceptable trade-off. In the end, it's a game like private schools and universities. You're not the ones making the rules, but if you want your children to succeed, playing by the idiotic rules might be your safest bet.

There are schools where phones are forbidden until high school. If you have the means and the problem is important to you try to find one.

You can't pick your kids friends but you can do your best to curate the pool they are picking from.

I'm childless so it may come across as arrogant to give any advise.

One thing I learned from observing the teenagers of my friends is that they don't want this either. We're adults and talking and a bunch of kids sit in a row on the couch, playing with their iPads. For hours on end.

And yet they hear everything you say. They're paying attention. And when you show a genuine interest them just by asking a few question, the iPad is quickly ignored.

That's a sign of hope. They want to engage and be engaged in something more meaningful. The iPad fills a void. This artificial divide of the situation between adults and children does not help. Sending them outside does not help either because nobody else is outside.

Engage with them. They have a bunch of free time on their hands but no meaning to fill it with. You can't stop the draw to the device unless that time is filled with things that makes them forget the device. It doesn't take much. A conversation, a board game, a small game of sports in the park, whatever possible for you.

I would admit though that the situation for girls is not this simple. They will be dragged into a games of thrones style social battle of self-image/worth.

While I like your comment I would also couch it in a context that I'd guess most parents are familiar with. How your kids act when "outsiders/non-family" are around can be different.

Simply the fact you are NOT from the immediate so-intimately-familiar-they-know-the-smell-of-your-farts family means that what you say and do has novelty and therefore engagement right there. Even if you are a friend who drops by every day.

Not saying that parents shouldn't engage - we should. But it isn't easy keeping it fresh from inside the fart bubble. :-)

Very fair point and agree.

I think addiction is about meaning. Addiction activities are always meaningful activities. May not be pleasurable activities but always meaningful. To quit a meaningful activity, you need to replace with another meaningful activity. like exercise, help someone, do something good..whatever is meaningful to you.

"Addiction activities are always meaningful activities."

Craziest take on addiction ever.

As someone who years ago decided to never use Facebook, I can confirm that abstaining from social media is socially damaging. It’s a bit like the automobile. You can’t opt out of the technological society. I suppose the silver lining is that social media apps aren’t owned and controlled by totalitarian communist regimes, or at least not all of them.

I have a 13 year old who just got a phone. I do not think things are as hopeless as you seem to believe. My daughter mocks social media (including my own use of it) and, so far, wants no part of it. That is, I think, largely because her mother and I have been educating her since she could use a computer on how stupid and vapid social media is. As far as I know, none of her friends has any social media accounts either, I believe for similar reasons.

I don't mean to dismiss your trust here, but this attitude is simply denial.

I don't know about that. I have teenagers (boys, though) who has no interest in social medial or alcohol. In many ways they're far more sensible than I was at their age.

> As a father to four little girls, though, it makes me feel really defeated.

As a father of two girls who also runs a social network, this article is bullshit. They’re only considering social media that fundamentally looks and feels like Facebook. That’s like saying all outdoor activities are extremely dangerous, when only looking at wingsuit base jumpers.

You clearly didn't read the article, because what they wrote mostly about was... Instagram.

Which looks and feels like Facebook.

And is owned by Facebook.

My kids play video games with their friends and while my 9 year old gives as good as he gets my 11 year old is always down for a couple hours if someone says something mean to him on their group chat. He is pretty much unable to ignore trash talk and takes it personally. There is no way I am going to let him get on social media until he is in 10th grade at least. Even then I am going to let him know its monitored and probably restricted. I trust him completely. I let him ride his bike to the park by himself, or with friends, go fishing, go to 7-11 etc. Social media is the devil though and seems tailor made to wreck kids self esteem. Heck it even turns previously rational adults into conspiracy following hateful loons.

As Haidt points out, the problem isn’t social media per se but how social media amplifies toxic culture that already exists: https://www.thecoddling.com/

You can’t realistically ban phones, but you can control the culture they’re exposed to by where you live and send your kids to school.

It's never too late to teach them some values. The vast majority of religions and philosophies teach that striving for material things and to satisfy the ego is not healthy, you could research some of the arguments behind it and educate your girls on the harms of comparing themselves to other people. Teach them to value other people (and themselves) by their moral character, not their material possessions or achievements.

Just curious, how has social media "eroded your wife's mental health"?

Don't be afraid to be the bad guy. Sometimes, as a parent, that is exactly your job. My child will not have social media for as long as she lives in this house.

The interesting thing to me was her reaction, which actually may mirror yours based on your writing. She said she had no interest in Facebook, because she sees how much time mom wastes on it and doesn't like how she acts.

That was before our come to jesus moment as husband and wife... which I also highly recommend. But you'll have to be the bad guy again.

Controversial take: why not teach your daughters to embrace and win at the social media game? It’s not going away, and being able to successfully navigate that world is going to be a tangible advantage to them later in life. Self worth and happiness, despite what we might want to believe, are largely tied to social status. As parents it may be kinder to help our kids succeed at the game rather than pretend it doesn’t exist.

It isn't universal. Some want to become superstars and famous and some do not. Acceptance with your position in society is more conductive to happiness.

But social media very strongly underlines another reality. Not everyone can become a star, stardom is often very short lived, stars may not be the happiest people, fans might not be the nicest. Those smart enough to last a long time in public would probably be able to tell you a lot about necessary the sacrifices too.

But the fear of missing something or being left out is probably exactly what drives anxiety, especially in those that might have a bit more self-awareness.

Parents could support social media use, of course, but I would compare that to putting children up for a beauty contest.

A friend of mine has two girls in their teenage years. They have a ban on certain websites and have to get permission to add new social media apps to their phone. They regularly discuss these topics which is an important point I think.

My friend reports that they laugh at their friends who are obsessed with their phones and do not have any of the anxiety problems that are rampant in their classrooms.

As a father of a young girl, this gives me hope for her future. I think parents need to step up here. The excuse of "everyone else does it so I'm not going to introduce any discipline" is an irresponsible decision on the parent's behalf. I little more thought, effort and discipline could go a long way.

Our job is to prepare our kids for the real world and maximise their opportunities (which anxiety and depression destroys). We are not here to be their friends.

I have to agree with you that it's terrifying. I have a young son (under a year), and likely by the time I need to handle this myself, the challenges I will face will be very different. That said, there's some good news buried in the footnotes which gives me quite a lot of hope.

"We found that controlling for [psychological variables such as negative attitudes about school and closeness with parents] heavily suppressed the relationship between social media use and poor mental health."

Although it's almost a throwaway comment, my reading of it is that parents are not helpless. The effect is 'heavily suppressed', meaning that these variations have a significant impact. It is not a huge jump to conclude that there are steps that we as parents can do to mitigate the negative impact of social media, especially by being involved, engaged, emotionally available and supportive (and whatever else might be hiding behind this other 'psychological variables' mentionedsorr).

It's also important to consider that we don't know why the mental health outcomes are so negative (as others have highlighted).

However, there are some obvious likely causes of mental health issues caused by social media:

  - 'Andrew Tate'-like personalities, who intentionally use controversy and creating feelings of inadequacy to drive engagement
  - 'Dream body' type posters, who are not necessarily intentionally creating feelings of inadequacy, but nevertheless, they do by deliberately showing off parts of themselves or their lives that others cannot reasonably or easily attain (designer clothes/bags/shoes, expensive holidays, etc.)
  - 'The Joneses' type posters (which actually I think most people end up being themselves), whose posts are innocent in motivation, but create feelings of inadequacy by only showing one facet of their lives. For example, photos of the family laughing together, dogs playing in fields, beers in a pub garden in the sunshine.

For me, my approach today would be:

  - Small groups of 2-5 people are fine.
  - For larger groups, create limited 'societies'. Class groups, church groups, scout groups, etc. Only allow my kids to be part of groups that they *really* belong to, and which are moderated to ensure that only people who really belong to those groups are able to join. 
  - No 'reposts' or content which is not original. Only share photos which you've taken yourself (or which have been taken by someone within the group). Links to external services like YouTube, Spotify, etc. should be possible but limited to those where parental controls can be implemented.
  - Community moderators. Either parents or trusted community members should in place as moderators to manage harmful discussions.

It seems as though there is an absolute minefield to navigate going forward, and I wish you (and myself!) the best of luck with it.