Social media is designed to be addictive; known harmful. Why do your kids have it?

[Anonymous]

Video games are addictive
Food is addictive
Chocolate is addictive
Caffeine is addictive... hello starbucks
other addictive things... exercise, negative self talk, chewing ice, TV, shopping

We can't shelter our kids from everything, they need to learn how to do all these things in moderation.

Every person will struggle with some sort of addiction and we need to find ways to mitigate that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Video games are addictive
Food is addictive
Chocolate is addictive
Caffeine is addictive... hello starbucks
other addictive things... exercise, negative self talk, chewing ice, TV, shopping

We can't shelter our kids from everything, they need to learn how to do all these things in moderation.

Every person will struggle with some sort of addiction and we need to find ways to mitigate that.

Seems like a major cop out.

[Anonymous]

How bad? Worse than the food sold in every grocery store here and illegal in many countries?
Is it bad for mental health/physical health? Strong as a horse. Is it bad for his studies? Slightly, but DC doesn't need money or a career.
Mountain Dew should be illegal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How bad? Worse than the food sold in every grocery store here and illegal in many countries?
Is it bad for mental health/physical health? Strong as a horse. Is it bad for his studies? Slightly, but DC doesn't need money or a career.
Mountain Dew should be illegal.

Mountain Dew is not addictive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How bad? Worse than the food sold in every grocery store here and illegal in many countries?
Is it bad for mental health/physical health? Strong as a horse. Is it bad for his studies? Slightly, but DC doesn't need money or a career.
Mountain Dew should be illegal.

Mountain Dew is not addictive.

-and it was designed as a whiskey mixer.

Social Media is engineered and refined to be as addictive as possible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't. I'm hoping they thank me later. Oldest not yet in high school, though, which is when it may be hard to hold out.

My closest childhood friend works for one of the big Silicon Valley companies. Her kids go to "Forest School" and she tries not to let them see the parents on devices at all. She's seen into the belly of the beast and knows enough to be scared.

I work in tech in SF and our DD went to Forest School! Our kids had no screens except on 2+hour plane rides, and FaceTiming with relatives, until they were six. At six, they get screens when they're home sick. DH works in law, but the kids see us use screens mostly as tools - for directions, recipes, looking up stuff, etc. Phones are never out at mealtimes. Well before we even tried to get pregnant, DH and I talked about how our kids would never be the ones in a stroller with an iPad or iPhone watching videos.

Ha, we don’t even do that! We read books or play sitting-down games

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't. I'm hoping they thank me later. Oldest not yet in high school, though, which is when it may be hard to hold out.

My closest childhood friend works for one of the big Silicon Valley companies. Her kids go to "Forest School" and she tries not to let them see the parents on devices at all. She's seen into the belly of the beast and knows enough to be scared.

I work in tech in SF and our DD went to Forest School! Our kids had no screens except on 2+hour plane rides, and FaceTiming with relatives, until they were six. At six, they get screens when they're home sick. DH works in law, but the kids see us use screens bmostly as tools - for directions, recipes, looking up stuff, etc. Phones are never out at mealtimes. Well before we even tried to get pregnant, DH and I talked about how our kids would never be the ones in a stroller with an iPad or iPhone watching videos.

Kewl

[Anonymous]

We held out until the second half of 8th grade, but so much socializing goes on via social media that they were being left out. I hate it - absolutely hate social media and lecture all the time about how harmful it is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Video games are addictive
Food is addictive
Chocolate is addictive
Caffeine is addictive... hello starbucks
other addictive things... exercise, negative self talk, chewing ice, TV, shopping

We can't shelter our kids from everything, they need to learn how to do all these things in moderation.

Every person will struggle with some sort of addiction and we need to find ways to mitigate that.

Seems like a major cop out.

I seem really insecure which is why social media seems that much more harmful, because it is to you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How bad? Worse than the food sold in every grocery store here and illegal in many countries?
Is it bad for mental health/physical health? Strong as a horse. Is it bad for his studies? Slightly, but DC doesn't need money or a career.
Mountain Dew should be illegal.

Mountain Dew is not addictive.

Who needs teeth anyway.

[Anonymous]

I won't let my kids have it until maybe sometime in high school, maybe. I encourage socializing in person, which is something in today's world is frowned upon. Many say if their kids don't have social media, they have no access to their friends.

[Anonymous]

Only losers do social media FULL STOP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Video games are addictive
Food is addictive
Chocolate is addictive
Caffeine is addictive... hello starbucks
other addictive things... exercise, negative self talk, chewing ice, TV, shopping

We can't shelter our kids from everything, they need to learn how to do all these things in moderation.

Every person will struggle with some sort of addiction and we need to find ways to mitigate that.

Food and exercise are actually necessary, so your analogies don't work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boys have never been interested in social media thankfully. They do watch too much YouTube though. School clubs use private Discord channels, and I'm fine with that. When they were younger we monitored the friend chat on Discord and taught them the rules and perils, but at a certain age you need to stop eavesdropping on your kids.

YouTube and Discord are social media. I went to a parent ed presentation at my kids' school this week from a non-profit that deals with social media and kids and they included Roblox and Fortnight on their list of social media as well. https://www.socialmediasafety.org/

The presentation pointed out that social media isn't going away and even if you ban it kids are still looking at it at their friends' houses or, in my DD's case, on her school computer. So I think the better question might be what are you doing to mitigate the dangerous impact of social media in your child's world?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boys have never been interested in social media thankfully. They do watch too much YouTube though. School clubs use private Discord channels, and I'm fine with that. When they were younger we monitored the friend chat on Discord and taught them the rules and perils, but at a certain age you need to stop eavesdropping on your kids.

YouTube and Discord are social media. I went to a parent ed presentation at my kids' school this week from a non-profit that deals with social media and kids and they included Roblox and Fortnight on their list of social media as well. https://www.socialmediasafety.org/

The presentation pointed out that social media isn't going away and even if you ban it kids are still looking at it at their friends' houses or, in my DD's case, on her school computer. So I think the better question might be what are you doing to mitigate the dangerous impact of social media in your child's world?

This is an excellent point.