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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or rather:

- why do you give your children social media, when it is designed to addict them, and is known to be harmful to children and teens?

Because like it or not, SM is a permanent part of our lives and I would prefer to have some oversight on their early interactions with it.

DP and this is a pretty passive/lazy approach. Plenty of people don’t have their kids on social media.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or rather:

- why do you give your children social media, when it is designed to addict them, and is known to be harmful to children and teens?

Because like it or not, SM is a permanent part of our lives and I would prefer to have some oversight on their early interactions with it.

Interesting.

I think your response is reasonable. An analogy might be alcohol use: in Europe, society believes limited exposure can occur beginning at age 16 (legally), while the prevailing view in the US is people should not have access prior to age 21.

PP here. I don’t think it’s at all analogous to alcohol. I also think the “Europeans have such a better/more sophisticated approach to alcohol” argument is a myth and a trope. Alcohol abuse with teens is a HUGE problem with European teens, especially in places like France. Europeans do not have a healthy relationship with alcohol at all, certainly not one to emulate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or rather:

- why do you give your children social media, when it is designed to addict them, and is known to be harmful to children and teens?

Because like it or not, SM is a permanent part of our lives and I would prefer to have some oversight on their early interactions with it.

DP and this is a pretty passive/lazy approach. Plenty of people don’t have their kids on social media.

We are talking about teens, aren’t we?

Those kids tend to make all their SM later in life when the consequences are more permanent and destructive.

[Anonymous]

It’s a bit like smoking. Tobacco company executives? Didn’t smoke. Their kids? Not allowed cigarettes for any reason.

Silicon Valley parents are the most intense anti-social-media parents. They know that all social media is is users creating free content for companies while creating opportunities for users to be targeted, in the very best case only for their money via ads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or rather:

- why do you give your children social media, when it is designed to addict them, and is known to be harmful to children and teens?

Because like it or not, SM is a permanent part of our lives and I would prefer to have some oversight on their early interactions with it.

DP and this is a pretty passive/lazy approach. Plenty of people don’t have their kids on social media.

It’s neither passive nor lazy. It’s controlled.

[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.

How old are your kids now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

+1
because socializing is important and even if by phone etc. better than no socializing

[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.

Our approach is similar except our kids are in a classical school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Yeah at 6, their bandwidth for reading is pretty short, and DH and I are working so not just sitting there petting their heads all day, you know? They can lay on the couch and veg out watching tv. I find it unsettling to see their eyes glazed over while they're watching, but I know damn well I was watching like three hours a day of tv by age 4, and turned out fine, so if once a year they spend a couple days binging on shows it's okay with us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How old are your kids now?

12 and 10.5.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

How old are your kids now?

12 and 10.5.

Dam

[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.

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

So is socializing and human connection which is done by social media.

[Anonymous]

Lots of parents are stupid.

[Anonymous]

This thread sounds like a lot of parents of younger children. The socialization of teens is pretty different from the socialization of elementary schoolers. They have different needs and different levels of autonomy. Banning your kids from any kind of social media absolutely WILL cause them to be excluded socially. Is this an awesome thing to have happen? Of course not. But the reality is that if you don't let your kids use Discord and all their friends are socializing via Discord out of school, your kid will miss that socialization. That's a choice you can make, but recognize that there will be social consequences for that choice.

People with older kids are generally a lot better at understanding that nuance than the people whose kids are still in elementary school. The rules that one has for a 6yo are less appropriate for a 16yo, which the parents of 6yo almost never seem to understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread sounds like a lot of parents of younger children. The socialization of teens is pretty different from the socialization of elementary schoolers. They have different needs and different levels of autonomy. Banning your kids from any kind of social media absolutely WILL cause them to be excluded socially. Is this an awesome thing to have happen? Of course not. But the reality is that if you don't let your kids use Discord and all their friends are socializing via Discord out of school, your kid will miss that socialization. That's a choice you can make, but recognize that there will be social consequences for that choice.

People with older kids are generally a lot better at understanding that nuance than the people whose kids are still in elementary school. The rules that one has for a 6yo are less appropriate for a 16yo, which the parents of 6yo almost never seem to understand.

None of this addresses the facts:

- it’s successfully engineered to be highly addictive

- it’s harmful to teen brains, and

- everyone gives it to their kids anyway.