Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon General Warns

Re:Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon G... by WarOnPrivacy on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @02:18PM (#36048535)

> Social media and phones have had a huge negative impact on the amount of time young people spend together in person and have amplified the stakes of one's social life

Social media and phones are what youth had left, after adults systemically wiped out every inch of their development environment.

I'm an early genx; the last generation to grow up free of constant supervision. I went everywhere by myself and learned countless critical self-sufficiency and social skills - skill building that was utterly and thoroughly denied to my own kids.

That is, my kids risked their parents being charged if they were capably on their own. My kids had nowhere to go if they tried to be independent. Were my kids to risk having some ambition, they also risked adult-sized punishments for kid-sized transgressions.

We couldn't have designed a more stunting experience, short of tossing kids in forced-labor gulags.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon G... by badpun on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @03:34PM (#36049685)

> That is, my kids risked their parents being charged if they were capably on their own. My kids had nowhere to go if they tried to be independent. Were my kids to risk having some ambition, they also risked adult-sized punishments for kid-sized transgressions.

I'm not from the US, so my question is sincere. Is the situation the same across all states? You'd think the states self-describing as "freedom loving" wouldn't interfere with parenthood as much.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon G... by cmh89 on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @04:19PM (#36050299)

Generally conservative states are going to have the government more involved with how kids are raised as a method of social control. I'm in a liberal part of the country and I see kids walking/biking around all the time, while the conservative state I grew up in would almost certainly have the police at least stop them and probably take them home.

The 'parental freedom' stuff is really just the 'you're free to not ensure your children are educated'.

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Re:Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon G... by bombcar on Tuesday May 23, 2023 @05:12PM (#36050920)

It’s very dependent on the local area. Talking to your neighbors once a year greatly reduces the risks.

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Re:Social Media Can Be a ‘Profound Risk’ to Youth, Surgeon G... by WarOnPrivacy on Wednesday May 24, 2023 @03:15PM (#36062722)

> I'm not from the US, so my question is sincere. Is the situation the same across all states?

It is fairly well the same everywhere in the US, red & blue states alike. There's no shortage of adults who are passionately stupid about kids w/o adults around. Maybe you educate one but there are millions more behind them.

At least one state passed a right-to-roam law. However, that didn't stop LEO from endlessly bullhorning false stranger risks or stop news orgs from thoughtlessly parroting it. The life-changing harm John Walsh has done to millions of kids is incalculable.

[ Parent | on HN ]