Today that means teaching them how to cope with [nicotine | gambling | hand guns | fentanyl]. It is in their world. It is not going away. As a parent, I can understand the temptation to just want to ban it. I wish I could ban a lot of things I would rather my kids not have to deal with. But parenting just doesn’t work like that. They need to learn to deal with it, and it’s my job to try my best to help them do that.

Actually, we protect children from lots of things that they will need to confront as adults. My baby will need to learn how to safely navigate stairs eventually, but for now, the staircase is gated so she doesn't hurt herself before she's ready.

And as this comment explains[1], social media is hurting our children in real and profound ways.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35447798

> Today that means teaching them how to cope with [nicotine | gambling | hand guns | fentanyl]. It is in their world. It is not going away. As a parent, I can understand the temptation to just want to ban it. I wish I could ban a lot of things I would rather my kids not have to deal with. But parenting just doesn’t work like that. They need to learn to deal with it, and it’s my job to try my best to help them do that.

Well yes. Once your child turns 21, they’ll have legal access to all of these things. A parent is still obligated to educate their children to make good choices, regardless of what the legal age is.

> Actually, we protect children from lots of things that they will need to confront as adults. My baby will need to learn how to safely navigate stairs eventually, but for now, the staircase is gated so she doesn't hurt herself before she's ready.

Fortunately, the government does not ban the usage of stairs by minors in an attempt to “protect the children”.

Highly underrated opinion here!

Banning multi-billion dollar companies in a society dealing with regulatory capture, or help teach kids to deal with the world around them. One sure seems more easily attained than the other.

Banning it is a way of teaching them how to deal with it.

Snakes are part of the world, but you teach your kids that you don't let snakes into your house because they are toxic. You can apply the same analogy to social media.

You make social media inaccessible to your kids until they have developed into a confident young adult at which point they will have acquired the mental strength to navigate through the toxicity of social media themselves with a strong self identity which will make them immune to a lot of the online grift and attempts to feed off their insecurities.

That doesn't require a ban, it requires parents to be actively involved in their children's lives and to make the decision for how they want to raise their own kids.

Let's make Heroin, prostitution and assault rifles legal to under age kids, because after all if you are a good parent then you can be sure that your child will certainly not get access to those things via their friends or other avenues. Why have rules, laws or bans (just a form of law) for anything anywhere. All evil things in this world are just a matter of parenting. Gosh, you're so fecking clever how come nobody else ever was able to enlighten us before. We could have zero issues in the world this way.

Indeed, social interaction is, generally, addictive. But if you ban the kids from HN they aren't apt to give up social interaction cold turkey, they'll go interact with the neighbours instead to get their fix.

Is that actually a win? Emotionally, I can see why some hang onto the idea of talking face to face just like in the good old days, but at the same time you are trading for greatly reduced access to the world's most interesting people. The whole reason we're here and not talking to our neighbours is because we can seek out people of significance, not just who happens to move in next door.

I don't think HN falls into the category of social media in the sense that it is debated by lawmakers at the moment. Not every online community is social media just like not every shopping site that has girls posing in tight bikinis (Victoria Secret, Nike, etc.) is an adult site.

If HN isn't social media, I'm not sure what is. Perhaps you are referring to plain old media where there is no meaningful social interaction, rather one-way consumption of produced content?

Indeed, lawmakers do seem concerned about new entrants to the media space, like producers on TikTok, no doubt because they struggle to exert the same kind of control over the content like they used to be able to when there were only a small handful of regulated media companies. That's well beyond the topic of social media taking place here, though.

   > If HN isn't social media, I'm not sure what is.

You don't see significant measurable difference between Insta/TikTok and HN? Ouch!

In fact, I see a considerable difference. Instagram, and especially TikTok, have no meaningful social component. It's just content producers producing content for consumption for consumers. They are effectively cable TV providers, only deviating from traditional cable TV in that there is no hard limit on the number of channels.

HN is social media. Active, two way conversation which emulates going outside to talk to your neighbour, except with people around the globe, is what attracts people here. The users here aren't here just to watch TV like they are on Instagram and TikTok.

Social interaction is addictive in the way food is addictive. A lot of the draw of social media/games/drugs is an attempt to fill the hole left by a lack of social interaction. Indeed, take away social media and people will hang out more often. I would argue that's exactly what we want as a society. Less social interaction mediated by big corporations is a win.