What reasonable action could be taken on the parent side?

I feel like apps should be regulated to for example, only show up to 20 videos max on tiktok per day to prevent doom scrolling. I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

Don't give your kid a smartphone or laptop without only whitelisting certain sites. If they someone get a device without permission, it gets donated.

Isolating them from their peers can be just as mentally devastating. I don't think there is a good solution to this.

Not sure why you are down voted but this is really a really really big issue.

This is why "large scale action" e.g. from school or better regulators are needed and why parents only can act very limited.

Don't force social isolation on your children just because idk. "this game is bad". Even if they social circle is "good" and doesn't start excluding or harassing them because of this (totally can happen, you can't really choose with whom you are in a class) it still is leads to a subtle isolation which might by itself not cause any mental issues, but can amplify existing issues, prevent mental scare from being healed etc. And such issues don't always come from "big bad thing" sometimes small bad things wrongly processed as a child can be enough to cause life long mental issues if the child has never the chance to reprocess/recondition/overcome them.

EDIT: Just to be clear doesn't mean children should have unchecked social media/game/etc. access.

Not allowing your children to own a phone ≠ Force social isolation.

It can in many circumstances. I live rural and we don't have a land line. It's hard to get the kids over to their friends as much as they want. My solution is to talk to the other parents. We all agreed to no tik too. I turn our wifi off after bed time. We have a phone contract with our 14 year old that stipulates the usual be nice and don't live on your phone rules.

They swim, ski, kayak and play school volleyball and badminton so there's lots of opportunities for that sort of interacting but I think it would be pretty harsh to cut them off of their phones. If I could get 3/4 of their friends parents to agree I would for sure until they are 16.

social isolation isn't a yes/no question it's a gradient

and in many situation it is pretty much guaranteed to at least cause slight degree of social isolation, in some (like very rual) it might cause a large degree of social isolation

similar having a phone isn't a yes/no question, things like parent control exist, even through they often slightly suck

Thankfully, there are other ways of interacting with one's peers, most of which create more meaningful connections than social media.

To put it more bluntly: if social media is the only thing standing between a child and total isolation, that child has far bigger problems.

Maybe sign your kid up for little league?

Little league? Social media?

Are we talking children or teenagers?

What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West. For the prior generation, if you aren't online, you aren't cool, and you won't know about cool things that are happening.

The current generation seems to have a fascination with dumb phones and eschewing tech obsession if the media spin is to be believed versus the numbers on social media apps. Both can be valid things that are occurring though, but I'm willing to bet that the dumb phone movement is a small one or a LARP for elitist cool points.

>What's frequently missed is that most organization of meet-ups, birthday parties, talking to romantic interests, going to concerts et al, all happens on social media and in group chats now, and has done for the best part of fifteen years in the West.

Yeah, no. People still talk to each other.

I leave it to you to exercise some adaptability and find suitable workarounds. This is a small problem. I guarantee you that you solve harder ones on a daily basis.

>People still talk to each other.

At Church on Sunday? No, that has collapsed.

At other social civic meetings... um, no not there.

Social gathering and civic interaction in the US has become highly commercialized and put into non-public places such as social media.

Got kids? Enroll them in youth sports. You'll meet and talk with other parents at games and practices. It's how I ended up joining an indoor soccer league.

Check out your local recreation center. It's how I joined a local fencing club.

Check out meet ups in your area. It's how I join a language exchange group that meets weekly.

Check out your local library. They often have book clubs, kid and adult events, and more.

There are tons of options that people used before social media which still exist today. It's trivial to find them. The biggest problem is that many people don't want to move out from behind the screen.

Most libraries are gone here in the UK, FWIW. Post-pandemic, most rec centers are struggling or gone too.

Hospitality in general is struggling here. Pubs disappearing too.

Meet ups. Hobby clubs (chess, cycling, etc.). User groups (Linux, Mac, Python, etc.). Take some lessons for a sport. Take a fitness class. Art classes. Group music lessons. Volunteer for non-profits. Find a local artist group, a local woodworking group. Local business groups like a chamber of commerce.

Basically, find anything which interests you that places you in a context where you bump into the same group of people regularly. From that, connections with develop.

For many, the biggest challenge isn't finding a place to be but actually getting themselves out there in the first place.

As neither a parent nor a teenager, I find this a weird one to leave with me. I merely repeated some valid concerns, to which you presented no solutions, just snippiness.

What workarounds am I looking for? And for whom? Why aren't the people concerned looking for their own workarounds?

Your "concerns" are little more than whining about minor inconvenience.

If you value convenience over the well-being of your children, you'll have a convenient life and children who are unwell.

Do what you think is best, but don't pretend it's impossible to live well without social media. It's laughable.

I barely use social media at this point and am very socially isolated as a result. Although not sure how much I care about my own isolation.

I don't think you really understand the extent to which restricting kids from social media can isolate them from their peers.

Even if you have a teenager who is social at school and through extracurriculars, many meaningful social interactions are happening online or through social media.

For example, almost every team/club these days has a "group chat", where kids spend time bonding outside of practice / organized events. Even if your child shows up to every organized event, they still may feel isolated due to being excluded from the conversations happening outside of practices.

This is just one example, if you'd like I can list many more ways that social media is semi-necessary for many kids to avoid feeling excluded.

I'm not saying this is necessarily always a bad thing (there are definitely strong arguments to be made for abstaining from some elements of society), but I would make sure you're communicating with your child and that you understand their social situation.

Countercultures always look really small. If everyone was actually doing it it wouldn't be much of a reaction to the prevailing culture of everyone being connected and having snippy political discussions in neighborhood discussion groups.

All of this organization doesn't actually happen on social media in my social group. We pretty much all just text each other, and everyone I know and care to spend time with does this. The people who are utterly reliant on Facebook to organize their lives have filtered themselves out of my friend group.

When I was young, the kids who played little league were, how do I put this? Dicks. It's not about shoving two like-aged children next to each other and yelling "bond!", it's about a child being able to navigate their own social life and, hopefully, find and bond with people they relate to. Limiting the activities a child can participate in, especially when those activities are widespread among their peers, will of course limit their ability to find their people and form those bonds.

"When the wise man points to the moon, the fool looks at his finger."

I trust you can find alternatives to little league. I also trust you can understand the broader point.

Feel free to actually make a point instead of cryptically alluding to one. Obviously, there are a finite number of activities in any community. Restrict the number of activities available to your child, restrict their capacity for finding and forming bonds with like-minded people. Simple as that.

You're so fucking empty headed

Don't forget how brutal the last two years has been on these ages. They are in a bad spot still.

Not being on Tiktok is not social isolation nor is it mentally devastating. I think many here are projecting their own addictions when they make these hyperbolic assertions.

And conversely without understanding the isolations modern children experience that your counterassertions fall short explaining the current situation we're in.

If your solution is "go play outside with other kids" and the park is empty because all other kids are busy doing isolated things or on tic tok, then you have a problem.

The park isn't empty though. The sports teams aren't empty. The after school groups aren't empty. The church groups aren't empty.

I don’t have time right now to go into details but it was surprisingly simple, from a filter rules perspective, to create an “iMessage only” access point.

So there is no isolation from peers, but also no other usage of the device.

We turn it off completely at 9pm.

Edit: oh, the other important detail is that they have no-data SIM cards. Tello sells text and talk only sims for $8/mo or whatever. Weirdly, when they are away from home, apple finds a way to tunnel blue bubbles through (sms only) … not sure how … bottom line is, at home, it’s iMessage or nothing.

How are they isolated? If kids are involved in sports and extra curriculars they will have plenty of social interaction. Nothing on social media is good for young minds. Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint. I'm the parent, I'll provide morals and insight into topics I think are important that aren't or shouldn't be covered in school. I don't need Jim.lottahoes78 teaching my kid anything.

> Everything is a pitch trying to sell some sort of viewpoint.

What about cities? What about stores? What about TV? What about magazines? What about the radio? What about school? What about music? What about books?

Whilst I agree with you, where do we draw the line? Personally, having worked in advertising/marketing for over a decade and grown completely disenchanted with it and pivoted to just doing creative shit, I don't think we should advertise to kids, period. It's exploitative and gross.

Our state banned billboards like 80 years ago. Make that happen in your state. They are valueless.

Which state is that? I didn't realize that was a thing in the US, but it sounds great.

Does it, how else would I find 423 lawyers as I drove to the store? J/K

Vermont banned roadside billboards 55 years ago, maybe that's the state?

I agree with you. Marketing to kids is wrong. I think social media is more insidious though. They are not selling products they are selling view points and often at the expense of others. Believe this or you're a Nazi. Don't drink this beer. Social media is the battlefield of the culture wars and I don't want my kids to be casualties.

I dont really think them not being on social media is akin to 'Isolation' from their peers. Thats really overblowing the situation. There are hundreds of other ways to meet your friends.

I don't get why a lot of this discussion assumes children can't communicate with peers without social media. Calling and texting are still a thing. So is coordinating during school to plan meetups after school. Besides, I think very few people are saying children should have a total ban on all forms of social media and communication. We need to find methods to restrict/reduce social media and then ease those restrictions as the children mature, with a focus to minimize the negative aspects of social media usage and still allow communication with peers.

For example, when our children were small, we didn't allow phones or social media, but allowed them to text/call friends with our phones. As they got older, we introduced Google Voice via family desktop computers so they had their own number for texts/calls, but given that it was on a desktop computer, it had limited usage. After that, we introduced a family smartphone that was shared among our younger children so they could text and have some limited social media, mainly group chat apps based on their clubs/sports. Once they became teenagers, we allow them their own phone, but still had restrictions on apps installed, types of websites available and time spent. Gradually over time, we introduce new apps, discuss app usage and review how things are going with the goal of increased independence over time.

For managing restrictions, we've used a lot of things, but never found a perfect solution. Bark works pretty well for signalling us of potential problems while giving our children a level of privacy. I use a Firewalla router to manage home internet access restrictions and Google Family Link to manage mobile devices. Both are mainly used to restrict time-based access (no middle of the night access) and for temporary restrictions to allow us to focus on things like homework and family events.

I can see why a lot of parents put no restrictions up or just ban too much. It takes a lot of work to create a nuanced set of restrictions that gradually give more independence as the child matures. Unfortunately, we've seen friends of our children who have had a lot of issues due to totally unrestricted internet access. We need to find and foster more middle grounds for easing children into social media and related technologies. Neither full unrestricted access nor total bans are helpful.

Abstaining from social media is not isolation. There are more healthy ways to interact with friends without the perils of social media platforms.

Aren't there at least a few studies that indicate better long-term mental health outcomes among kids who don't use social media until later in life? Sorry for the lack of citation, but if that is true, wouldn't that pretty much obviate this problem? If, on balance, the outcome is better, then whatever short terms shocks they may experience are better than the alternative.

They can deal with it. In middle school, I was called a faggot, relentlessly, for not owning a Jansport backpack. I am 100% serious. They'll find friends, I'm pretty sure of it.

But if they don't have social media, how will they see other kids calling them names for not owning the right backpack outside of school? Think of the harm to their socialization!

I still hope that one day we'll find a way to stop that (to a big extent).

Some day, we'll all have Jansport backpacks.

Still using mine from 5th grade 20+ years later. The oldest thing I own.

I was called plenty of unpleasant stuff, including that. I didn't find any friends and I left at sixteen because of it. I'm not so sure. At thirty, I'm still fairly socially isolated outside of work.

Ah yes, the old "I suffered so they can suffer too" argument, a tried and true barrier to social progress.

Children suffer. Adults suffer. Everyone suffers. I'm left with choosing which suffering my daughter will incur more of, either suffering "isolation" in making it harder for her to find friends by disallowing her from using social media for some time, or suffering the body image and other mental health and emotional disorders that could come from too much social media use at an early age. To some extent, I would love to give her the choice between the two herself, but most parents are going to be protective about certain things and make decisions like these for their children.

Also, my point wasn't even that I suffered therefore she should as well. My point was that children will bully each other over the most capricious shit imaginable, including whether or not you have the right backpack. At the time, I wished my mom would have just bought me a Jansport backpack (she wouldn't because we were poor), and now I look back on it as silly (and I'd guess those same bullies would have found another reason to make fun of me, like not having Nike shoes).

Further, having a smartphone and Instagram or Tiktok account aren't magical antidotes to social isolation at a young age.

But yes, I overcame my own suffering fairly easily.

If that is suffering than every child will always suffer, because an very normal part of childhood is someone finding a reason to bully someone else. It's part of developing understanding of social structures and your place in them, some kids will inevitably decide they must be at the top of the pecking order in their little personal hierarchy. You physically cannot prevent children from making up ways to pick on each other, there's like a doctor Seuss book about this for heaven's sake.

This isn't saying "stop trying to prevent bullying" but rather "if you are afraid of your child being bullied because they aren't on social media, them being on social media will not stop them from being bullied" and social media makes bullying worse because now it follows them around instead of possibly stopping at 3pm

A key difference here is that Jansport backpacks don't come with the additional baggage of huge risks to mental and emotional health, self-esteem, and increased suicide risk. It's interesting that you are framing immersing children in externalities as the choice to avoid suffering.

And what about the ones that didn't? Otherwise you're just talking about survivorship bias.

I flatly refuse any argument that assumes buying your kid a smartphone and allowing them on social media will solve their problems of social isolation. If a child is socially isolated from their peers, that is sad, and I personally do not know how to help them. But I still don't buy the argument that FB, Insta, TikTok, etc. are the solution because, what, their peers are on them?

Also, if some of these kids are being bullied, social media can exacerbate the problem. I allude to this in another comment where I speculate that if my mother had bought me the backpack, I think these kids would have still bullied me over something similar.

At least with schools there was the school day and trip there and home. After that you were probably alone and not constantly connected even on weekends.

hmm.. by the time i was a junior in high school i remember everyone just carried around a binder and a book for their next class or two.

i can't remember if it was because having a backpack became uncool, or the school mandated no backpacks because of columbine.

i do specifically remember trenchcoats were not allowed and one very likeable and somewhat popular kid had to give his up (that was sort of his "look").

anyone remember?

I didn't have a cell phone while all my friends did, I wasn't isolated.

You're probably not thinking hard enough here.

That isn't isolating them from their peers.

it is guaranteed at least subtle socially isolating them

No more so than it's isolating them by giving them a curfew, telling them they can't hang out in certain places, not giving them a car, etc.

That level of "isolation" seems innocuous at worst to me (even though it may seem like the end of the world to the kids).

Every kid through history was horribly isolated before we got smartphones and social media, I guess.

They're already spending the best hours of every weekday for like 3/4 of each year with their peers. More, if they do any other activities that involve other kids. Seems like quite a bit. I'm skeptical that they'll be harmed if they can't catch up on the latest bullying-memes, creep shots of other students, and tips for getting old guys to send you money online (all real examples, and none of them one-offs—trends) at 1AM on a school night.

If your kid is never isolated, how can they possibly develop healthy behaviors around boredom and isolation?

I hope you understand and just decided to pretend not to that _social_ isolation is not about physical isolation or boredom or having free time with nothing to do.

While the "simplest" way to archive social isolation is to be physically isolated you can be social isolated while having people around you 24/7.

Except this is the first time in more than a couple of generations that kids were locked out of schools for up to two years.

Putting aside that this time estimates can vary widely depending on culture, that there was covid, and that a lot of this time isn't spent doing things with their peers but in a classrome which also might happen to contain their peers I thinks it's still a flawed analysis.

Because if you look at the time they can choose what to do, like in brakes between classes or in brakes in the classe (e.g. PE) a bunch of it is spend talking, like talking about the latest trend, the grate experience they had yesterday etc. All of which the child with too strict parent can't proper join in. Then after school they join again, but today often over internet instead of meeting physically, and again the child with the too strict parents is left out.

I'm not sure if you living in a fundamental different world then I am, but it's really hard for me to understand how this is hard for anyone to understand. (If you live in the US I guess this might very well be true.)

This never was a discussion about fully unchecked phone usage. The best practical solution for something is most times some some in-between solution.

> The best practical solution for something is most times some some in-between solution.

I'm very curious as to what you recommend for an in-between solution. It seems to me that either the child has a phone or they don't. How is it possible to effectively restrict their use of the phone short of not allowing them to have it unless a parent is present?

Parental controls of the phone. I.e. the child physical has the phone but the parent virtually owns/controls it.

Which sadly are currently often sorely lacking especially for younger children and even for the limited functionality often need too much technical understanding (e.g. knowing that "adult-content filters" tend to not work and at least for young children whitelists are preferable while sadly also often cumbersome).

Our main trouble is that there are like 30 Web- or streaming-capable devices in our house, not even counting ones that are packed away, and getting the balance between "usable by adults with little friction; locked down for kids" right on all of them is a real pain. Only the Apple-ecosystem stuff is relatively easy to manage, as far as that goes.

Worse, some of them are school devices that we can't manage. And having to physically manage device access is another annoying, never-ending task.

Then you are either older, lucky or never introspected.

I assume lucky for a moment.

The problem is less that conversations are more delayed or ad-hoc but more that they can potentially miss out on "group events". And that is where the problem starts. Because they also can't join in on conversations about that event, etc. This means while the rest of the group will frequently have situations where they emotionally bond you get are not included and in turn get subtle unintended socially isolated.

If you are a socially very adapted child you can probably compensate this just fine.

If you have other more important friend groups it probably also doesn't matter too much.

If there is a group of people (not just a small minority) in the same situation as you in the same social circle it also probably is fine.

but if not it really can hurt, and you likely only notice how damaging it was for your social life after the damage is already done and hard to recover even if you now convince your parents to give your more leeway

and that's under the assumption the social group in question is "nice" but you e.g. can't choose the people you go to school with and a not so nice social group can use this to intentionally exclude it or use it as a starting point for bullying which often is only addressed when it has gone out of hand to a point where a parent or teacher stepping in can't fix anything anymore

and sure above's arguments often matter much more for e.g. multiplayer computer games then for "having a phone", through not having a phone also means e.g. not having a camera and not being able to make and share group photos with your social group

instead of denying access to a phone, social media, etc. it's better to control it in a careful and reasonable way. E.g. don't forbid the playing of idk. Fortnight, but explain the problems with it and maybe limit the hours and similar a child can spend, but allow the child to decide when to spend them and allow some degree of saving up hours etc. Similar for social media, etc.

Same applies for going out etc. as far as I can tell it's best for you child to allows it a wide leeway just not unlimited and properly educate them about dangers.

EDIT: deleted the last paragraph it was off topic

> Then you are either older, lucky or never introspected.

That sounds a lot like when kids say "you just don't understand!" to parents restricting their activities.

The reality is that the parents usually understand fully, but also understand other aspects that the kids don't yet.

> that they can potentially miss out on "group events".

I doubt this is a common or inevitable consequence. First, kids spend a great deal of time in person with their peers at school. Even if something is only planned online, they can still get the details by asking in person. Second, they can use a home computer to do that stuff. A phone isn't mandatory.

> not having a phone also means e.g. not having a camera

If that's important to a particular child, give them a camera. They do still exist.

> it's better to control it in a careful and reasonable way.

I agree. But you can't really do that if they have a smartphone. You can do that if they have to use a computer at home to go online.

I fully understand that kids will consider the lack of a smartphone to be essentially social suicide. They'll feel like it's an existential problem. But it's not. Good parenting often requires parents to do things that kids think are abusive, but are actually necessary to give them the best shot possible at having a good, healthy adult life. One of the main jobs of a parent is to gradually introduce children to reality. Emphasis on "gradually".

> parents usually understand fully

> I doubt this is a common or inevitable consequence.

I think if you speak with a psychotherapeut which keeps up with the current state of research/sience the answer would be: no many parent have no idea what they are doing, and it is VERY common. It's common enough that some people claim abusing this dynamic is the main source of income for Fortnight ...

> If that's important to a particular child, give them a camera. They do still exist.

this fully misses the point, it's not about making photos, it's about sharing them and slightly about funny filters etc. and do you think a parent who doesn't allow their child to have a phone would allow them to chair photos without a lot of friction?

> no many parent have no idea what they are doing

Absolutely true, but not relevant to the point that I was trying to make. Kids often claim that parents don't understand the kid's point of view, but parents usually do. That was all I was saying. I wasn't claiming that parents were experts on parenting.

> it's not about making photos, it's about sharing them and slightly about funny filters etc.

I understood the point. You can do that with a digital camera. It just takes extra steps and is less immediate.

> do you think a parent who doesn't allow their child to have a phone would allow them to chair photos without a lot of friction?

Maybe not all, but many absolutely will. I did with my children, and I wasn't unusual in that. The issue isn't sharing or talking with friends, the issue is unfettered exposure to social media.

> the issue is unfettered exposure to social media.

I half agree, but think the issue is more "exposure to unfettered social media" (a bit of a word stunt* I guess, but I'm sure you get what I mean).

Through as a parent I agree that there is only so much you can do about social media itself, so you have to find a compromise like you did.

*it's more like the access/view the child has to (a potential subset) of a social media providers content then the social media itself

If we continue down this road, not letting your kid smoke pot with their peers also counts as "subtle social isolation". Some things your kid should not do!

You mean like we made it illegal to sell cigarettes or pot (where it is legal) to children... whoa, it's almost like we can have laws limit stuff.

This is such a misleading red hearing argument.

There is a huge difference between given a child a phone and giving them unchecked phone and internet access.

> Some things your kid should not do!

Yes and socializing after school is definitely NOT on the list of things a child should not do.

Stop thinking in terms of yes or no, the world doesn't work like that.

Sounds like MAAD: Mutually Assured Attention Destruction.

It's fair to call out that if one kid doesn't have a phone and everyone else does, it may be hard on them. Phones are a way to be "in" and in the know, if you don't have one then you may be on the outside looking in.

A few things.

1. Fuck being on the inside. Work with your kid and their self-esteem and their friends to realize that shit-talking and drama online is shallow, painful and makes you a worse person.

2. Work with the parents in your kid's social circle to talk to them about social media impact, and maybe make sure that in-person time after school is happening. Alternatively, "just" get your kid involved in after-school programs that require social activity. Band, choir, sports, hobby clubs.

3. Don't cut off social media/computing entirely. Abstinence from it full-time would be really hard to enforce. Yes, look at putting parental controls. Yes, consider limiting which apps they can have. Put time limits on it, and yeet any unapproved devices.

At around thirteen it's almost impossible to get into calm rational discussions with things as emotionally charged as this.

“Teenage suicide is at an all time high… I sure wouldn’t want my kid to stop being terminally connected to those kids and whatever could possibly be causing that!”

Sure there is: Identify the degenerate behaviour and punish it. Whatever that may be and 51% of us can agree on. If that's tik tok, all social media, YouTube, infinite scroll, use generated media websites, drug misogyny and degenerate sex promoting lyrics, violent fps games, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, ads aimed at children, pictures of swastikas, hormone altering medicine, or whatever, so be it.

If you don't ban it at the source and society-wide, then parents are left with very little means to protect their children's development and growth into good individuals that reflect their beliefs.

I don't get how we're being so laissez-faire and willing to just "see where it goes" when it comes to our society and our future as a species. We're at a critical juncture right now and need to make a decision; we can't fence sit any longer while the winds of peer pressure randomly drag us wherever and based on nothing more than who shouts the loudest or who cancels dissent the best.

/rant

You may be right. But free speech and free markets have done a lot of good, along with the bad. Trying to rein them in gets a lot of pushback, because the alternatives have been pretty terrible too.

I had 14 friends on myspace back in its heyday. I could not play runescape because my computer was too old. I had dialup until 2008. It actually was not mentally devastating. Hell, I still have all those friends and we barely have a way to communicate NOW. When you go to school 8 hours of every day and see your friends, you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them. Hell, blocking out social media doesn't prevent you from texting or messaging your friends! Discord though is social media IMO, anything that forms a "group" that can have leaders and followers and bullies is social media.

> you don't really need a stupid app to interact with them

Yes, you do, because they will not want to interact with you if you're not on the preferred app. This is the case even with adults: I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.

Hang out with less shitty people.

> I somewhat regularly meet people who will flatly refuse to talk to you if you don't have a green bubble, or an Instagram account, or whathaveyou. These are educated professionals in their 20's and 30's.

Find better friends?

I didn't say they were my friends, I said the opposite, people I just met

That's a good indicator that they're people to avoid.

Cool, that's what I'll tell my kids when they're socially ostracized by most of their school.

Purely for argument sake: would the above apply if peer kids were in gang, or into drugs or alcohol or whatever?

Social media is no different from those, IMHO of course.

This is why regulation is useful even though it's imperfect. If it's against the law for under 18s to use social media, parents no longer need to justify allowing their kids access because all of their peers allow it. By necessity, more traditional means of socialization will reemerge.

That's what soccer leagues are for. Or chess club for the non-athletically inclined.

> I don't think preventing kids from accessing social media entirely is viable or reasonable.

One solution to this is to have a public computer in the house that the children can use. As they age and become more responsible you can give them more computing privacy. In the mean time you can kind of get an idea if they're developing bad habits and address it.

I like this idea.

And, letting them use it only after 20:00, encourages them to hang out with friends after school (instead of running home to play games alone all afternoons and evenings).

Don't discount multiplayer gaming as socialization with friends. My mother hated how much I was on the computer, but I had ample friendships and computer related hobbies and learning, and well my entire life is spent on a computer. That's just how some lives are nowadays.

If they are just queuing with randoms or spending all their time watching a stupid twitch streamer, that's not socialization though. I don't think you can actually form connections with other gamers anymore with the way modern matchmaking works.

There's something to be said about missing out on other dimensions of social life when socializing online. I would argue that it's not a substitute and poor preparation for the human condition.

Not sure if it's reasonable, but a very simple answer is to get your kid a feature phone, if the intent is to be able to stay in touch/emergency contact (we let our kids bike to middle school and it was nice to be in touch). We didn't get them smart phones until high school.

Though if my kids are any indication, it's still 50/50 - one is on tiktok/snapchat/insta constantly, and the other could care less.

Some parents in our social circle have been getting their kids smart watches. This allows talk to text and phone calls, but pretty much no internet. These devices are also good for parental controls like allow listing phone numbers (first thing our friends son did was make crank calls :)

I frequently recommend the apple watch with cellular to families... it has nice built in support to be set up for a child, the watch form factor is nice for lots of kids (harder to lose), and you are still getting a premium product (important for the families that I work with).

I thought Apple Watches required an iPhone to pair with? Is that not the case?

You can get them with a radio built in.

Yes, but I thought they still required pairing with a iPhone to set up. Once set-up is complete they can be used independently, but my impression is that it requires pairing to an iPhone, at least initially.

I think in the future, we should look into device-level age verification. You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once; and after that, your iPhone tells the website that you are 16 and over without providing any other information unless the user expressly grants it. This solution would not make everyone happy, but politics is all about tradeoffs.

By keeping everything on the device-level, we would hopefully reduce the need for third-parties, ISP-level filtering, or providing too much information. The downside is that for open-source phones, in order for the system to be secure, there would likely need to be a similar Age ID check at checkout for any device that can bypass said filter. This would not be the first time that the US Government strongly "encouraged" device manufacturers to build-in rating system equipment (remember V-Chip?).

And as for "some kids might bypass it," I don't really care. Speed Limits are easily and frequently bypassed, but that doesn't mean it would be safe to get rid of them.

This is way too complicated. You could sell children's iphones that reliably report "user is under 16" and make it an offence to supply an adult phone to a child.

> You scan your Driver's License on your iPhone once

And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is.

The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone.

> And who's checking that ID? In what form is the record of it being kept, and where? I would not use a device that had this sort of requirement. There's too much surveillance as it is.

I would do it on a state-by-state level. Your phone verifies your age with, say, the state of California one time, and then it's set and California has no idea what you visit or why.

And if you don't like this due to hacking risk; remember that the State of California literally has your photo, social security number, address, height, weight, gender, and more. Hacking risk increase is minuscule from what it already is. And not just California - any state can look you up if they want; otherwise, how would traffic tickets or arrests for interstate drivers happen?

> The solution to this with children is easy -- don't get them a smartphone.

Or we ban children from possession or purchase of smartphones under a certain age. Which, I would be favor of, but may be too politically unpalatable.

I'm not concerned about a hacking risk, I'm concerned about tracking and surveillance.

Yea! What could go wrong asking the government to record your identity to your technology!? Surely YOUR favorite party will always be in power and this power would never fall into the hands of the bad people.

> remember V-Chip?

Remember it didn’t work and was only pushed for by a bureaucracy that eventually did nothing but make regulation into the TV market and surely some Clinton connected suppliers of the IP very happy?

No is the answer whenever someone proposes “the aught to be a law”. There almost always aught’n’t.

V-Chip was actually great for the small niche of parents that cared enough about their kids, had a large amount of cable TV channels, thought some of them were inappropriate, and were willing to put in effort to read an instruction manual.

The problem was that generation was so fucking lazy they refused to read a paragraph of an instruction manual to stop the "12:00" blinking on their VCRs, and spent all their time blaming everyone else for the problems they were causing, like violent videogames.

Children have been around for 7 billion years. Only the last 20 years of children have grown up with social media for even part of their childhood. Do you truly believe it has now become that critical to the childhood experience? Especially given avalanche of research demonstrating its harm?

If I didn't watch the Simpsons, play Nintendo and listen to the local alt rock radio station when I was a kid, I would have had very little in common with my peers. Same situation today, just different media. Turns out, shared experiences facilitate bonding. Who knew?

Funny, I didn't watch the Simpsons or listen to alt rock radio, but I had no issues socializing or finding friends. Turns out no one thinks the Simpsons or and alt-rock are essentials to children being able to properly socialize with one another. And yet people are arguing that social media, despite all its harmful effects, can't be withheld from a child without damaging them.

My parents did not let me watch Simpsons or any other American media, and I think it hampered my socializing. You either have to fake it to be in the conversation at school, or you just stay silent while everyone is talking about music/movies/tv show.

I basically learned how to lie, sneak around, and keep two separate worlds going, as long as I needed my parents’ financial support.

How much of youth culture while you were growing up was shaped by the Simpsons and alt rock, and how much of youth culture today is shaped by the internet and social media?

I would argue that almost all of Gen-Z culture today is driven by internet communities and social media, and raising a child without access to online media will make it difficult for them to relate to many (not necessarily all) of their peers.

I find it odd that you didn't need shared cultural experiences to bond with people in childhood. Not funny, just odd.

My point is that the Simpsons, like social media, is a single potential shared cultural experience out of many. I'm not arguing against shared cultural experiences, I'm simply arguing that social media isn't the only one out there and is therefore replaceable. Anyone who thinks the modern human experience has nothing outside of social media or the Simpsons should perhaps unplug, and as they say, "touch grass".

The last 20 years haven't just seen an increase in social media usage though; it's seen a decrease in socializing between kids outside of school. It's easy to remove access to their socials. It's very hard to replace that with a function social life outside of school. That's a recipe for resentment and rebellion. That's not going to happen without input at a every level of society to bring back that mall/skate rink/play park culture that has all but disappeared. We need to stop calling parents irresponsible for not watching their child's every move. That's where the difficulty lies.

> it's seen a decrease in socializing between kids outside of school

Because of social media. Sports teams and after school clubs didn't go anywhere. Parks didn't go anywhere. Malls are in decline but the period of time they were an active social location was the 80s and 90s, which is a blip in the grand scheme of things. Community centers still exist, churches still exist, libraries still exist, basements and backyards and living rooms still exist. My neighborhood is full of young children who are always playing at the park, at each other's homes, at the pool. Yes, if you hand your kid a phone and a social media account to occupy their time, they will struggle to identify non-social media ways to interact with their peers. That doesn't mean those avenues no longer exist.

I agree with you that parents shouldn't be required to watch their child's every move, and I would go further and say that our modern society in general is actively working against parents ability to parent their children properly. But when it comes to social media, the facts remain: social media isn't remotely crucial for a child's growth or ability to socialize with their peers, they may in fact socialize better without it, and regardless, its extremely damaging and risky to their mental and emotional health.

> Malls are in decline but the period of time they were an active social location was the 80s and 90s, which is a blip in the grand scheme of things.

The ancient Greeks went to the marketplace (το αγορά) as a social location. That’s where agoraphobia, the fear of public spaces, stems from.

Exactly my point. Because of social media. It is both the reason people stay at home, and the reason we have nothing to go back to. I'm not suggesting social spaces don't exist. I'm suggesting that the culture and people that exist in them has disappeared. The genie is out of the bottle, and won't get back in.

Sports teams and school clubs haven't changed, and good parents take substantial advantage of them, sure. Community centers are all but dead in my town. The local youth centers I attended as a child have shut down. Churches exist; in my town, everyone who attends them is 60 and over. Libraries exist; they are near empty, or full of people quietly studying. Not a place for a kid to socialize. The local spaces that children used to hang out after school are empty, because everyone is at home playing games and using social media, and kids don't want to stop using them because the local spaces are empty. There's no winning.

These places are different than they used to be. The avenues exist, but there's no-one on them. If I told my kids to go play outside with their friends like people did in the 90s and prior, they'd be on their own. I'd need to start a societal revolution in my town with at least 50% of the other parents to get them to coordinate in sending their kids out as well. It seems like if it's not a validated group activity like sports or clubs, then people just keep their children at home.

>Children have been around for 7 billion years.

[citation needed]

> There has always been a small but consistent group of parents who stand firmly on their decision to delay giving their child broad access to social media until later, and the vast, vast majority who can't be bothered to.

For the latter group, do you feel like it's always willful ignorance? For example, some parents think you're talking about TikTok, when (as I'm sure you know) it often starts with Roblox/Minecraft chat and associated Discord servers.

What tools have you found useful to help parents understand and manage this?

Every time this topic comes up, many of the responses here are about how it is pointless to try and impose limits on social media (or anything for that matter) on children, as they will inevitably circumvent them or something like that. To me it comes off like mental gymnastics to excuse a failure to actually parent.

The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. Those who are dead-set on doing it will always find a way, that's the energy of teenage rebellion at work.

Whilst I do agree that it's a failure to parent to a large extent, locking things behind restrictions can also make people want it more without them understanding why they're being restricted from having something that clearly makes a lot of people happy.

I go back to my teenage self, and if instead of treating me like an idiot, people explained the pros and cons to it, and helped me to understand it, I might just not want it for myself. In the same way that I had teen pregnancy and accidental overdoses explained to me, I understood the risk-to-reward ratio and why people were concerned enough to try and educate about it.

FWIW, whilst I don't take drugs, I do believe in legalizing them because punishing users makes precious little sense instead of helping them kick the addiction and get their life on track. However, legalizing of drugs equally doesn't mean I think people should seek them out, but those who are going to take them are probably going to take them anyway, and that should be something we can deal with in an appropriate and compassionate manner.

No one is suggesting to deprive your kids of social media without explaining the dangers. But I also think its a fallacy that I see all the time when the situation is boiled down to only two options: restrictions with no justification and treating your child like an idiot pet, or explaining why its bad but not actually imposing any restrictions and letting your child choose for themselves like they are an adult (which they aren't). A middle ground exists of treating your child like a growing human being in which you put in place restrictions to protect themselves from themselves, while also explaining the importance and motivation of those restrictions.

> those who are going to take them are probably going to take them anyway

I also think this is a common fallacy. As you said, some individuals are dead set on using drugs, participating in risky sex, teenage drinking, or utilizing social media may circumvent any restrictions you place on them. But there is also a large proportion of the population who isn't "dead set" on using those things, and are only interested enough to use them if convenient, but if otherwise restricted or disincentivized will move on to other things. Its certainly a far more nuanced equation than "People will do whatever they want, regardless".

I agree. The key thing is this: people vary drastically.

What is effective in preventing x person from doing something bad for themselves isn't going to be effective on y person. This is where parenting styles must vary in order to be effective.

> The same could be said for teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use.

There are things that have been shown to have an effect on teen drinking, smoking, casual sex, and drug use. And things that have not.

Parents forbidding it is definitely not in the effective category.

It is wild to me that the GP's analysis of what might be done begins and ends at "we've run programs asking parents to forbid social media use, and they just can't be bothered to!"

I think you have to consider the broader peer group. If all the anti-social media parents and their kids become friends with each other, it will be far easier to avoid peer pressure compared to regular society. Same with drugs, sex, smoking, etc, if your kids have good company and friends, avoiding harmful things is much easier.

It doesn't really matter if they circumvent it. The problem with social media is not exposure, it's overstimulation/"addiction". If you put an inconvenience between the kid and the stimulus, you're already more than halfway there. If they need to use a desktop and a VPN to go on Instagram, they can't spend as much time on it.

Likewise, the kid will smoke less weed and drink less beer if they have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it. Most of the studies showing harmful effects of drug/alcohol consumption on teenagers identify subgroups who used multiple times per week or every day. Interpolating these effects linearly, they usually become very small below once per week.

> Likewise, the kid will smoke less weed and drink less beer if they have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it.

In my experience/observation, how strict the parent is at trying to forbid drug and alcohol use doesn't actually have much correlation with whether and how much the kids use drugs and alcohol. Or if it does, it's a negative correlation. The kids with the biggest problems always seemed to have the strictest most punitive parents, whether as cause or effect. I am pretty sure plenty of research backs up that an effective way to reduce teen drug use is _not_ to have parents just try to be really strict and punitive about it.

Sure, there are a few parents who are totally absentee or abusive (say, giving kids drugs) and it can be related to kids with drugs and alcohol problems. But the vast majority of kids with drugs and alcohol problems indeed "have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it". And I don't find the kids whose parents try to be stricter or are scarier about it are in fact any less likely to have problems. I wouldn't be shocked if the correlation is the opposite.

>Sure, there are a few parents who are totally absentee or abusive (say, giving kids drugs) and it can be related to kids with drugs and alcohol problems.

You seem to be arguing for the same thing as I did. The status quo regarding social media is for parents to be "totally absentee" as you put it, while the usual approach to alcohol is "don't let me catch you". It's very rare for parents to take a permissive approach regarding teen alcohol use, especially considering it's illegal to do that.

>But the vast majority of kids with drugs and alcohol problems indeed "have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it".

The vast majority of kids have to jump through hoops to get alcohol, period.

>I am pretty sure plenty of research backs up that an effective way to reduce teen drug use is _not_ to have parents just try to be really strict and punitive about it.

Are you?

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030646030...

"Results indicate that parental permissibility of alcohol use is a consistent predictor of teen drinking behaviors, which was strongly associated with experienced negative consequences."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S037687161...

"harsh parental discipline was positively associated with alcohol use in the lower-use group only."

(But if children are in the lower-use group we have already avoided most of the physiological problems!)

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048674.2010.50...

"Reduced levels of later drinking by adolescents were predicted by: parental modelling, limiting availability of alcohol to the child, disapproval of adolescent drinking, general discipline, parental monitoring, parent–child relationship quality, parental support and general communication."

Of course, the more important factor is not discipline of the child by the parent, but discipline of the parent by the parent. Parental use is the strongest predictor of children's use. So we should also consider that parents who use social media too much may influence their children to do so as well.

OK, good reply, thanks!

> But the vast majority of kids with drugs and alcohol problems indeed "have to hide it and jump through hoops to get it".

Feel free to share your research and sources, because this sort of assertion seems to get made all the time, but I haven't actually seen anything supporting it.

We aren't even close to this though with social media. We are still at the 1930s attitude with my grandfather and cigarettes.

He smoked cigarettes for 50+ years starting at 13 in the 1930s. No one gave a shit about smoking then.

Why you being so ridiculous? Let the kid smoke his cigarettes. Making such a big deal out of nothing. From what he told me it sounded like cigarettes then were on the level of having a sandwich. Literally as normal as waking up in the morning and the kid checking their phone. What is the big deal? What could possibly go wrong?

I don't think it's ignorance as much as "well, that won't be my child." Also, its a much more appealing alternative when it is the path of least resistance. I suspect, too, we don't really have a sophisticated enough conversation on the distributions of the outcomes. From my experience working with teens, I think it is probably the case that the media outcome of having broad access to these is strictly worse than not, but probably of a small magnitude, but that there is a long tail of negative outcomes that no one believes will be their child.

I do a thing where I get a chance to meet with lots of smaller group of kids, and I let them ask anything tech anonymously. it is absolutely eye opening, and it becomes very clear that adolescence for a lot of them is much, much harder to navigate because of these tools they've been given. What I do sometimes is just share with parents some of the questions I get from the kids, and that has been the only slightly effective thing I've seen. To me the biggest issue is that there's a lot of "not my kid" sort of sentiment, and I think letting the kids' voices speak through to the parents sometimes helps hit home to them that they may not have a full grasp of what these tools introduce to their child's life, and that yes, their child could also be one of the ones who struggles with it more accutely.

>For example, some parents think you're talking about TikTok, when (as I'm sure you know) it often starts with Roblox/Minecraft chat and associated Discord servers.

US psychologist Jonathan Haidt has said there is an interesting distinction in impact between cooperative online play, e.g. gaming, and using social media, e.g. posting on instagram and reading others posts. He says the data shows the former can benefit a child's social development while the latter is absolutely toxic.

I've worked in tech for 20+ years and I have 4 young kids. We allow our teenager use of a locked down smartphone, with a clearly explained zero expectation of privacy. We don't allow any social media on the phone itself. YouTube and other sites can be used under supervision for agreed on lengths of time.

Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off.

It is a LOT of work. But so far, it has paid off. The more responsible the usage, the more freedom we give. When bad patterns start surfacing, we rein it in.

IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is.

I'm not going to comment on the specifics of your process. There isn't always a right or wrong to handle this stuff.

Your comment and the parent point to the theme that matters to me most: do you care to understand/show interest in what your kids are doing. Forget about social media - just think about TV. You can park your kid in front of the TV and forget about them, converse with them as they watch, or something in between. Your kids also need quiet/down time as well.

Again, not to say I'm right, but I try not to litigate what is happening so much, and instead I try to just be an active participant in whatever my kids are doing. The counter where you restrict or limit or challenge doesn't always work out better in the end.

>do you care to understand/show interest in what your kids are doing.

This I think precisely embodies what works and what doesn't. If this is your goal, you'll figure out something that works.

Absolutely. It is the thing that actually matters.

> Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off.

> IMO parents are reluctant to intervene because they either don't know where to start, or struggle with how much work it is.

There are also parents who disagree with this ideology and would find this an invasion of their child's privacy. I'd caution against the thinking "we find this valuable and if people don't do it it's because they aren't willing to put as much work in as we do"

The mantra we use with our kids is "We will try and respect your privacy but we aren't bound by it." As I often tell my son, "It's your room but it's my house."

And we make it extra clear that the moment they go online, they have no expectation of privacy. Better they learn that someone's snooping now than be surprised when it's Google/Facebook/NSA.

I think most children find it significantly more invasive for their parents to be snooping through their messages, than to have that information being collected in some government database.

For sure, and you are also reading messages and seeing pics from their friends when you snoop and monitor. There's no great solution to this.

That's a fair point, and I don't mean to insist that my way is the best way. It works for us, it surely won't work for all. But I am certain that with some effort on the part of the parents to be intentional, a good system can be reached. Our system continues to evolve, and with time and additional responsibility/freedom, will evolve eventually to us as parents handing complete control over.

that imposition of a lack of privacy just seems like a sure way to not only make them seek actual privacy elsewhere - moving their communications to other devices, and just doing stuff outside of "surveilled" devices or any devices at all, but to make it so that they won't ever share their actual private matters.

they will have their problems - just, outside of your reach, and they will not talk about them with you. (why? any reason, ranging from 'you don't get to surveil me - i'm going to have my privacy', to 'there's a looming possibility of blowback - I don't want to deal with that (or just, being afraid of that), so i'm just gonna keep my appearances neat (while doing real stuff elsewhere - and keeping that to myself')

I can understand being this careful with young children's usage of a device but giving teenagers zero privacy (to the extent of going through their personal messages) seems wild to me.

This is how you raise a generation that thinks intrusive monitoring and zero privacy is perfectly normal, or even worse craves it.

Maybe it's how you raise a generation that understands you shouldn't post a single thing online that you don't want the whole world to know about. Prior generations have entirely failed to understand that, certainly (cf. Zuckerberg's infamous "dumb fucks" comment—which, go figure, we know about because he sent it as an instant message)

Funny thing is (IIRC) he sent it over IRC, which as far as these things go is relatively ephemeral :-)

Ha, yeah, reinforces the idea that if you don't have crazy-good opsec you better not post anything online—including in places as relatively-safe as IRC or direct messages—that you don't want in the newspaper, with your name next to it.

I still cringe at the immature garbage we did in college over telnet and unsecured NIS/Ethernet Unix boxes not questioning whether anyone was recording packet traces for posterity. Luckily disk space was super expensive back then. :-)

> Maybe it's how you raise a generation that understands you shouldn't post a single thing online that you don't want the whole world to know about.

I can assure you that this has not been the result of whatever is going on at home.

Getting teenagers to care about their online privacy is like pulling teeth.

I think this might be because they get so much positive reinforcement from sharing what they are doing on social-media-platform-Z.

> but giving teenagers zero privacy (to the extent of going through their personal messages) seems wild to me.

Why? Teenagers are kids too, or have we forgotten that? They are actually worse than kids in some respect, still immature but with changing body and new hormones.

It may seem weird to them at this time, but hopefully they’ll appreciate when they grow older - or even if not, at least one did what they could.

Teenagers also want and value privacy. Or have you forgotten what it's like?

> Or have you forgotten what it's like?

We're simply talking privacy in the digital context. When I was a teenager the world looked different so I had N/A for digital privacy.

> the world looked different

You're justifying invasion of privacy with vagueries about "the world being different". This isn't saying anything.

Growing up in the 90s we had a home computer, and by extension, digital privacy.

Another way to think of privacy (adult-free zone) is The Place Where The Critical Stuff Is Learned.

My Parents gave me no privacy when I was a teenager. Guess what I learned? I learned that it was easier to lie and hide who I was than to be honest. I got better at lying and deceiving because it was a necessity. It was easy to get around their rules eventually; after all, I was a child with unlimited time and desperation to live my way. None of the children in my family talk to my parents anymore and most left home before 18.

No one is advocating the extremes you mention.

No on-device privacy is different than no privacy.

I'm not speaking in extremes and my story is more common than you think.

teens won't just 'want' privacy, they will get it, one way or another. and if it means excluding other people (like parents) from their communication loops, then so be it. thinking that 'you can let them know that you read their little messages, and that takes care of some things', or 'sure, they may want privacy, but what will they really do?'(literally anything incl. getting a burner phone lol), is just unrealistic. it creates more problems than it solves - well, if ending up with teens who won't talk to you about their actual private matters (and problems) and just keep that to themselves while putting up appearances, is even a problem for you. like, sure, they won't ever talk about their problems with you - but in a way, that means they have no problems (as it appears to you). so "problem solved".

the realistic expectation, is that they will talk about some things and do some things, and you will not be part of those things (just by the nature of things, and whichever way it is, whether you're trying to surveil their chats or not, or just letting people have their own privacy), and all you can do is just hope that when something happens, they will be more inclined to talk to you and ask you for help, than not. setting it up in a way like 'i'm scanning your communications - and if something happens, it's gonna become a thing to deal with' - is not gonna help with that. it's setting up for it to be like 'i'm gonna try to avoid having anything out that could be seen by parents and become a thing'. not even 'avoiding getting into trouble' - but just 'avoiding writing about that trouble, or talking about that trouble with you'.

This is exactly what happened to me. Having no privacy made me skilled liar, so I have that to be thankful for at least.

Not everyone has such a combative relationship with their parents as you apparently had.

It it is possible to be firm on dangers, still be understanding and calm, and let them have face-to-face conversations with privacy... even a beer once in a while or whatever else harmless thing that might excite them in other ways. Pick your battles in other words.

talking about privacy is different from imposing reduced privacy on someone. so i'm not sure why you're bringing that up like 'that's the thing that's been talked about all along, and it's not bad' (and it isn't, conversations like that can be good, lest they end with a 'and that's why we're monitoring every word you say in chats on a phone', which is the, not even so much 'bad' part per se, but it's just gonna have 'unintended, lasting consequences'), and throwing that in along with a wrong assumption about my life. that kind of 'well damn, not everybody had it that bad, geez, what are you complaining about' shit also just sounds like victim blaming (or rather, target? though, imposed surveillance can get to the point where it's so overt, saying someone's a 'victim' might not even be a stretch), which is also another important aspect to this topic.

> It may seem weird to them at this time, but hopefully they’ll appreciate when they grow older

I have been raised differently, and with certain values. It is frustrating but ok to forbid or limit things, and to talk about issues. But to snoop through one's private messages or similar communication, that's completely disgusting and I would have what? Appreciated? No, never forgiven (works both ways btw, the trust). Especially at teenage age.

I guess I shared voluntarily more with my parents and voiced issues than I would have in such circumstances, can just repeat: dis gus ting.

Personally I wouldn't implement such a policy purely because it's against my values.

People generally value their privacy. How are children supposed to learn the same if their's is not respected?

Do children learn the value of privacy by having it, or because theirs isn't respected?

In my experience, there's a lot of the second.

I can't help but think it's in significant part survivorship bias.

I mean, I've seen this sort of controlling behaviour carry over for three generations(that I know of) among my relatives - the person to (hopefully - the jury is out on that) break the chain moved countries.

Someone also needs to raise the future people who do the nice work at the NSA, FBI and the likes..

As a young adult who was recently a teenager, I can't help but feel concerned about the potential dangers of having no expectation of privacy from our parents, especially when it comes to reading through our text messages.

While I understand the intention behind it, this practice can easily lead to conflicts and strained relationships.

Teenagers are at a stage in their lives where they are trying to establish their independence and develop a sense of self. By invading their privacy, parents risk undermining their trust and creating an atmosphere of constant surveillance. This not only hampers the natural process of growing up but also sends a message that their thoughts and personal space are not respected.

You don't know how old exactly OP's kids are. There is a big difference between 13 and 19.

Younger teenagers also want some level of privacy.

Agreed, but only with people they actually know in person.

... Yeah, like their parents.

Yes this seems trivially true, even just looking back at my own teenage years on the family computer.

I don't think the remedy is more helicopter parenting. It suffices to limit screen time across the board and empower kids with knowledge surrounding the risks of over use.

My partner's mom read her diary at ~11 and then got mad at her for writing about her frustrations with her mom. She then grounded my 18yo nibbling a couple weeks ago for writing the same sort of frustrations on the notes app on their phone (she's the legal guardian). My partner became withdrawn from her mom and kept all of her social life to herself, hidden from her mom.

Yep. This is exactly what happens. I already had a strained relationship with my parents but when they invaded my privacy - I decided to lock it down way harder and cut them out entirely from my life. I'll pickup a phone call from them every few months but that's all they get.

It's a great way to ruin relationships with your kids. Keep at it, HN know-it-alls.

"If you punish honesty, expect to be lied to."

This is quite profound, is this quoted from anywhere or are these your own words?

I think I read it here: https://www.quora.com/What-is-a-short-useful-and-generally-a...

> atmosphere of constant surveillance

You've just described modern life—better get used to it early. Never every put anything sensitive in an electronic message.

I have vivid memories of my parents barging into my bedroom when I was or was not there to do absolutely anything they wanted. They also opened all of my mail. I haven't talked to them in 15 years.

This is just anecdotal but I remember when I was growing up there were always a few kids in school who had extremely restrictive parents like this (strictly controlled their TV, phone, time with friends, searched their rooms, etc.)

On the surface, it seemed like it was effective and they had model kids. But in every case I can remember it resulted in the kids just becoming much better at finding ways to rebel (in increasingly escalating ways) that the parents couldn't catch, until they got a knock at the door from the police, or their kid was pregnant, or overdosed, etc.

How about the ones that were allowed to do whatever they wanted? Where are they now?

On hacker news, well-adjusted, highly-educated, able to think for myself, found healthy outlets for "rebellion", and I have healthy relationship with my parents that feels more like friendship than dictatorship.

Anecdotally, I got in trouble occasionally as a teenager, but those moments of trouble were considerably less rebellious than friends of mine with helicopter parents.

My Dad always told me growing up that no matter where I am or what I am doing, that he will pick me up no questions asked if I am ever somewhere or doing something and I need to get out. Used it once, we talked the next day like adults about my decisions that led me into the bad situation and that was that.

> Anecdotally, I got in trouble occasionally as a teenager, but those moments of trouble were considerably less rebellious than friends of mine with helicopter parents.

Kids in trouble are often kids developing ambition. I'd wager the disproportional punishments (arrest+record over getting yelled at and shooed off) are what do actual harm.

That'd be me. With adults out of the way, I learned to be self-sufficient and I learned how to navigate complex social situations on my own. All the stuff in my life that worked out well - I can trace it all to that.

My 5 kids had always-present parenting (because independent growth became effectively illegal+impossible). They're adults now and all live with me.

You're a parent of 5 adult children who all live under the same roof as you? Honestly I don't know whether to congratulate you (my kids all love me so much and all get along) or commiserate (none of my kids are independent).

We all get on really well but they are better people than can be attributed to my parenting.

FWIW there's a rule in play that success is kids'; failure is parents'. I can't do their hard work of growing up but I could surely sabotage it.

I was pretty much allowed to do whatever I wanted. Overall, I was punished only once in my teenage years (was told I had to skip a ski trip because I came home very drunk one night, at 15 or 16 yo). All in all I'd say I did pretty good, I'm already FIREd at 42 years old.

And are you following the same approach with your own kids (if any)?

I don't have kids.

I think the approach should highly depend on the kid. I for one was good at academic subjects and also reasonably concerned about my future to put in the work at school (I never ran off with the circus etc.), so hands-off approach worked well with me. It might not work as well with someone completely different.

From my experience, the kids who had very restrictive parents were the least well adjusted by the time they had freedom in college, and they really let loose in a much more extreme way than those who had been afforded more freedom & privacy when they were younger.

> Once or twice a week my wife or I will go through their text messages with them and ask questions about anything that seems off.

> When bad patterns start surfacing, we rein it in.

Can you elaborate on what sorts of things you'd ask about, or what bad patterns are? I'm not a parent but if I were I think I'd have a hard time drawing the line in the right place.

I feel pretty strongly based on my own (distant past) experiences as a young person that children need spaces where they have privacy from their parents. I think of the child who for whatever reason doesn't entirely feel like they fit in with their family and the internet is an outlet where they can explore the side of themselves that they don't feel comfortable sharing. When you strip someone's privacy and autonomy, you inhibit their ability to authentically be themselves. Now of course there is a balance and any parent does have the right to set boundaries, but I think it's important to consider the cost. My mother set some arbitrary boundaries not entirely unlike the ones you've described, but in a different era. While I respect that she was well intentioned, she caused more harm and resentment and, as others have pointed out, probably pushed me towards worse behavior out of her watchful eyes. In other words, she couldn't actually shelter me but she was able to engender resentment and acting out in response to her well-intentioned desire to protect me that ultimately hurt our relationship. I'm not at all saying that that dynamic exists in your family and I'm sure there is lots of nuance that a HN comment can't express, but I have concerns with people blindly applying these types of rules and boundaries on their children.

I know you mean well. But I strongly urge you to reconsider your parenting here.

You should not be going through your teenager's text messages... that is absolutely insane.

My parents were kind of similar and I had a very negative experience growing up as a result. I still remember my mom throwing out all my NiN CDs I had bought after she read the lyrics. And all my DnD material because Satan was controlling my brain through it.

As a parent you should be teaching your child to be independent and learn how to make the right choices themselves. Micro managing every aspect of their lives is the absolute wrong approach.

how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?

we don't know from the singular fact that they're reading through teenagers text messages how heavy handed that monitoring is. Maybe there's a recurrence of satanic panic, but we don't actually know that. That you had that experience with your parents is awful but it sounds like parents are more likely to be their kids DnD DM than anything else these days.

> how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?

you establish trust

Every generation of parents seems to have some moral panic. It's a way for those people to feel like they're in control (because losing control is scary and uncomfortable). But, well, news flash, teenagers are all about rebelling against their parents and it's perfectly natural for parents to lose most, if not all, control of their teenagers.

So do you leash your kids and monitor every single one of their actions? Do you really think that is the solution? Parents have tried this for millennia and it never works. Some go completely overboard and shelter their kids, who have mental breakdowns when they enter the real world. I've seen it happen first hand with home-schooled/overly protected friends.

You throw out an extreme anecdote. Remember the war on drugs? It was the same thing. Oh, your kids are gonna do crack at their friends house if you are not careful. Drugs are everywhere and kids are melting their brains. Yes, extreme things can happen to anyone, you can get hit by a car and die, that doesn't mean you ban your kids from crossing a road.

How do you teach them the right choice? Well, this is the art of parenting, and is hard. There are many approaches here. My approach is to treat my teens with respect, have frank conversations with them, and set some clear boundaries and expectations (you must do your schoolwork).

I also try to set myself as a role model for them by living my life to the same morale standards I'd want them to. I don't do drugs, I don't smoke, I don't drink lots, I don't go on random hookups (all things which I see common in men my age). I work hard but also try to remember to have fun and laugh.

It's worked so far. They are confident and happy and will confide in me things they are struggling with. I know they will do things that I wouldn't be happy with and will be unaware of, but that is the risk inherent in life and they will learn from it. All I can do is try to set them up for success best I can, and impart my limited wisdom.

> how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices? if your teenager is texting on TikTok with a 40 year old man who's asking them to send them underwear pictures, how do you find out about that except by reading their text messages?

General rules, like:

-Assume everything you send can at some point become available to everyone, forever.

-Anyone saying "don't tell your parents" is definitely up to no good and should not be trusted.

-On the internet anyone can convincingly pose as anyone.

etc.

Also children usually converse with their peers, so you'll be going through messages of quite a lot of other people's children. Do you have the consent of all the people involved, including their parents?

> -Assume everything you send can at some point become available to everyone, forever.

Forever is a hard concept to grasp for a kid - I was doing stupid things in my 20s that could have had forever consequences. Much worse than something available online forever. I was lucky and had none, but this argument wouldn't work on me

>how do you teach them what the right choices are if you don't actually see their choices?

You teach them principles, obviously. Or are you planning on weighing in on their choices for the rest of their lives?

You're either going to have your kids resent you or stunt the maturation of their independence (the whole point of the teenage phase). You think you're doing the right thing but you're going to most likely create hyper dependent young adults.

I disagree, but I have the advantage of knowing the whole story of how they are raised, while you are extrapolating the entire experience from a couple paragraphs about reading text messages with my child.

It feels to me like smoking. A generation was there at the start of social media, got addicted and now can’t quit. Their kids see them doing it and they do the same. Eventually they’ll realise the negative side of it and they’ll try to stop their kids from getting in to it (but won’t quit themselves).

I suspect the analogy between this kind of media consumption and smoking will prove to be far more analogous than we'd like to admit.

did you notice any advantages of the kids that had delayed exposure to social media? ie smarter, better focus, better motivation, better emotional iq?

it would be HUGE news if this were the case, very curious about your reply

Anecdotally, yes. We have some students who are very vocal about how they perceived having a more structured early use of social media once they get to nearing the end of high-school. Having said that, I'll caution that this is hardly any sort of statistical evidence, as its that students who suffered because of it (because of not being ostracized, not part of the cool kids who have phone, etc.) didn't feel bothered to come forward in my work.

The one VERY CLEAR correlation that I see, though, is that families who are EXTREMELY intentional about this fare far better. More than the minutiae of what age they did or didn't give phones, which apps to allow or not, etc., the families that I have seen have lots of success are families who have dedicated time for these conversations and have made them a habit in their family. The ones who I have seen struggle have been of the "set it and forget it" mentality, even the ones who try to just "install an app" that will just do the parenting for them.

thanks

Does the school allow cell phones in school? If so, why?

Relying on parents to somehow prevent their kids from doing what all their peers are doing, I'm not surprised this is a fight parents choose not to have, or don't know how to win, or don't have the energy for.

Can the school "be bothered" to try to do something at the school level, that will effect the entire peer group, instead of hoping that parents will find a way to swim against the stream? There might be other ways than simply prohibiting phones. Or maybe the school "can't be bothered" to try?

Faraday classrooms

We don't until the kids get to high-school. But you'd be hardpressed to notice this: right before they step on campus, or right after dismissal, they all come out. But during the day, they are, in fact, hardly seen.