TikTok is harming children at an industrial scale(afterbabel.com)
afterbabel.com
TikTok is harming children at an industrial scale
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-harm-tiktok
738 comments
Related ongoing thread: Snapchat is harming children at an industrial scale - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43704382
Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst [0], so a determined skeptic would probably not find this persuasive. But I think he's been directionally correct about all his major points in the past decade:
* Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1]
* Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off
* having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3]
* Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him.
[0] https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-s...
[2] https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/
[3] https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones
[4] https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinati...
* Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms [1]
* Social media is making many people a little worse off and it makes some people a lot worse off
* having our phones on us all the time is bad for just about everything that requires sustained attention [2], including flirting and dating [3]
* Technology won't solve this problem. AI will make things worse [4]. If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place, we're still headed in the wrong direction. What we need is culture change, which Haidt is trying his darndest at. Hats off to him.
[0] https://matthewbjane.github.io/blog-posts/blog-post-7.html
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/business/jonathan-haidt-s...
[2] https://thecritic.co.uk/its-the-phones-stupid/
[3] https://www.sexual-culture.com/p/its-obviously-the-phones
[4] https://www.npr.org/2019/06/04/726709657/sometimes-fascinati...
> Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms
This one is VERY morally and emotionally weighty, and I think you have to do quite a bit of work to ACTUALLY understand what is going on here, but I agree.
In the middle of a fight, no one wants to look reasonable. In a fight, reasonable looks weak. In a fight, no one wants democracy, we just want to win.
Unfortunately that fight mindset also shuts down the whole thinking part of the the brain; which is how you get people who gleefully vote for a king, because they feel like the king is their champion in the fight.
This one is VERY morally and emotionally weighty, and I think you have to do quite a bit of work to ACTUALLY understand what is going on here, but I agree.
In the middle of a fight, no one wants to look reasonable. In a fight, reasonable looks weak. In a fight, no one wants democracy, we just want to win.
Unfortunately that fight mindset also shuts down the whole thinking part of the the brain; which is how you get people who gleefully vote for a king, because they feel like the king is their champion in the fight.
It's also especially vulnerable to "motte and bailey" arguments. Harassing people over competing fandoms is out of order. However, a lot of #metoo gets filed under "cancel culture" when often there is no other working means of getting redress for sexual harassment or assault other than going public, and hoping the perpetrator gets worse backlash than the victim.
> when often there is no other working means of getting redress for sexual harassment or assault other than going public, and hoping the perpetrator gets worse backlash than the victim.
This is by definition cancel culture. Unfortunately some bad actors will abuse this as a way to hurt someone. I've seen this happen twice, and fear of this happening is enough for good men to be unnecessarily distant towards women. That said, people getting away with sexual assault seems to be significantly more common.
This is by definition cancel culture. Unfortunately some bad actors will abuse this as a way to hurt someone. I've seen this happen twice, and fear of this happening is enough for good men to be unnecessarily distant towards women. That said, people getting away with sexual assault seems to be significantly more common.
i mean, 1 in 3 women have a chance of experiencing sexual violence in the US. it sucks that some men now fear interacting with women because of n=2 false accusations, but a grassroots movement was literally created because women aren't getting justice for the egregious crimes which are committed against them at alarmingly high rates (and who themselves are ostracized and whose careers are destroyed for just reporting those crimes).
Men are more often victims of violence in general than women by far yet sexual violence if given precedence because society likes to be sexist and group all men together. It doesn't matter if I'm a male victim of crime because most criminals are men and that makes me somehow complicit.
I never liked playing society's hetero games.
I never liked playing society's hetero games.
As a man who will never rape a woman, I care a little about the possibility of a random stranger having a small possibility of being raped, but I care much more about myself getting potentially unjustly accused of sexual abuse and suffering consequences. If engaging in any interaction with a woman will get me an acquaintance at best and ruin my career at worst, then this sounds like a very bad deal.
>If engaging in any interaction with a woman will get me an acquaintance at best
So you're saying you don't have and never will have any friends who are also women?
So you're saying you don't have and never will have any friends who are also women?
[deleted]
Eh, that's a difficult one. When I was a kid I'd often be friends with girls, I usually had more friends who were girls than boys. Now as an adult I have more friends who are men than friends who are women, and I have to say, I don't see why I'd expand on the latter, even ignoring all of what I wrote above. Dealing with a person of the opposite sex is just so much more demanding. I'd really need a woman to give me something unique if I were to be friends with her. When I started hanging out with dudes, it surprised me how easy it is. I pretty much put my brain on autopilot mode, whereas with a woman I need to actively engage my brain for successful communication. This is particularly important considering the fact that I suffer from chronic exhaustion.
men are also victims of sexual violence.
This is a ridiculous take. Defamation suits still exist. Not interacting with colleagues of a different gender, on the other hand, will get you disciplined and eventually fired. Just don't be a creep like Joel Kaplan, allegedly.
It is a morally disgusting, but very rational take.
It is morally disgusting because of the relative harms between the parties, but very rational because of the personal risk/reward calculation.
It is morally disgusting because of the relative harms between the parties, but very rational because of the personal risk/reward calculation.
It's precisely the risk/reward calculation that is wrong. If you get accused of doing something you didn't do, you can file a defamation lawsuit. If you stop interacting with people, you will get fired.
> If you get accused of doing something you didn't do, you can file a defamation lawsuit.
Are you aware of anyone who has successfully done this and maintained their standing in life?
The example that comes to mind for me is Steven Galloway, a UBC Professor who was accused of sexual assault in 2015 and filed a defamation lawsuit about it in 2018. That lawsuit has spent the last 7 years making its way through the courts; after many attempts to have it dismissed, it will finally proceed to trial. Meanwhile Galloway's career basically ended: he went from being a celebrated and award-winning author and professor to doing manual labor like cleaning swimming pools. His publisher cancelled a three-book contract in 2018.
Even if the defamation lawsuit succeeds, how will he ever be made whole? He will never get the last 10 years of his life back.
Are you aware of anyone who has successfully done this and maintained their standing in life?
The example that comes to mind for me is Steven Galloway, a UBC Professor who was accused of sexual assault in 2015 and filed a defamation lawsuit about it in 2018. That lawsuit has spent the last 7 years making its way through the courts; after many attempts to have it dismissed, it will finally proceed to trial. Meanwhile Galloway's career basically ended: he went from being a celebrated and award-winning author and professor to doing manual labor like cleaning swimming pools. His publisher cancelled a three-book contract in 2018.
Even if the defamation lawsuit succeeds, how will he ever be made whole? He will never get the last 10 years of his life back.
His case wasn’t just sexual assault, and he admitted having an affair with a student which even if it’s not a criminal offense is a career-limiting move at many universities. I think he deserves his day in court but it sounds like there’s more to it than a single accusation.
As I understand it, all of the allegations were investigated by Madame Justice Boyd who found that none of them were substantiated except for the affair, which I agree is far from advisable, but on its own seems unlikely to have ended his career so completely. There is no way to go back to 2015 and find out what would have happened if the affair had been the only accusation.
Galloway, by his own admission, did far more than interact with a woman at work. That's not what we're discussing here. Getting in bed with somebody requires far more vetting than simply interacting with them, and this has always been the case.
Fair point. But I think it does illustrate that defamation lawsuits are unlikely to be an effective defense in the (admittedly unlikely) case that you are falsely accused of something.
I'd say this is a naive take, it probably happens but I've never heard of someone getting a defamation lawsuit through in Sweden. And even if you end up being right and winning all bridges will be burned and some excuse to keep you fucked will be made.
It's a losers game, and you don't have to play. Which doesn't necessarily mean "don't interact with women" but maybe "keep it to the bare minimum, don't be alone and cover your ass"
Considering how fucked up things are everywhere on so many levels I think any way to get through the day with a positive end is a great way to do it
It's a losers game, and you don't have to play. Which doesn't necessarily mean "don't interact with women" but maybe "keep it to the bare minimum, don't be alone and cover your ass"
Considering how fucked up things are everywhere on so many levels I think any way to get through the day with a positive end is a great way to do it
Any data on what percentage of these suits succeed and how much it costs?
However cancel culture is 100% going to evolve once you create an internet, and then leave things to the market to solve.
Cancel culture is ... i guess the best democracy in a broken system. Its people realizing the lever of power that is left is the levers as a consumer. So by choosing what they consume, they are sending signals to the system of society.
For some reason, I am not bugged by cancel culture, for me its an inevitability. As is the natural irritation and opposition which would appear to it. I suppose, all of it, cancel, counter cancel, is just the invisible hand at work?
Cancel culture is ... i guess the best democracy in a broken system. Its people realizing the lever of power that is left is the levers as a consumer. So by choosing what they consume, they are sending signals to the system of society.
For some reason, I am not bugged by cancel culture, for me its an inevitability. As is the natural irritation and opposition which would appear to it. I suppose, all of it, cancel, counter cancel, is just the invisible hand at work?
One huge problem with cancel culture is how mercurial it is. So we get to witness spectacles like an attempt to cancel Nike for selling products in Israel[1] or for hiring Colin Kaepernick[2] instead of for their ongoing record of labor abuses. And, in general, "cancelling" often seems to focus on topical, hot-button issues instead of deeper-rooted problems.
The whole phenomenon is ripe for manipulation and viral marketing - leveraging short-term outrage to build brand identity[3]. One could argue it's the commodification and commercialization of "real" protest. It's less democracy and more idiocracy.
[1] https://masjidalaqsa.com/boycott/nike-israel-bds
[2] https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818148/nike-boycott-kaepernic...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg
The whole phenomenon is ripe for manipulation and viral marketing - leveraging short-term outrage to build brand identity[3]. One could argue it's the commodification and commercialization of "real" protest. It's less democracy and more idiocracy.
[1] https://masjidalaqsa.com/boycott/nike-israel-bds
[2] https://www.vox.com/2018/9/4/17818148/nike-boycott-kaepernic...
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06yy88tLWlg
I agree people are reaching for the limited power available to them, but the objections to cancel culture aren't usually around voluntary consensual boycotts but rather the use of "social force". Destruction of reputation, demands for firing, deplatforming, doxxing, swatting, etc... the methods of harming a person over the internet.
??
> voluntary consensual boycotts
> but rather the use of "social force".
>Destruction of reputation, demands for firing, deplatforming, doxxing, swatting, etc
That last sentence comes across as disingenuous; you've mixed in things which are crimes, dont by individuals with things that are ACTUAL parts of boycotts.
Destruction of reputation is the reason why demands for firing appear, as do deplatforming.
Doxxing and swatting are different beast, both compared to the reputational losses and work losses, and when compared to each other (dox vs swat).
---
> but rather the use of "social force".
>Destruction of reputation, demands for firing, deplatforming, doxxing, swatting, etc
That last sentence comes across as disingenuous; you've mixed in things which are crimes, dont by individuals with things that are ACTUAL parts of boycotts.
Destruction of reputation is the reason why demands for firing appear, as do deplatforming.
Doxxing and swatting are different beast, both compared to the reputational losses and work losses, and when compared to each other (dox vs swat).
---
> Destruction of reputation is the reason why demands for firing appear, as do deplatforming.
No it isn't, if you say something bad to a random person you just hurt your reputation with that person a little bit. But if that person now starts to organize a hate campaign against you over what you said, that is what we call cancel culture and that is what destroyed your reputation, your reputation was fine until they started that hate campaign.
For example, lets say you tell a coworker you vote republican, that coworker then posts a mail to to everyone "Hey this guys voted for republicans, can we have a sexist racist around here? We must fire him!", who destroyed your reputation? You or them?
Such hate campaigns only creates conflict, it doesn't make people change it just creates fear and resentment that leads to electing people like Trump.
No it isn't, if you say something bad to a random person you just hurt your reputation with that person a little bit. But if that person now starts to organize a hate campaign against you over what you said, that is what we call cancel culture and that is what destroyed your reputation, your reputation was fine until they started that hate campaign.
For example, lets say you tell a coworker you vote republican, that coworker then posts a mail to to everyone "Hey this guys voted for republicans, can we have a sexist racist around here? We must fire him!", who destroyed your reputation? You or them?
Such hate campaigns only creates conflict, it doesn't make people change it just creates fear and resentment that leads to electing people like Trump.
How do you think people in smaller communities work? Why do you think the town gossip is well known, and how social boycotts worked before?
Analogy: I’m making the point that if you leave these logs in the river, eventually they will hit this point, and they will create a log jam.
You can argue that this is or is not the definition of log jam, which is an issue of definitions.
Cancel culture is how the average person was told for decades to wield power. Capitalism would fix it. Finally, people started doing precisely that, and that was the start of cancel culture.
In your first example, isn’t this how people get into trouble in small communities, or villages? You were immune to this in bigger cities because you didnt have smaller communities.
Your second example is entirely dependent on people not liking Republicans. If people are OK with republicans that email dies in shame and embarrassment. If you are a repub, in a place where people are highly antagonistic to republicans, then your reputation is already at risk!
The other person broke your trust, you lost your anonymity. Same if you changed switched the party names.
> Such hate campaigns only creates conflict, i
The conflict is already there man. Republican strategy since the 60s has been high partisanship, and a full on media and information war. It’s been take no prisoners for a long time. Even if you tried to make peace, and have reasoned discussion, the deeper information tides wash out those efforts with the evening news. This is publicly stated by repub strategists. Hell Bannon talked about flooding the zone in the past few months!
The left is CATCHING UP to the right, and still has a way to go before it can match the alt right pound for pound in political power.
Analogy: I’m making the point that if you leave these logs in the river, eventually they will hit this point, and they will create a log jam.
You can argue that this is or is not the definition of log jam, which is an issue of definitions.
Cancel culture is how the average person was told for decades to wield power. Capitalism would fix it. Finally, people started doing precisely that, and that was the start of cancel culture.
In your first example, isn’t this how people get into trouble in small communities, or villages? You were immune to this in bigger cities because you didnt have smaller communities.
Your second example is entirely dependent on people not liking Republicans. If people are OK with republicans that email dies in shame and embarrassment. If you are a repub, in a place where people are highly antagonistic to republicans, then your reputation is already at risk!
The other person broke your trust, you lost your anonymity. Same if you changed switched the party names.
> Such hate campaigns only creates conflict, i
The conflict is already there man. Republican strategy since the 60s has been high partisanship, and a full on media and information war. It’s been take no prisoners for a long time. Even if you tried to make peace, and have reasoned discussion, the deeper information tides wash out those efforts with the evening news. This is publicly stated by repub strategists. Hell Bannon talked about flooding the zone in the past few months!
The left is CATCHING UP to the right, and still has a way to go before it can match the alt right pound for pound in political power.
For some reason, I am not bugged by cancel culture
To someone whose formative years came before the internet, cancel culture looks a lot like plain old boring boycotts? So there would be a lot of confusion as to why it's so big a deal?
I tend to agree. You need cancel culture. You need people who oppose cancel culture. You need it all. If you don't have any given one of these kinds of civil freedoms, then you actually don't have a democracy.
So a lot of it is just branding. You have to call it cancel culture, because if you were to try and ban the organizing of boycotts, people would laugh at you. It's plainly obvious that you need the freedom to boycott and you need the freedom to oppose the boycott to have a democracy.
Haidt's argument in this regard is non-sensical in that boycotts are, pretty much, a democratic norm in and of themselves.
To someone whose formative years came before the internet, cancel culture looks a lot like plain old boring boycotts? So there would be a lot of confusion as to why it's so big a deal?
I tend to agree. You need cancel culture. You need people who oppose cancel culture. You need it all. If you don't have any given one of these kinds of civil freedoms, then you actually don't have a democracy.
So a lot of it is just branding. You have to call it cancel culture, because if you were to try and ban the organizing of boycotts, people would laugh at you. It's plainly obvious that you need the freedom to boycott and you need the freedom to oppose the boycott to have a democracy.
Haidt's argument in this regard is non-sensical in that boycotts are, pretty much, a democratic norm in and of themselves.
> cancel culture looks a lot like plain old boring boycotts
Yes, plain old boycotts against a person livelihood without any strict necessity of evidence, recourse, or defense.
Yes, plain old boycotts against a person livelihood without any strict necessity of evidence, recourse, or defense.
Yes, this is how social boycotts worked. They aren’t nice. Ostracized is an OLD Greek Civ word. Shunning is another.
I am beginning to suspect people are unaware of how messy any form of mass activism ends up being. Mass being the keyword here.
The point being made was about the inevitability of this form of collective action.
Cancel culture is fundamentally about the little guy exerting collective power, based on the older rhetoric limiting people to consumers. That bell has been rung.
Never said that the little guy is going to get it right, or that it’s easy to wield this power.
I am beginning to suspect people are unaware of how messy any form of mass activism ends up being. Mass being the keyword here.
The point being made was about the inevitability of this form of collective action.
Cancel culture is fundamentally about the little guy exerting collective power, based on the older rhetoric limiting people to consumers. That bell has been rung.
Never said that the little guy is going to get it right, or that it’s easy to wield this power.
>Never said that the little guy is going to get it right, or that it’s easy to wield this power.
It's worse than that. For instance in the UK the Establishment itself is dominated by people who regard themselves as victims in one way or another. As victims they are the de facto little guys and act with impunity.
It's worse than that. For instance in the UK the Establishment itself is dominated by people who regard themselves as victims in one way or another. As victims they are the de facto little guys and act with impunity.
Yeah. Good old social boycott.
I felt you could see this be figured out in real time, if you looked at how people spoke online. You had many phases online, like the Libertarian phase, and people constantly talking about capitalism being great, and markets being great etc. Then you had 2008, and people started learning about things worked, and you started seeing people and different age brackets coming to terms with their reality and agency.
The agency that had previously been defined in market terms! So with everything from anonymous to flash mobs, people put two and two together and figured they could boycott things that they disagreed with.
The only time this became an issue is when it started exerting ACTUAL social force. At that point people had to have the difficult conversation of what people were mad about, AND the new manner in which people were exerting force.
As is inevitable with any use of force, it gets enmeshed with other people who weild force and power and it becomes just another thing that is seen as oppresive and broken.
But its essentially effective (or ineffective) social boycotting.
I felt you could see this be figured out in real time, if you looked at how people spoke online. You had many phases online, like the Libertarian phase, and people constantly talking about capitalism being great, and markets being great etc. Then you had 2008, and people started learning about things worked, and you started seeing people and different age brackets coming to terms with their reality and agency.
The agency that had previously been defined in market terms! So with everything from anonymous to flash mobs, people put two and two together and figured they could boycott things that they disagreed with.
The only time this became an issue is when it started exerting ACTUAL social force. At that point people had to have the difficult conversation of what people were mad about, AND the new manner in which people were exerting force.
As is inevitable with any use of force, it gets enmeshed with other people who weild force and power and it becomes just another thing that is seen as oppresive and broken.
But its essentially effective (or ineffective) social boycotting.
This seems highly revisionist. Cancel culture isn't just about boycotting or being selective about what one consumes. It's not even about holding people accountable.
It's about destroying people and tearing them down in order to make examples of them. It results in antagonists showing up at people's homes, writing letters to employers, creating petitions, attacking people in the nastiest ways possible with out engaging with ideas or arguments.
It's the disproportionate and graceless reactions that distinguish cancel culture from past methods of accountability.
It's about destroying people and tearing them down in order to make examples of them. It results in antagonists showing up at people's homes, writing letters to employers, creating petitions, attacking people in the nastiest ways possible with out engaging with ideas or arguments.
It's the disproportionate and graceless reactions that distinguish cancel culture from past methods of accountability.
What do you think happens when people get boycotted in villages or “back in the day”? Collections of people get MANY things wrong. Just see relationship advice vs AITAH vs CMV.
Are people used to some benign, harmless, ineffective version of social boycotts? Grace? The Scarlet letter describes what society did to adulterers.
see what happened in 2008 when large groups got together, or the police protests or any number of movements. They start when there is something easy and clear to work with, and soon smash into (and past) nuances.
I agree with the parent poster, these are modern day boycotts, influenced by the malaise of being seen primarily as consumers, and super charged by the emotional polarization of the internet.
Are people used to some benign, harmless, ineffective version of social boycotts? Grace? The Scarlet letter describes what society did to adulterers.
see what happened in 2008 when large groups got together, or the police protests or any number of movements. They start when there is something easy and clear to work with, and soon smash into (and past) nuances.
I agree with the parent poster, these are modern day boycotts, influenced by the malaise of being seen primarily as consumers, and super charged by the emotional polarization of the internet.
Oh, give me a break with all the whining about cancel culture!
Cancel culture used to be called social exclusion/ostracism, and it has been how people police themselves against undesirable people in pre-internet communities where most everybody knew everybody. If you were considered an ass, eventually the only person listening to you was you.
Not saying this as a value judgement, just that this practice is ancient.
While you have a right of free speech, the rest of us have the right not to listen to you, nor to be forced to listen to you, nor to interact with you.
Cancel culture used to be called social exclusion/ostracism, and it has been how people police themselves against undesirable people in pre-internet communities where most everybody knew everybody. If you were considered an ass, eventually the only person listening to you was you.
Not saying this as a value judgement, just that this practice is ancient.
While you have a right of free speech, the rest of us have the right not to listen to you, nor to be forced to listen to you, nor to interact with you.
> While you have a right of free speech, the rest of us have the right not to listen to you, nor to be forced to listen to you, nor to interact with you.
This conception of "cancelling" has little relation to how it actually happens, where the offending messages are often spread as far as possible first. If the goal is not to listen to someone, muting/blocking is almost always an option. Cancelling is trying to convince everyone else to shun the person as well often with misleading or reductive narratives about what they said/did and use of guilt by association.
My favourite example is Contrapoints getting cancelled for featuring a short VoiceOver by a controversial trans person[1] in a video.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8
This conception of "cancelling" has little relation to how it actually happens, where the offending messages are often spread as far as possible first. If the goal is not to listen to someone, muting/blocking is almost always an option. Cancelling is trying to convince everyone else to shun the person as well often with misleading or reductive narratives about what they said/did and use of guilt by association.
My favourite example is Contrapoints getting cancelled for featuring a short VoiceOver by a controversial trans person[1] in a video.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjMPJVmXxV8
It reminds me of Plato's Apology. It is the dialogue where Socrates is on trial for corrupting the youth. The end result is the citizens of Athens convict him and his options are to drink hemlock poison or ostracization. He chooses death.
I think it is worth deeply pondering why a man as wise as Socrates would choose death over ostracization.
I think it is worth deeply pondering why a man as wise as Socrates would choose death over ostracization.
> It reminds me of Plato's Apology. It is the dialogue where Socrates is on trial for corrupting the youth.
Plato's Apology was not meant to be a wholly accurate account [1]. It's a partially fictional, philosophical account meant to demonstrate Socrates' intended message. But I digress.
> The end result is the citizens of Athens convict him and his options are to drink hemlock poison or ostracization.
My understanding is that Socrates chose death where he had the option of requesting legal exile, which in the context of "cancel culture" is not nearly the same as social ostracization.
As for why Socrates would choose death, a superficial search gave me possible explanations (e.g. "death is not so bad" but more formal [2] or moral integrity toward family/friends [3]) that didn't center on the personal suffering or cruelty of exile or ostracization. I would add "moral integrity toward sticking to the truth" as another possible explanation (though I'm not entirely sympathetic to choosing suicide for any of these explanations).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_(Plato)#The_text_of_Ap...
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical-...
[3] https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-didnt-Socrates-try-t...
Plato's Apology was not meant to be a wholly accurate account [1]. It's a partially fictional, philosophical account meant to demonstrate Socrates' intended message. But I digress.
> The end result is the citizens of Athens convict him and his options are to drink hemlock poison or ostracization.
My understanding is that Socrates chose death where he had the option of requesting legal exile, which in the context of "cancel culture" is not nearly the same as social ostracization.
As for why Socrates would choose death, a superficial search gave me possible explanations (e.g. "death is not so bad" but more formal [2] or moral integrity toward family/friends [3]) that didn't center on the personal suffering or cruelty of exile or ostracization. I would add "moral integrity toward sticking to the truth" as another possible explanation (though I'm not entirely sympathetic to choosing suicide for any of these explanations).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apology_(Plato)#The_text_of_Ap...
[2] https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-classical-...
[3] https://www.britannica.com/question/Why-didnt-Socrates-try-t...
The point of Plato's dialogues (whether fictional, based on a real-story or otherwise) is to encourage thought and not to forward a conclusion with the aim to stop thought. I encourage people not to outsource their own thought to Wikipedia (or other sources).
As the comment I was responding to suggested, ostracization is ancient. Ancient enough that it is the topic of one of the most famous dialogues by one of the most famous philosophers.
I will add that the Apology is quite short and freely available online. It is worth the quick read, Then, as I suggested, I encourage people to deeply think about why Socrates chose death (rather than accept quick answers in HN comments).
As the comment I was responding to suggested, ostracization is ancient. Ancient enough that it is the topic of one of the most famous dialogues by one of the most famous philosophers.
I will add that the Apology is quite short and freely available online. It is worth the quick read, Then, as I suggested, I encourage people to deeply think about why Socrates chose death (rather than accept quick answers in HN comments).
Can you please point me to the text where Socrates chooses death over exhile?
I have read Apology of Socrates in its entirety[0] and a few text analysis and I can find no evidence of this. It seems to me that Socrates suggested a fine[1], and it was his prosecuters which argued for death[2]
[0] https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-...
[1] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
[2] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
I have read Apology of Socrates in its entirety[0] and a few text analysis and I can find no evidence of this. It seems to me that Socrates suggested a fine[1], and it was his prosecuters which argued for death[2]
[0] https://chs.harvard.edu/primary-source/plato-the-apology-of-...
[1] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
[2] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...
He states that he won't accept it as part of his argumentation (See passages 37c, 37d):
> And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix)
One commentary I read suggested that it wasn't uncommon for political opponents to bring these kinds of charges against people in order to silence them. The idea being the accused would end up groveling and begging for their lives, promising to hold their tongues. It is assumed by the reader that Socrates could have done this and used his military service as a form of pathos. This passage implies that he will do neither, beg for clemency nor accept exile.
One could read the passage as Socrates giving up hope in humanity, for he goes on:
> I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, [37d] cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would want to have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely.
But, as I have implied, seeking simple answers in Plato is literally going against the point.
edit, also 38e:
> But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death.
> And if I say exile (and this may possibly be the penalty which you will affix)
One commentary I read suggested that it wasn't uncommon for political opponents to bring these kinds of charges against people in order to silence them. The idea being the accused would end up groveling and begging for their lives, promising to hold their tongues. It is assumed by the reader that Socrates could have done this and used his military service as a form of pathos. This passage implies that he will do neither, beg for clemency nor accept exile.
One could read the passage as Socrates giving up hope in humanity, for he goes on:
> I must indeed be blinded by the love of life if I were to consider that when you, who are my own citizens, [37d] cannot endure my discourses and words, and have found them so grievous and odious that you would want to have done with them, others are likely to endure me. No, indeed, men of Athens, that is not very likely.
But, as I have implied, seeking simple answers in Plato is literally going against the point.
edit, also 38e:
> But I thought that I ought not to do anything common or mean in the hour of danger: nor do I now repent of the manner of my defense, and I would rather die having spoken after my manner, than speak in your manner and live. For neither in war nor yet at law ought any man to use every way of escaping death.
Sorry I dont agree with this analysis. There is no need to try to read between the lines of Socrates intentions here when there is very specific passages which state them:
> And so the man proposes the penalty of death.
> So I propose a fine
> And so the man proposes the penalty of death.
> So I propose a fine
The man proposing the sentence is Meletus (37b):
> Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes?
Which is to say, the plaintiff. No different than in court today where the prosecution asks the court for a sentence that is up to the judge to decide. And just like our own courts the defense can offer a counter proposal, which Plato goes into a discussion why he won't do that (well, he proposes a fine which would clearly not satisfy the crime he was accused of). The entire next passages are his reasons rejecting the likely mercies he could be offered (and would be expected to plead for).
Just like making a plea for a guilty sentence comes with the expectation of a potentially lighter sentence in our own court systems, a plea for extenuating circumstances during sentencing is often made by the defense. For example, an elderly person requiring care may avoid prison and plead for home arrest.
Now imagine the circumstance where pre-sentencing, facing a recommendation of the death penalty from the prosecution, the defendant stands before the judge and explains in great detail why he won't accept any of the potentially lesser sentences he might get, rejecting them one by one. That is explicitly what Plato is showing Socrates to have done.
Consider: does it makes sense to argue against a more lenient sentence when your life is on the line, especially when it is likely you would receive it? Why would Socrates seemingly act against his own interests?
> Because I am afraid of the penalty of death which Meletus proposes?
Which is to say, the plaintiff. No different than in court today where the prosecution asks the court for a sentence that is up to the judge to decide. And just like our own courts the defense can offer a counter proposal, which Plato goes into a discussion why he won't do that (well, he proposes a fine which would clearly not satisfy the crime he was accused of). The entire next passages are his reasons rejecting the likely mercies he could be offered (and would be expected to plead for).
Just like making a plea for a guilty sentence comes with the expectation of a potentially lighter sentence in our own court systems, a plea for extenuating circumstances during sentencing is often made by the defense. For example, an elderly person requiring care may avoid prison and plead for home arrest.
Now imagine the circumstance where pre-sentencing, facing a recommendation of the death penalty from the prosecution, the defendant stands before the judge and explains in great detail why he won't accept any of the potentially lesser sentences he might get, rejecting them one by one. That is explicitly what Plato is showing Socrates to have done.
Consider: does it makes sense to argue against a more lenient sentence when your life is on the line, especially when it is likely you would receive it? Why would Socrates seemingly act against his own interests?
> The man proposing the sentence is Meletus
Yes, this is what I originally stated, that it is his prosecuters arguing for death.
You seem to be ignoring the passages where he explicitly suggests a fine as the sentence, however you may also argue that he does this in jest/sarcasm.
Yes he argues against exile etc, but in no way does he ever suggest death is a prefered option in my opinion.
Yes, this is what I originally stated, that it is his prosecuters arguing for death.
You seem to be ignoring the passages where he explicitly suggests a fine as the sentence, however you may also argue that he does this in jest/sarcasm.
Yes he argues against exile etc, but in no way does he ever suggest death is a prefered option in my opinion.
I would argue his suggestion of a fine isn't to be taken seriously. The options of imprisonment, exile and death are the reasonable alternatives.
Let's examine your opinion here, which of course you are entitled to. Socrates could have three opinions: Exile is worse than death, exile is equivalent to death, exile is better than death.
Let us consider the first case, where Socrates actually believes that exile is better than death. You could make the argument: Socrates would choose exile but he is too proud to beg for his life. That is, his subsequent explanation as to why he believes a life of exile would not be worth living is a ruse. It would render the famous line "the life which is unexamined is not worth living" as just pure cope. Actually, we are to see Socrates not as a principled man but rather a vain one. Otherwise, how do we explain his refusal to argue for that which is better? You could argue: Socrates is not wise as we have been led to believe in countless dialogues by Plato, but rather a fool who does not speak honestly.
Maybe you have a better argument for that case? I would be interested to hear it.
But if we take his explicit rejection of the option during his counter-plea at face value, it seems unreasonable to stake the position that he thinks exile is better than death (although, you may decide to hold that opinion and even forward a better case for it than I have).
That leaves the two options: Socrates thinks exile is equivalent to death and Socrates thinks exile is worse than death. I think a case for the first is possible but a stretch.
But let's not worry about resolving that, since Socrates attacks the problem in a different manner:
> When I do not know whether death is a good [agathos] or an evil [kakos], why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil?
It seems clear to me that Socrates is saying: I know that exile is bad but I do not know that death is bad. If you do not see that as a preference towards death over exile then I would like to hear your counter argument.
edit: I will add, since it may not be clear or obvious to some, that the logic that separates the final two options only applies when the initial option (exile is better than death) has been removed. Which is more or less the question that Plato (and my original comment which kicked off this thread) wants us to ask: why would Socrates discard that first option?
Let's examine your opinion here, which of course you are entitled to. Socrates could have three opinions: Exile is worse than death, exile is equivalent to death, exile is better than death.
Let us consider the first case, where Socrates actually believes that exile is better than death. You could make the argument: Socrates would choose exile but he is too proud to beg for his life. That is, his subsequent explanation as to why he believes a life of exile would not be worth living is a ruse. It would render the famous line "the life which is unexamined is not worth living" as just pure cope. Actually, we are to see Socrates not as a principled man but rather a vain one. Otherwise, how do we explain his refusal to argue for that which is better? You could argue: Socrates is not wise as we have been led to believe in countless dialogues by Plato, but rather a fool who does not speak honestly.
Maybe you have a better argument for that case? I would be interested to hear it.
But if we take his explicit rejection of the option during his counter-plea at face value, it seems unreasonable to stake the position that he thinks exile is better than death (although, you may decide to hold that opinion and even forward a better case for it than I have).
That leaves the two options: Socrates thinks exile is equivalent to death and Socrates thinks exile is worse than death. I think a case for the first is possible but a stretch.
But let's not worry about resolving that, since Socrates attacks the problem in a different manner:
> When I do not know whether death is a good [agathos] or an evil [kakos], why should I propose a penalty which would certainly be an evil?
It seems clear to me that Socrates is saying: I know that exile is bad but I do not know that death is bad. If you do not see that as a preference towards death over exile then I would like to hear your counter argument.
edit: I will add, since it may not be clear or obvious to some, that the logic that separates the final two options only applies when the initial option (exile is better than death) has been removed. Which is more or less the question that Plato (and my original comment which kicked off this thread) wants us to ask: why would Socrates discard that first option?
Possibly he was anti-democratic, and was put on trial by the democratic government in troubled times (the Spartans had only recently gone away) because he was a threat, and he declined to be exiled by ostracism (from ostrakon, a clay pot, because pot shards were voting tokens), that is to be voted out, because he had no respect for a democratic process.
Instead of guessing you could read the dialogue where Socrates outlines his reasons in detail. But that doesn't mean you should accept his reasons, since the point is to feed your own curiosity rather than accept hand-fed answers.
Hey, everybody has to guess, in this context.
Sure, but if your guess is "He probably hated democracy so much that he would rather die than accept it" (correct me if I'm implying something other than your meaning), then you should probably read the dialogue to check and see if that guess is reasonable based on the context provided.
Is it?
(I doubt reading either Apology of Socrates will give an unambiguous reason why he didn't offer the exile option, if any reason.)
(I doubt reading either Apology of Socrates will give an unambiguous reason why he didn't offer the exile option, if any reason.)
Not in my opinion, but it isn't for me to decide. I want to encourage people to keep thinking. It is possible to consider many motivations for Socrates' decision, and the goal is to encourage the consideration of a wide array of possibilities rather than guess at one.
So far as I can tell the only relevant part (in Plato's version) is here:
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1...
Where he has Socrates saying dismissively "perhaps kill me or banish me or disfranchise me", as if those are all just as bad (well, they all ruin his life of hanging around Athens harassing people philosophically), and saying that the Athenians will only hurt themselves if they by any means get rid of him.
https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1...
Where he has Socrates saying dismissively "perhaps kill me or banish me or disfranchise me", as if those are all just as bad (well, they all ruin his life of hanging around Athens harassing people philosophically), and saying that the Athenians will only hurt themselves if they by any means get rid of him.
[deleted]
>you were considered an ass
You were considered an ass by people that actually knew you. The internet lynch mob takes a 30 second clip of a person they don't know and demand that the person have their life destroyed.
You were considered an ass by people that actually knew you. The internet lynch mob takes a 30 second clip of a person they don't know and demand that the person have their life destroyed.
> While you have a right of free speech, the rest of us have the right not to listen to you, nor to be forced to listen to you, nor to interact with you.
Does this also justify hundreds or thousands of people calling your minimum wage employer trying to get you fired?
Does this also justify hundreds or thousands of people calling your minimum wage employer trying to get you fired?
> Cancel culture used to be called social exclusion/ostracism, and it has been how people police themselves against undesirable people in pre-internet communities where most everybody knew everybody.
Even if this were true, its application was typically reserved for people already infamous for doing something heinous, eg. murderers, despots, thieves, etc. Social media virality has applied this to individuals whose worst crime was maybe making an off-colour joke. The disproportionate response to the transgression is what most people dislike about modern cancel culture, and I don't think this disproportional response was that common in the past.
Even if this were true, its application was typically reserved for people already infamous for doing something heinous, eg. murderers, despots, thieves, etc. Social media virality has applied this to individuals whose worst crime was maybe making an off-colour joke. The disproportionate response to the transgression is what most people dislike about modern cancel culture, and I don't think this disproportional response was that common in the past.
Let's look back at who these "undesirable people" who were being excluded/ostracized were throughout history, shall we, and see how well your "While you have a right of free speech, the rest of us have the right not to listen to you, nor to be forced to listen to you, nor to interact with you" dismissal holds up.
You can certainly ostracize people who don’t deserve to be ostracized, but it doesn’t follow from that that all social ostracization is inherently bad. Freedom of association and freedom of speech can be used for bad ends as well as good, like most freedoms.
Who gets to decide what ostracization is good and what ostracization is bad?
I don't think anyone decides that as such. Organizations and individuals decide who they do or don't want to associate with. If it turns out that very few people want to associate with you, then you've been ostracized. Your question is like asking "Who decides which people should be friends?", or "Who decides who should be popular?"
> Organizations and individuals decide who they do or don't want to associate with
No they don't, there are laws against that, for example you can't decide to ostracize black people from your company, you will get sued for that.
No they don't, there are laws against that, for example you can't decide to ostracize black people from your company, you will get sued for that.
Hmm? There are laws against some forms of discrimination, but organizations have freedom of association just as individuals do. For example, political affiliation is not a protected class, so (in some states and some contexts) it is perfectly legal for a private company to decline to hire someone on the basis of their political views.
Thinking in terms of the US constitution and the laws built on top if it, ostracization by the government is forbidden and ostracization by private citizens and entities is not.
> ostracization by the government is forbidden and ostracization by private citizens and entities is not.
So its fine to fire all black people to ostracize them? No, of course not, so no you are wrong here, there are more limitations than that, people have rights protecting them from a lot of ostracism.
So its fine to fire all black people to ostracize them? No, of course not, so no you are wrong here, there are more limitations than that, people have rights protecting them from a lot of ostracism.
Yes, there are some narrow carve-outs, to encourage ostracization on the basis of behavior rather than the basis of identity.
This works because people can choose to not be jerks, but they can't choose to not be black.
This works because people can choose to not be jerks, but they can't choose to not be black.
> This works because people can choose to not be jerks, but they can't choose to not be black.
What if they could? People can change gender identity nowadays, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that people could change their phenotypical characteristics (transracialism is a hotly debated topic).
What if they could? People can change gender identity nowadays, and it's not outside the realm of possibility that people could change their phenotypical characteristics (transracialism is a hotly debated topic).
Ostracization is an absolutely critical tool in the marketplace of ideas.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that the dynamics of the Internet have made some tools more or less suitable for purpose as what they used to be, but the idea that we can just assert "no ostracization" is flatly insane and totally antithetical to the marketplace of ideas.
I'm sympathetic to the argument that the dynamics of the Internet have made some tools more or less suitable for purpose as what they used to be, but the idea that we can just assert "no ostracization" is flatly insane and totally antithetical to the marketplace of ideas.
Like I said "Not saying this as a value judgement, just that this practice is ancient."
Heck, downvotes here in HN are basically the same thing. If a statement doesn't comply with both the explicit rules and implicit assumptions and culture here, it will be downvoted to oblivion. And it is one of the major mechanisms that HN uses to ensure this site remains useful and relevant even with the large number of participants.
Heck, downvotes here in HN are basically the same thing. If a statement doesn't comply with both the explicit rules and implicit assumptions and culture here, it will be downvoted to oblivion. And it is one of the major mechanisms that HN uses to ensure this site remains useful and relevant even with the large number of participants.
And that leads to a monoculture and echo chambers.
Just because something applies some negative pressure on diversity of thought doesn't mean it necessarily "leads to a monoculture and echo chambers."
If you're in a car that's going way too fast, do you tell the driver not to touch the brakes because it "leads to us never reaching our destination?"
Anyway, we're currently seeing the reign of the "cancel culture is the big problem" crybabies. Turns out they just thought the state should have the power to decide who's allowed to have an opinion.
If you're in a car that's going way too fast, do you tell the driver not to touch the brakes because it "leads to us never reaching our destination?"
Anyway, we're currently seeing the reign of the "cancel culture is the big problem" crybabies. Turns out they just thought the state should have the power to decide who's allowed to have an opinion.
Except this is not the case. If someone whom half of the country thinks is the best person to become their president could get "cancelled" and blocked from twitter, it is hard to argue that he got cancelled the pre internet way where no one wants to listen to him.
Cancel culture today for both parties is not form of not listening or even social exclusion, but kind of active shaming.
Cancel culture today for both parties is not form of not listening or even social exclusion, but kind of active shaming.
1. Some people definitely deserve to be cancelled/ostracized/socially punished.
2. Social media cares about engagement, not right and wrong. If content of a type is sought for, content of that type will be made.
3. Social media has trained people to simply react to the perceived message - "Oh, give me a break with all the whining about cancel culture!"
4. Concern trolling is very real. Social media is a low trust environment. You have no reason to think of me as a serious person, or take the time to engage with my reasoning.
5. Shame is incredibly motivating, but the shamer does not get to choose the direction that shame moves the target. You can certainly say that they are reacting wrongly, but you are not their parent/priest/custodian.
6. Once enough people are made to feel shame, they may band together. You are free to say that this is morally wrong or detestable.
7. This is all very very unsatisfying, so people usually take a more satisfying offramp and just blame someone. Blame and responsibility are very very slippery topics. Blame is about moral satisfaction and dropping a heavy, prickly, stinky and noxious emotional burden.
Blame typically falls on the person with the least social capital (relative to the blamer) who is closest to the problem.
Blame is the easiest thing to reach for in a low trust environment.
Responsibility requires a high trust environment. Responsibility can be forward and backward - who WAS responsible for this incident, who WILL BE responsible for improving the situation. In a low trust environment, responsibility will randomly transmute into blame.
8. It's easier to fight than it is to work. If someone is morally wrong, you do not owe them any emotional labor.
9. A fight does not require real harm as a trigger; a perceived social slight or lack of respect is more than enough to start a fight. Pain can be endured, shame cannot.
10. Anger and fighting form a feedback loop. Does the anger or fight come first?
11. This sort of thing has historically gotten VERY VERY bad before it gets better, even when people see it coming. It is very unsatisfying to say, but life can just really suck for a lot of people for a while. This is a heavy, noxious emotional burden, so by all means preserve your emotional health and find someone to blame.
----
So what is the solution?
I don't have a satisfying solution, but I have noticed something.
I have noticed that gravity is the weakest force/interaction in the universe per scale unit.
I have noticed that gravity is responsible for the largest objects and systems in the universe.
I have noticed that people mostly do not change their views in the middle of a fight.
"That's odd" is the most power phrase in science. The greatness of humanity has followed curiosity, patience, empathy and humility.
----
I won't tell anyone to stop fighting, but I will say that I strongly believe that fighting is only ever part of a solution.
I believe that fighting cannot ever fix anything or make anything better on the large scale.
Fighting can only make things less worse, for some people, in some place, at some time.
2. Social media cares about engagement, not right and wrong. If content of a type is sought for, content of that type will be made.
3. Social media has trained people to simply react to the perceived message - "Oh, give me a break with all the whining about cancel culture!"
4. Concern trolling is very real. Social media is a low trust environment. You have no reason to think of me as a serious person, or take the time to engage with my reasoning.
5. Shame is incredibly motivating, but the shamer does not get to choose the direction that shame moves the target. You can certainly say that they are reacting wrongly, but you are not their parent/priest/custodian.
6. Once enough people are made to feel shame, they may band together. You are free to say that this is morally wrong or detestable.
7. This is all very very unsatisfying, so people usually take a more satisfying offramp and just blame someone. Blame and responsibility are very very slippery topics. Blame is about moral satisfaction and dropping a heavy, prickly, stinky and noxious emotional burden.
Blame typically falls on the person with the least social capital (relative to the blamer) who is closest to the problem.
Blame is the easiest thing to reach for in a low trust environment.
Responsibility requires a high trust environment. Responsibility can be forward and backward - who WAS responsible for this incident, who WILL BE responsible for improving the situation. In a low trust environment, responsibility will randomly transmute into blame.
8. It's easier to fight than it is to work. If someone is morally wrong, you do not owe them any emotional labor.
9. A fight does not require real harm as a trigger; a perceived social slight or lack of respect is more than enough to start a fight. Pain can be endured, shame cannot.
10. Anger and fighting form a feedback loop. Does the anger or fight come first?
11. This sort of thing has historically gotten VERY VERY bad before it gets better, even when people see it coming. It is very unsatisfying to say, but life can just really suck for a lot of people for a while. This is a heavy, noxious emotional burden, so by all means preserve your emotional health and find someone to blame.
----
So what is the solution?
I don't have a satisfying solution, but I have noticed something.
I have noticed that gravity is the weakest force/interaction in the universe per scale unit.
I have noticed that gravity is responsible for the largest objects and systems in the universe.
I have noticed that people mostly do not change their views in the middle of a fight.
"That's odd" is the most power phrase in science. The greatness of humanity has followed curiosity, patience, empathy and humility.
----
I won't tell anyone to stop fighting, but I will say that I strongly believe that fighting is only ever part of a solution.
I believe that fighting cannot ever fix anything or make anything better on the large scale.
Fighting can only make things less worse, for some people, in some place, at some time.
> Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst
This is a massive understatement. The ironic thing about Haidt is that his writing is heavily geared towards social media. He writes a good headline and usually has a few facts in there, but is fundamentally non-rigorous. It’s science for skimmers and people who clicked on an article already agreeing with the conclusions and so won’t challenge the “evidence” he provides no matter how weak.
This is a massive understatement. The ironic thing about Haidt is that his writing is heavily geared towards social media. He writes a good headline and usually has a few facts in there, but is fundamentally non-rigorous. It’s science for skimmers and people who clicked on an article already agreeing with the conclusions and so won’t challenge the “evidence” he provides no matter how weak.
I agree that Haidt is a poor champion for the cause.
He’s popular because we are seeing something real happening to our kids and Haidt is the only person who is trying to describe whatever’s going on. We agree with the conclusions because we see it in our own kids, not because of the “moral panic”. It’s a shame he gets there in such a sloppy way, but he’s describing a real phenomenon.
I, as a parent, do not need articles and longitudinal studies and double blind peer reviewed studies to tell me that the thing I can observe with my own eyes is real.
He’s popular because we are seeing something real happening to our kids and Haidt is the only person who is trying to describe whatever’s going on. We agree with the conclusions because we see it in our own kids, not because of the “moral panic”. It’s a shame he gets there in such a sloppy way, but he’s describing a real phenomenon.
I, as a parent, do not need articles and longitudinal studies and double blind peer reviewed studies to tell me that the thing I can observe with my own eyes is real.
I wonder whatever happened to Nicholas Carr, of The Shallows fame. I guess he's got a new book out this year but his critique is more "democracy in distress" now rather than "save the children!"
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/books/review/superbloom-n...
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/29/books/review/superbloom-n...
IMO people care more about their children than about "democracy."
Carr was probably too highfalutin in his focus, and a little ahead of his time. A shame because this sure sounds prescient.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is_Google_Making_Us_Stupid%3F
I think your statement is reasonably reflective of his web articles (especially his SubStack) but I've really enjoyed the books of his that I've read, which felt well researched and founded, especially The Righteous Mind.
Can you plainly state what he get wrong?
> If TikTok gets banned and some slightly more benevolent version takes it place
I don't have TikTok on my phone. I don't have an account. But I have YouTube, Twitter, Instagram all locked down on my phone (my SO has the Screen Time code).
I did this because the best minds on earth get paid based on how much I doom scroll. If I don't do this, I routinely have times where I scroll for an hour+.
I have argued that the only solution to this is to either ban any sort compensation based on increased engagement of a social media product (probably impossible to enforce or unconstitutional if that still matters). OR to add regulation around infinite video scrolling. We regulate gambling because it hacks our dopamine loop (although usually associated with much more severe consequences). I think it's ok to regulate the video scroll. Start small with something like enforcing a scroll lock after 30 minutes. To enforce it, just regulate the largest companies.
I don't have TikTok on my phone. I don't have an account. But I have YouTube, Twitter, Instagram all locked down on my phone (my SO has the Screen Time code).
I did this because the best minds on earth get paid based on how much I doom scroll. If I don't do this, I routinely have times where I scroll for an hour+.
I have argued that the only solution to this is to either ban any sort compensation based on increased engagement of a social media product (probably impossible to enforce or unconstitutional if that still matters). OR to add regulation around infinite video scrolling. We regulate gambling because it hacks our dopamine loop (although usually associated with much more severe consequences). I think it's ok to regulate the video scroll. Start small with something like enforcing a scroll lock after 30 minutes. To enforce it, just regulate the largest companies.
> OR to add regulation around infinite video scrolling.
I really don’t want the government telling me what I can or can’t do on my phone, or that an app I enjoy can’t exist. Alcohol exists, gambling exists, cigarettes exist, porn exists, cars can drive fast, and yet because I have self control and good judgement, I haven’t allowed any of those things to get a hold over me either. I don’t want the government to be my dad. And even if you did, can you really trust our technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers to get such regulation right? These are consumption-side problems in my opinion, and individuals need to bear the responsibility rather than trying to pawn it off on big tech companies or regulators.
I really don’t want the government telling me what I can or can’t do on my phone, or that an app I enjoy can’t exist. Alcohol exists, gambling exists, cigarettes exist, porn exists, cars can drive fast, and yet because I have self control and good judgement, I haven’t allowed any of those things to get a hold over me either. I don’t want the government to be my dad. And even if you did, can you really trust our technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers to get such regulation right? These are consumption-side problems in my opinion, and individuals need to bear the responsibility rather than trying to pawn it off on big tech companies or regulators.
>Alcohol exists
And is taxed to minimize consumption, and recoup losses from negative externalities
> gambling exists
Yes and is banned or highly regulated in many counties. It is also age restricted.
>cigarettes exist
same as alcohol
> cars can drive fast, and yet because I have self control and good judgement
Cars today are much safer than they were in the 50s because many many people have died leading to regulations. It's difficult to create a car for the American market because of how many specific American safety regulations there are.
Traveling by car is probably one of the most regulated things we do. There are speed bumps, cops, speed cameras, red light cameras etc. It's not like it's the wild west out there.
>and yet because I have self control and good judgement, I haven’t allowed any of those things to get a hold over me either
Congratulations? Because you are perfect I guess we can just assume everyone else is and should be as well?
I am not saying the government should tell you what you can or can't do with your phone. I'm saying the government should do something against very large private corporations hacking the dopamine loop on individuals. This could be an engagement tax. This could be just pausing scrolling every 30 minutes for 30 seconds. I know it's a slippery slope. They say television killed the neighbor in the 60s. We have a chance to not repeat the same mistakes of the past.
> And even if you did, can you really trust our technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers to get such regulation right?
If we are voting in "technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers" then that seems to be a bigger problem. Why are we voting these people in? Lawmakers are representatives of the people. Not everything they do is dumb. America has done pretty well so they must've done something right in the last 250 years.
I'm very much in the pro liberty, pro individual camp, but there is no developed country on earth that has 0 regulation. It is in the nation's best interest to not have a major part of the populace have 6-7 hours of their day sucked by TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram. 6-7 hours a day on the phone probably the norm for children. Children are actually losing their ability to read from this [1].
There are movements to ban phones in schools, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Do you think we should not ban phones in schools because you have "self control and good judgement" therefore children in schools should simply have "self control and good judgement?"
1 - https://substack.com/home/post/p-139758866
And is taxed to minimize consumption, and recoup losses from negative externalities
> gambling exists
Yes and is banned or highly regulated in many counties. It is also age restricted.
>cigarettes exist
same as alcohol
> cars can drive fast, and yet because I have self control and good judgement
Cars today are much safer than they were in the 50s because many many people have died leading to regulations. It's difficult to create a car for the American market because of how many specific American safety regulations there are.
Traveling by car is probably one of the most regulated things we do. There are speed bumps, cops, speed cameras, red light cameras etc. It's not like it's the wild west out there.
>and yet because I have self control and good judgement, I haven’t allowed any of those things to get a hold over me either
Congratulations? Because you are perfect I guess we can just assume everyone else is and should be as well?
I am not saying the government should tell you what you can or can't do with your phone. I'm saying the government should do something against very large private corporations hacking the dopamine loop on individuals. This could be an engagement tax. This could be just pausing scrolling every 30 minutes for 30 seconds. I know it's a slippery slope. They say television killed the neighbor in the 60s. We have a chance to not repeat the same mistakes of the past.
> And even if you did, can you really trust our technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers to get such regulation right?
If we are voting in "technophobic corrupt out-of-touch lawmakers" then that seems to be a bigger problem. Why are we voting these people in? Lawmakers are representatives of the people. Not everything they do is dumb. America has done pretty well so they must've done something right in the last 250 years.
I'm very much in the pro liberty, pro individual camp, but there is no developed country on earth that has 0 regulation. It is in the nation's best interest to not have a major part of the populace have 6-7 hours of their day sucked by TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram. 6-7 hours a day on the phone probably the norm for children. Children are actually losing their ability to read from this [1].
There are movements to ban phones in schools, which I wholeheartedly agree with. Do you think we should not ban phones in schools because you have "self control and good judgement" therefore children in schools should simply have "self control and good judgement?"
1 - https://substack.com/home/post/p-139758866
> Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms
Look around the world at where democratic norms are actually being undone. It’s often the people who are most opposed to so-called ‘cancel culture’ who are busy with the undoing. But perhaps you are willing to be an unusually bipartisan wielder of the term and concede that the major instances of cancel culture in recent times are such things as Hungary banning pride parades, Trump bullying universities and deporting people for holding the wrong political views, and school libraries banning books with LGBTQ themes.
Look around the world at where democratic norms are actually being undone. It’s often the people who are most opposed to so-called ‘cancel culture’ who are busy with the undoing. But perhaps you are willing to be an unusually bipartisan wielder of the term and concede that the major instances of cancel culture in recent times are such things as Hungary banning pride parades, Trump bullying universities and deporting people for holding the wrong political views, and school libraries banning books with LGBTQ themes.
Trump and the right wing engage in cancel culture. Ben Shapiro tried to cancel James Gunn, Bill Ackman tried to cancel Ivy League graduates that protested in support of Gaza, there are many examples. The American right wing simply just doesn't have the cultural cachet in major institutions such as academia, Hollywood, publishing houses, and generally in major US cities to enforce their cancellation attempts.
> Bill Ackman tried to cancel Ivy League graduates that protested in support of Gaza
I mean, the US government is now actively (and illegally) imprisoning/deporting Ivy League students who protested in support of Gaza, so I think "having the cultural cachet" is irrelevant at this point. They have the political power and that's what really matters.
But for a less dramatic counterexample, I'd offer something like whatever group (was it Moms For Liberty?) that orchestrated book bans in libraries nationwide.
I mean, the US government is now actively (and illegally) imprisoning/deporting Ivy League students who protested in support of Gaza, so I think "having the cultural cachet" is irrelevant at this point. They have the political power and that's what really matters.
But for a less dramatic counterexample, I'd offer something like whatever group (was it Moms For Liberty?) that orchestrated book bans in libraries nationwide.
That’s exactly what’s changing now that the right is in power. People are already being deported for protesting in support of Gaza. We shall see how long academia is able to maintain any degree of independence. The Trump administration is not exactly being subtle about it.
> The American right wing simply just doesn't have the cultural cachet in major institutions such as academia, Hollywood, publishing houses, and generally in major US cities to enforce their cancellation attempts.
The part of this you should be worried about is that they've realized they now have enough hard power to use violence against ideological enemies instead of rhetoric.
They're being completely open that they plan to extend this treatment to native born U.S. citizens too [1].
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5366178/trump-deport-ja...
The part of this you should be worried about is that they've realized they now have enough hard power to use violence against ideological enemies instead of rhetoric.
They're being completely open that they plan to extend this treatment to native born U.S. citizens too [1].
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5366178/trump-deport-ja...
> Haidt is not the world's most careful data analyst
We can, and probably should, just end the discussion there. Haidt is really good at finding data to support his claims, but then failing to mention that the correlation he's describing as "definitive" is, actually, really weak. This happens throughout "The Anxious Generation," at least.
Calling him "directionally correct" when he's pretty bad at actually showing the work as to why he is correct is just saying that you think he has a good point because his vibes match your vibes.
We can, and probably should, just end the discussion there. Haidt is really good at finding data to support his claims, but then failing to mention that the correlation he's describing as "definitive" is, actually, really weak. This happens throughout "The Anxious Generation," at least.
Calling him "directionally correct" when he's pretty bad at actually showing the work as to why he is correct is just saying that you think he has a good point because his vibes match your vibes.
I don't think I'm just saying that. I'd say instead:
1) evidence in favor of reasonable, unsurprising priors does not need to be held to the same standards of rigor as it would for less likely hypotheses. Put differently, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You can call my agreement with Haidt on the big picture "vibes" but I'd say instead that I just judge the likelihood that the underlying claims are true to be high.
2) the "Haidt production function" faces tradeoffs between making big points, writing books, and attending to every detail. When I read people's critique of his meta-analytic techniques (the first link I posted), I saw a lot of folks saying, he's not even doing meta-analysis because he's not weighting by precision! Reading that, I thought, he very much is doing meta-analysis: even if he's not doing "random effects meta-analysis" that you'd learn in a textbook, he's synthesizing many quantitative results, which is the core of it. (I have written three meta-analyses and RA'd for a fourth.) And when the 'proper' technique was applied, it shrunk the effect size estimate from like 0.2 to 0.15, which, like, if whatever hypothesis was true at 0.2, it's probably also true at 0.15. Social science theories don't generally stand or fall on differences like that. So I thought he came out looking like the wiser person there. Academics have a tendency to get bogged down in implementation details. Haidt doesn't.
(I don't expect this to be persuasive, just explaining why I don't find his data 'errors' to be a nonstarter.)
1) evidence in favor of reasonable, unsurprising priors does not need to be held to the same standards of rigor as it would for less likely hypotheses. Put differently, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. You can call my agreement with Haidt on the big picture "vibes" but I'd say instead that I just judge the likelihood that the underlying claims are true to be high.
2) the "Haidt production function" faces tradeoffs between making big points, writing books, and attending to every detail. When I read people's critique of his meta-analytic techniques (the first link I posted), I saw a lot of folks saying, he's not even doing meta-analysis because he's not weighting by precision! Reading that, I thought, he very much is doing meta-analysis: even if he's not doing "random effects meta-analysis" that you'd learn in a textbook, he's synthesizing many quantitative results, which is the core of it. (I have written three meta-analyses and RA'd for a fourth.) And when the 'proper' technique was applied, it shrunk the effect size estimate from like 0.2 to 0.15, which, like, if whatever hypothesis was true at 0.2, it's probably also true at 0.15. Social science theories don't generally stand or fall on differences like that. So I thought he came out looking like the wiser person there. Academics have a tendency to get bogged down in implementation details. Haidt doesn't.
(I don't expect this to be persuasive, just explaining why I don't find his data 'errors' to be a nonstarter.)
IIRC the effect size at 0.15 was narrowly for pre-teen girls on social media. Every other age, and all boys, were below 0.1 when looking at total screen time (i.e. games, youtube). Parents should check up on young girls, but most kids will be fine.
Does it seem plausible to that a system that is intentionally, systematically, algorithmically optimized to keep your attention and drive engagement really has so little affect on us?
> Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms
One's position on "cancel culture" tends to reveal a lot about somebody's politics. Complaining about cancel culture tends to correlate highly with conservative political views. The idea is that some people can't freely express their opinions. This is the same idea that leads the likes of Elon Musk to complain about the lack of "free speech".
When right-wingers say "free speech" they mean "hate speech", more specifically "the freedom to express hate speech". And when they complain about "cancel culture", what they're really complaining about it there being consequences to their speech [1].
So if somebody goes on a racist screed and they lost their job because their employer doesn't want to be associated with such views, that gets labelled as "cancel culture".
The very same people defend cancelling the permanent resident status of somebody who simply protested war crimes committed by Israel (ie Mahmoud Khalil) with no due process, a clear First Amendment violation.
As a reminder, the First Amendment is a restriction on government activity. For some reason, the same people who were vaccine experts 2 years ago who are now constitutional experts don't seem to understand this.
[1]: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/republicans-cancel...
One's position on "cancel culture" tends to reveal a lot about somebody's politics. Complaining about cancel culture tends to correlate highly with conservative political views. The idea is that some people can't freely express their opinions. This is the same idea that leads the likes of Elon Musk to complain about the lack of "free speech".
When right-wingers say "free speech" they mean "hate speech", more specifically "the freedom to express hate speech". And when they complain about "cancel culture", what they're really complaining about it there being consequences to their speech [1].
So if somebody goes on a racist screed and they lost their job because their employer doesn't want to be associated with such views, that gets labelled as "cancel culture".
The very same people defend cancelling the permanent resident status of somebody who simply protested war crimes committed by Israel (ie Mahmoud Khalil) with no due process, a clear First Amendment violation.
As a reminder, the First Amendment is a restriction on government activity. For some reason, the same people who were vaccine experts 2 years ago who are now constitutional experts don't seem to understand this.
[1]: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/republicans-cancel...
Can you provide a coherent definition of hate speech that doesn't include chants like "from the river to the sea" or phrases like "kill all men"?
The unstated major premise of your screed is that "conservative political belief" are inherently wrong, factually and morally. Not everyone agrees with that.
Is it not clear that cancel culture played a role in the broader misinformation landscape? The argument seems to be undermining itself.
Take, for example, the early discussions around the origins of COVID-19. Legitimate scientific hypotheses—such as the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan—were swiftly shut down. Scientists were canceled because they didn’t align with a dominant narrative.
Take, for example, the early discussions around the origins of COVID-19. Legitimate scientific hypotheses—such as the possibility of a lab leak in Wuhan—were swiftly shut down. Scientists were canceled because they didn’t align with a dominant narrative.
A determined skeptic would see Haidt is directly quoting TikTok's own admissions found in legal briefs.
Frankly, it's terrifying.
Frankly, it's terrifying.
People are still taking shots at the cancel culture boogeyman in 2025? It's just an organic response to people not wanting evil slop shoved in their faces on an unregulated internet.
>Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms
Cancel culture is a myth.
It is a label used to denigrate people and organizations who exercise the fundamental right to distance themselves from associations they find distasteful or non-beneficial.
There is not a single "cancelled" person who does not retain the ability to work and exercise their speech rights.
This is not opinion it is fact.
I welcome any attempt to prove me wrong.
I will respond with acting credits, tweets, and photographs of the cancelled person serving in a position of authority and/or being chauffeured between media appearances where they complain about being cancelled to an audience of millions.
"Cancel culture" is the same bullshit as "virtue signaling": made up nonsense intended to poison any discussion and blunt criticism without needing to do or say anything substantive.
Cancel culture is a myth.
It is a label used to denigrate people and organizations who exercise the fundamental right to distance themselves from associations they find distasteful or non-beneficial.
There is not a single "cancelled" person who does not retain the ability to work and exercise their speech rights.
This is not opinion it is fact.
I welcome any attempt to prove me wrong.
I will respond with acting credits, tweets, and photographs of the cancelled person serving in a position of authority and/or being chauffeured between media appearances where they complain about being cancelled to an audience of millions.
"Cancel culture" is the same bullshit as "virtue signaling": made up nonsense intended to poison any discussion and blunt criticism without needing to do or say anything substantive.
> "Cancel culture" is the same bullshit as "virtue signaling": made up nonsense intended to poison any discussion and blunt criticism without needing to do or say anything substantive.
That sounds exactly like the same made up language of "sealioning" and "concern trolling" weaponized by the same people accusing the other side of making up "cancel culture" and "virtue signaling". Maybe you don't hold the ethical high ground and never did.
That sounds exactly like the same made up language of "sealioning" and "concern trolling" weaponized by the same people accusing the other side of making up "cancel culture" and "virtue signaling". Maybe you don't hold the ethical high ground and never did.
os2warpman(4)
Cancel culture is not compatible with democratic norms
Liberalism is what protects a minority against the majority.
Liberal Democracy strikes a balance between them. Typically the majority gets to determine who is in charge (democracy), and enshrined legal protections protect minorities from the bias and wrath of the mob (liberalism).
If someone insults people or breaks norms, and there's a lot of blow back, it doesn't surprise me. Few people complain that they are forbidden from walking the streets nude with a raging erection. The majority doesn't want that kind of freedom of expression.
What this has to do with social media companies, don't ask me. I mainly care about the ability of people to make arguments without the government locking them up.
> Democracy protects the majority against a minority.
Isn't that the other way around? The laws (and more importantly, the rule of law) are in place to prevent the tyranny of the majority?
Isn't that the other way around? The laws (and more importantly, the rule of law) are in place to prevent the tyranny of the majority?
Democracy protects the majority against a minority.
The laws (and more importantly, the rule of law) are in place to prevent the tyranny of the majority?
> Liberalism is what protects a minority against the majority.
> Liberal Democracy strikes a balance between them. Typically the majority gets to determine who is in charge (democracy), and enshrined legal protections protect minorities from the bias and wrath of the mob (liberalism).
> Liberal Democracy strikes a balance between them. Typically the majority gets to determine who is in charge (democracy), and enshrined legal protections protect minorities from the bias and wrath of the mob (liberalism).
> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text.
Incredibly hilarious. Only leet hackers can pull this off though, same as pressing F12 in the browser to hack the mainframe!
Incredibly hilarious. Only leet hackers can pull this off though, same as pressing F12 in the browser to hack the mainframe!
This happened a few times in 2006. I guess we never learn.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43698326
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43698326
It happens constantly, just the other day Meta/Facebook's lawyers redacted graphs by drawing a box over them https://www.theverge.com/news/648893/meta-redacted-documents...
Amateurs. Fortunately for them, the case is lost without their efforts.
This seems to happen somewhat often.
Actually, it is quite weird, I wonder if some bad best-practices have been circulated.
It would be really nice if legal documents were prepared in some sort of standardized markup-like language.
Actually, it is quite weird, I wonder if some bad best-practices have been circulated.
It would be really nice if legal documents were prepared in some sort of standardized markup-like language.
I would guess it's the opposite of "bad best-practices", namely that there are no common best practices. Everyone intuitively understands how black-box redaction works, but the ways inadequate redaction fails is a bit technical and not intuitively obvious, so it's a task that's ripe for ignorant overconfidence.
> same as pressing F12 in the browser to hack the mainframe!
so that's why new mac keyboards did away the entire F keys row?
so that's why new mac keyboards did away the entire F keys row?
How is this still happening?
Because it's a problem with a 50 year old UX design that we still use today and aren't changing any time soon. WYSIWYG UX is easy to use, because you can simply train the users to manipulate what they see until it visually represents the output they want. This is the predominant way we've trained users for most of the history of GUI software.
But, WYSIWYG on a 2D screen is just an inherently leaky UX abstraction when dealing with 2.5D content, e.g. layers.
But, WYSIWYG on a 2D screen is just an inherently leaky UX abstraction when dealing with 2.5D content, e.g. layers.
Adobe Acrobat even warns you if you pick black as highlighter color!
Preview in MacOS also warns you that black boxes are not really redacting anything, and provides a tool for it.
Maybe it should instead do actual redaction? Or at least ask if that's what the user wants?
I think that's actually hard... because you have to know what the text is you're redacting to get the spacing for the letters right. You want to redact specific words, but keep the rest of the document the same. This means that you need to know the letters (and their order due to kerning).
The best way to redact a PDF is with a printer, a sharpie marker, and a scanner.
The best way to redact a PDF is with a printer, a sharpie marker, and a scanner.
No, it's entirely straight forward to simply remove any curves and glyphs that intersect with a region, even if all text was converted to paths; any vector graphics editor can do it.
PDF documents do not reflow.
PDF documents do not reflow.
It's definitely not as simple as you're suggesting. PDF viewers are not vector graphics editors so they'd have to implement the whole intersection algorithms, and even though PDFs don't reflow they can still have text so now you need to figure out if you delete "is" from "this is hard" you need to calculate where "hard" is.
Definitely doable but hardly straight forward.
Definitely doable but hardly straight forward.
I think their point might be that some PDF editors had this functionality for years now ?
I don't think so. Which PDF editors have this feature?
Acrobat (not Reader), Foxit, others I tried. It's not impossible, although the result may vary.
PDFs, inheriting from PostScript, do have the concept of fonts and text strings, which can be edited. They're not just a soup of vector shapes.
PDFs, inheriting from PostScript, do have the concept of fonts and text strings, which can be edited. They're not just a soup of vector shapes.
Better to draw boxes, print, then scan. I reckon it will somehow be possible to see through the sharpie -- for example change in shine.
The vast vast vast majority of humans are not programmers and do not view the world through the mental models programmers do.
Why SHOULD someone using a PDF reader software intuitively understand that placing a black rectangle over a document and saving it doesn't prevent someone from seeing that document?! Why the fuck does anyone doing a job need to learn a set of unique and non-generalizing mental models just to redact a document!
Imagine if paper had unexpected failure modes!
The problem is not professionals trying to do their damn job. The problem is US. The Programmers. Who consistently make garbage systems using garbage leaky abstractions and absurd assumptions and ignoring decades of user interface research because google released a new UI library written by programmers who haven't interacted with non-programmers in a decade.
Why are WE still doing this?
Why SHOULD someone using a PDF reader software intuitively understand that placing a black rectangle over a document and saving it doesn't prevent someone from seeing that document?! Why the fuck does anyone doing a job need to learn a set of unique and non-generalizing mental models just to redact a document!
Imagine if paper had unexpected failure modes!
The problem is not professionals trying to do their damn job. The problem is US. The Programmers. Who consistently make garbage systems using garbage leaky abstractions and absurd assumptions and ignoring decades of user interface research because google released a new UI library written by programmers who haven't interacted with non-programmers in a decade.
Why are WE still doing this?
>Imagine if paper had unexpected failure modes!
It does. If you scribble out what you would want redacted in black ink until it's no longer legible, it's not actually properly redacted for just about the same reasons the PDF wouldn't be
It does. If you scribble out what you would want redacted in black ink until it's no longer legible, it's not actually properly redacted for just about the same reasons the PDF wouldn't be
I don't have kids, so I'm not in the trenches on this one. But a personal anecdote that might serve as evidence that other things are possible to everyone navigating tech and kids...
When I was a kid living in a trailer in the midwest in the eighties I asked my parents to buy me a secondhand set of 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica from our local library - for $7. It fed the same curiosity and joy of discovering new things that you would want your kid to get from resources online.
When we went on trips we always drove. And even if I didn't already have a book or books from the library that I was reading at the time, my parents would suggest I take a volume of the Encyclopedia. And sure enough if I got bored I'd break it out. (Unless it was too dark to read at which point I'd just fall sleep.)
That's all to say there are alternatives that cut the gordian knot, which kids can really dig if you frame it right. My parents were both voracious readers themselves, and it didn't take long for their reading to my sibling and I to turn into reading on our own. So when we got something that provided the novelty and agency of navigating your own way through an encyclopedia, it was a huge hit.
Of course things are very different today. And I'm not a luddite or even someone who believes that old ways are intrinsically better. But there are ways to feed the many various and often contradictory needs kids have that aren't reliant on contemporary tech.
When I was a kid living in a trailer in the midwest in the eighties I asked my parents to buy me a secondhand set of 1973 Encyclopedia Britannica from our local library - for $7. It fed the same curiosity and joy of discovering new things that you would want your kid to get from resources online.
When we went on trips we always drove. And even if I didn't already have a book or books from the library that I was reading at the time, my parents would suggest I take a volume of the Encyclopedia. And sure enough if I got bored I'd break it out. (Unless it was too dark to read at which point I'd just fall sleep.)
That's all to say there are alternatives that cut the gordian knot, which kids can really dig if you frame it right. My parents were both voracious readers themselves, and it didn't take long for their reading to my sibling and I to turn into reading on our own. So when we got something that provided the novelty and agency of navigating your own way through an encyclopedia, it was a huge hit.
Of course things are very different today. And I'm not a luddite or even someone who believes that old ways are intrinsically better. But there are ways to feed the many various and often contradictory needs kids have that aren't reliant on contemporary tech.
Well thought out comment here. One of the things I've done with my kids is steered them into screen time with a learning or logical factor to it. Examples are the Chess.com app, Kerbel Space Program, flight simulators, etc.
Or pre-recorded audio (tapes, CD...) if reading in a wobbly vehicle makes you sick.
I am surprised how common it is for younger women and teenagers to receive requests for gifting and get sexualized comments which this article mentions. I don't see a lot of people talking about it but I think it would really warp someone's mind to be under 18 and be receiving requests for foot pics, "spoiling", and more. I've wanted to put this out there for a long time but felt like no one wanted to talk about it.
I'm a woman who grew up pre-internet. I started getting catcalled on the street around 12 (and I always looked many years younger than I was). From 12 to around 30 (when I got fat) I wasn't able to leave the house without being harassed on the street.
This is just a new medium for a very old behavior.
This is just a new medium for a very old behavior.
I can imagine it would completely warp your idea of men especially if you were young and not able to put it into perspective (even very old people can’t do this). That could have a serious impact on your life.
Related critcism of the book and the authors of this site: https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2024/07/why-academics-...
Great read, thanks for posting. What I like about it is that while it notes Haidt's ideas get flimsier the closer they're examined, it also thoughtfully gives him credit for a more important observation — that the increasing loss of societal structure is the actual and larger problem (and seemingly the target of his next book), with social media as one of many symptoms or contributors, depending on how you look at it.
[deleted]
From the badly redacted Kentucky AG PDF:
> As the U.S. Surgeon General recently explained, children’s and parents’ attempts to resist social media is an unfair fight: “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers."
This struck a chord. I struggle with addictive tendencies and I've been having to re-teach myself that stumbling is not always because "I didn't try hard enough" but because I live in a world thats optimizing for retention/subscriptions/etc...
> As the U.S. Surgeon General recently explained, children’s and parents’ attempts to resist social media is an unfair fight: “You have some of the best designers and product developers in the world who have designed these products to make sure people are maximizing the amount of time they spend on these platforms. And if we tell a child, use the force of your willpower to control how much time you’re spending, you’re pitting a child against the world’s greatest product designers."
This struck a chord. I struggle with addictive tendencies and I've been having to re-teach myself that stumbling is not always because "I didn't try hard enough" but because I live in a world thats optimizing for retention/subscriptions/etc...
My favorite part is how incompetent they were in handling the redaction:
"But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you."
"But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you."
I'd venture to guess this was deliberate. What would you do if you want to convince the public but can't technically share the evidence?
Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence."
https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/hanlons-razor
https://modelthinkers.com/mental-model/hanlons-razor
> As one internal report put it: [...damning effects...]
I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook.
And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit.
My question is... Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear?
* Do they not realize when management doesn't want to hear this?
* Does management actually want to hear it, but with overwhelming intent bias? (For example, hearing that it's "compulsive" is good, and the itemized effects of that are only interpreted as emphasizing how valuable a property they own?)
* Do they think the information will be acted upon constructively, non-evil?
* Are they simply trying to be honest researchers, knowing they might get fired or career stalled?
* Is it job security, to make themselves harder to fire?
* Are they setting up CYA paper trail for themselves, for if the scandal becomes public?
* Are they helping their immediate manager to set up CYA paper trails?
I recall hearing of related embarrassing internal reports from Facebook.
And, earlier, the internal reports from big tobacco and big oil, showing they knew the harms, but chose to publicly lie instead, for greater profit.
My question is... Why are employees, who presumably have plush jobs they want to keep, still writing reports that management doesn't want to hear?
* Do they not realize when management doesn't want to hear this?
* Does management actually want to hear it, but with overwhelming intent bias? (For example, hearing that it's "compulsive" is good, and the itemized effects of that are only interpreted as emphasizing how valuable a property they own?)
* Do they think the information will be acted upon constructively, non-evil?
* Are they simply trying to be honest researchers, knowing they might get fired or career stalled?
* Is it job security, to make themselves harder to fire?
* Are they setting up CYA paper trail for themselves, for if the scandal becomes public?
* Are they helping their immediate manager to set up CYA paper trails?
It's the tension between the plush job and the desire to do good.
No one wants to be evil but losing a job is hard. Most people will try to push back against something that seems wrong and, when faced with the choice of being Morally Right or Financially Secure, are going to chose the path that keeps food on the table and ensures their kids can keep going to the same school.
No one wants to be evil but losing a job is hard. Most people will try to push back against something that seems wrong and, when faced with the choice of being Morally Right or Financially Secure, are going to chose the path that keeps food on the table and ensures their kids can keep going to the same school.
I don't disagree with the claim that brainrot literally rots brains. But, I strongly oppose laws that ban social media on the grounds of "protecting children."
Parents are fully capable of monitoring and regulating their children's internet usage without Daddy Government getting involved.
Parents are fully capable of monitoring and regulating their children's internet usage without Daddy Government getting involved.
this is a bad argument in the abstract. "drivers are fully capable of navigating intersections without Daddy Goverment getting involved" so we shouldn't have traffic laws and stop lights
the evidence says otherwise. I agree an outright ban probably isn't the best solution
the evidence says otherwise. I agree an outright ban probably isn't the best solution
I would argue that traffic laws and signage is more about efficiency than capability. Not every country has a culture of following traffic laws and people still manage to navigate motor vehicles around somehow.
My personal experience with this is from Mexico where, in heavy traffic, lanes are not really a "thing" and people will pack their vehicles in wherever possible. This leads to much more chaotic traffic flow and more unexpected stops though.
My personal experience with this is from Mexico where, in heavy traffic, lanes are not really a "thing" and people will pack their vehicles in wherever possible. This leads to much more chaotic traffic flow and more unexpected stops though.
Except parents can't control what their children's peer's internet usage is. A common argument to let kids use social media is that their friends use it and they would be left out. This problem can't be solved by individuals, it needs collective action.
And some kids feel left out because their parents won't buy them a Stanley water bottle that their peers have. Guess we need to ban Stanely water bottles so those kids don't feel left out. Won't someone think of the children?!
The correct argument has become taboo in our technocratic puritan age. The only word that matters now is SAFETY, no matter the collateral damage.
Just children? I've had to block social media for myself because of how addictive it was / how much time I was wasting.
I will say though, if you are trying to watch videos more from an educational perspective then it can be useful. Although, I would advise getting an LLM summary of the video, and then speed reading the summary in order to determine if their is any useful content in there.
I will say though, if you are trying to watch videos more from an educational perspective then it can be useful. Although, I would advise getting an LLM summary of the video, and then speed reading the summary in order to determine if their is any useful content in there.
Yes, but it's still a whole other can of worms when someone else is responsible for your behaviour and relationships with most of the society.
Could you give a description of how you block social media? All methods I found so far can be undone within seconds.
Remove app, block website like it's an ad, parental controls, unfollow everything, log out, forget credentials, delete account.
You don't need to make the website unreachable, only to delay the impulse for long enough.
You don't need to make the website unreachable, only to delay the impulse for long enough.
For me apps like Opal work really well.
I wish parents blocked such sites on their children's devices, so we didn't have to expand the censorship & surveillance state to protect them.
I didn't realize how backwards and unhelpful the way we talk about this was until I became a parent.
In general, we talk about "iPad kids" and blame the tablets and phones themselves. Slightly more sophisticated people will blame the apps like YouTube or Roblox.
That stopped making sense to me once I saw the problem first hand with my peers and my own children. The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids.
Devices and Apps give parents the ability to zonk their kid into outer space for extended periods of time with unlimited videos or games that never end. But that isn't an inherent quality of the device. Like if you block all the apps and just let the kid use the iPad for drawing. Or if you do the YouTube kids thing where they can only watch videos you add to an allowlist.
The app makers do hold a lot of responsibility for the defaults on their apps, but the real issue is parents who are choosing to blackhole their kids for extended periods of time. (I am agreeing with you btw)
In general, we talk about "iPad kids" and blame the tablets and phones themselves. Slightly more sophisticated people will blame the apps like YouTube or Roblox.
That stopped making sense to me once I saw the problem first hand with my peers and my own children. The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids.
Devices and Apps give parents the ability to zonk their kid into outer space for extended periods of time with unlimited videos or games that never end. But that isn't an inherent quality of the device. Like if you block all the apps and just let the kid use the iPad for drawing. Or if you do the YouTube kids thing where they can only watch videos you add to an allowlist.
The app makers do hold a lot of responsibility for the defaults on their apps, but the real issue is parents who are choosing to blackhole their kids for extended periods of time. (I am agreeing with you btw)
Many of the big tech companies, especially Meta / X / Reddit, are the modern day equivalent of tobacco companies. I was a former smoker. Yes my mom should have done a better job preventing me from becoming one. But they were in fact designed to get my young self addicted, and that's a problem. Once we regulated them, it stopped happening nearly as much. I think a very constructive way to converse about this problem, is to focus less on who has the most fault or blame, and focus entirely on: Can policy help, and if so, how? Example:
- Require age verification only for apps with algorithmic feed (obv. definition requires some nuance)
- Substantial tax on companies utilizing algorithmic feeds
- Require (regular) disclaimers and time monitors that are automatically shared with users on the platforms
- Ban usage rewards (e.g. Reddit tries to reward me for daily usage with stickers and such, why?)
I basically agree with you but I see your point as downstream of my basic point, because a 4 year old isn't going to get exposed to any of these companies tactics without the parent's consent
> The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids.
100% this.
Many parents are so addicted to their own phones/social media that they need to give their kids iPads and other infinite distraction machines so that they don't have to deal with them and they can spend more time themselves endlessly browsing Instagram/TikTok/etc.
But it's not only that. I think modern society has failed parents and kids in a lot of ways. Many public spaces have become so kid-hostile that as a parent you feel like the MOMENT your kid starts acting out you need to break out the iPad just to shut them up and survive dinner or whatever. Guess what? Kids are loud and often crazy and they are LEARNING how to behave. Part of the learning is doing things poorly.
100% this.
Many parents are so addicted to their own phones/social media that they need to give their kids iPads and other infinite distraction machines so that they don't have to deal with them and they can spend more time themselves endlessly browsing Instagram/TikTok/etc.
But it's not only that. I think modern society has failed parents and kids in a lot of ways. Many public spaces have become so kid-hostile that as a parent you feel like the MOMENT your kid starts acting out you need to break out the iPad just to shut them up and survive dinner or whatever. Guess what? Kids are loud and often crazy and they are LEARNING how to behave. Part of the learning is doing things poorly.
> The actual issue is parents wanting to (basically) anesthetize their kids so the parents can do something as if they didn't have the kids.
A good question to ask is why these people are making the decision to have children in the first place if this is how they treat them.
Maybe an order of magnitude or so less people should have children. People who want to have their cake and eat it too, raising their children largely passively, shouldn't be having kids at all. It's not something you "need" to do or should do without a very good reason and high confidence in your ability to do so effectively. Society should be strongly discouraging these kinds of people from having kids, but it's currently encouraging them.
A good question to ask is why these people are making the decision to have children in the first place if this is how they treat them.
Maybe an order of magnitude or so less people should have children. People who want to have their cake and eat it too, raising their children largely passively, shouldn't be having kids at all. It's not something you "need" to do or should do without a very good reason and high confidence in your ability to do so effectively. Society should be strongly discouraging these kinds of people from having kids, but it's currently encouraging them.
One reason is society has largely restructured itself to make raising children much more difficult than it used to be. It used to be "it takes a village", now that village is atomic families that don't talk to each other and traffic that makes playing outside deadly, and instead of living in multi-generational homes where grandparents can help with raising children, parents live on their own.
So the burden is much higher, and parents cope with it in unhealthy ways.
So the burden is much higher, and parents cope with it in unhealthy ways.
Good luck, we can't even reach a consensus that teenage girls that decidedly don't want children should have the agency to make that decision.
I would like to put the emphasis on the difficulty that what can work for children (only access to a desktop PC in the living room for instance) cannot work for teenagers (at some point, years before they become adults, you have to let them use an eventually fully personal laptop and even a smartphone, and maybe soon augmented reality glasses).
It would be good to make this as easy as possible for parents - user-friendly, easy-to-install filtering programs, with good defaults. There is of course the danger whoever controls those defaults will abuse them for (unwanted) censorship, like the Comics Code Authority, but that's a lesser danger than giving those defaults the force of law.
> We conducted a nationally representative survey of 1,006 Gen Z young adults (ages 18-27). We asked respondents to tell us, for various platforms and products, if they wished that it “was never invented.” [...] and the most regretted platforms of all: TikTok (47%) and X/Twitter (50%).
Ouch, Gen Z really hate Twitter.
Ouch, Gen Z really hate Twitter.
> In this post we argue that Americans should welcome the disappearance of TikTok because the company is causing harm to children, adolescents, and young adults at an industrial scale.
protip: this isn't the reason people are trying to ban the app, and it shouldn't be banned. Currently I think you have to be 13+ to go on the app. If you think it's harming kids as the reason to ban it, you could advocate maybe for 18+ access instead. The fact this isn't the advocated change, to me suggests that's not the reason why people are trying to ban it (concern for children's well-being). If this were the case, you'd also have to ban probably the other U.S. social media. It's probably also important to note how much good social media does by freely sharing valuable information (while people focus on the negative info that's shared).
protip: this isn't the reason people are trying to ban the app, and it shouldn't be banned. Currently I think you have to be 13+ to go on the app. If you think it's harming kids as the reason to ban it, you could advocate maybe for 18+ access instead. The fact this isn't the advocated change, to me suggests that's not the reason why people are trying to ban it (concern for children's well-being). If this were the case, you'd also have to ban probably the other U.S. social media. It's probably also important to note how much good social media does by freely sharing valuable information (while people focus on the negative info that's shared).
Parents who let their kids mindlessly use TikTok, YouTube, etc., are guilty of neglect IMO.
They’ll pay the price firsthand but sadly we’ll all pay for it.
Great, Meta next?
He's already been on Meta for years now:
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+instag...
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+Facebo...
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+instag...
https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Aafterbabel.com+Facebo...
If you have read anything Haidt has written, you'll probably note that this implied criticism of him being only anti TikTok is quite far off the mark.
Meta is currently on trial for antitrust.
As was pointed out elsewhere in this post Jon Haidt has been railing about social media for a while now, and has written several books on the subject.
https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
As was pointed out elsewhere in this post Jon Haidt has been railing about social media for a while now, and has written several books on the subject.
https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
Hopefully all social media.
and all of them should be run by non-profit organizations unconnected to any charity nor politically motivated organization nor state.
and all of them should be run by non-profit organizations unconnected to any charity nor politically motivated organization nor state.
Agree with this. All of them.
That includes the new ones such as Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon.
No exceptions.
That includes the new ones such as Bluesky, Threads and Mastodon.
No exceptions.
Ah, but would you also include NH, Stack Overflow, LinkedIn, GitHub, Quora... too ?
(Speaking of, this was important, but I still spent too much time on it on HN... EDIT : heh, as immediately proved by the "posting too fast" rate limiter...)
P.S.: Platforms are also a very related but not identical evil.
(Speaking of, this was important, but I still spent too much time on it on HN... EDIT : heh, as immediately proved by the "posting too fast" rate limiter...)
P.S.: Platforms are also a very related but not identical evil.
Won't someone think of the profits??
ok123456(3)
When we talk about harm on the internet, we often separate the activity from the harm, e.g., a problem with [activity] is that it could cause [harm].
But it's now clear that the activity is the harm. The issue isn’t that using TikTok might make you addicted; the issue is that you are using TikTok.
Just as there’s no such thing as responsibly huffing paint fumes, there’s no such thing as responsible social media use, only sub-diagnosable use.
But it's now clear that the activity is the harm. The issue isn’t that using TikTok might make you addicted; the issue is that you are using TikTok.
Just as there’s no such thing as responsibly huffing paint fumes, there’s no such thing as responsible social media use, only sub-diagnosable use.
The general problem is media companies that:
1. show you more stuff automatically, and
2. optimize for engagement when choosing what to show you next
That optimization works, and they have little incentive to optimize for anything else (like minimizing harm to users). TikTok is not the only offender, but they are the best at it (read: worst for users).
It is an additional concern that they are ultimately controlled by a foreign country that is relatively hostile to us and has low transparency to our law enforcement apparatus and regulators. Facebook and YouTube have to at least be worried about breaking our existing laws or annoying our Congress. This reins them in at least a little bit. TikTok actually did annoy Congress enough to prompt bi-partisan action (a very high bar in today's climate), but successfully won a game of chicken, as the law they are violating is officially being ignored.
1. show you more stuff automatically, and
2. optimize for engagement when choosing what to show you next
That optimization works, and they have little incentive to optimize for anything else (like minimizing harm to users). TikTok is not the only offender, but they are the best at it (read: worst for users).
It is an additional concern that they are ultimately controlled by a foreign country that is relatively hostile to us and has low transparency to our law enforcement apparatus and regulators. Facebook and YouTube have to at least be worried about breaking our existing laws or annoying our Congress. This reins them in at least a little bit. TikTok actually did annoy Congress enough to prompt bi-partisan action (a very high bar in today's climate), but successfully won a game of chicken, as the law they are violating is officially being ignored.
[deleted]
Each and every one of these points applies to Meta in a huge way:
> 1. Addictive, compulsive, and problematic use 2. Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicide 3. Porn, violence, and drugs 4. Sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation 5.TikTok knows about underage use and takes little action
Hell, it's even a matter of congressional record!
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211339737/meta-failed-to-add...
it doesn't make it right, but this current political climate's myopic focus on tiktok alone destroys any credibility on this.
> 1. Addictive, compulsive, and problematic use 2. Depression, anxiety, body dysmorphia, self-harm, and suicide 3. Porn, violence, and drugs 4. Sextortion, CSAM, and sexual exploitation 5.TikTok knows about underage use and takes little action
Hell, it's even a matter of congressional record!
https://www.npr.org/2023/11/07/1211339737/meta-failed-to-add...
it doesn't make it right, but this current political climate's myopic focus on tiktok alone destroys any credibility on this.
Jonathan Haidt has written and published huge amounts of posts, papers, and an entire book targeting social media and technology as a whole (not shying away from American-owned media, if anything, specifically targeting them). Literally yesterday, he published the same format of post against Snapchat [0]. Why does reading a single post targeting one social media destroy any credibility at all?
[0]: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
[0]: https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
I do not disagree that tiktok is a negative experience for anyone.
However the hyperfocus on Tiktok these investiationds had
on tiktok is entirely clear from the context.
What should be mentioned in an article ccondemming tiktok is that most other social media young people may try are horrible as well.
The amountr of sexual explitation that takes place on snapchat is quite staggering from what I have read.
I do not see how Tiktok would be any less of a threat and cause less harm if it is partially owned by a US company. There is no evidence that US social media doing a fanastic job avoiding harm for kids and teens.
I would go so far as to say modern social media is nearly founded on the idea of addiction, and endless attempe at behavioral manipulation to sell ever more ads.
What should be mentioned in an article ccondemming tiktok is that most other social media young people may try are horrible as well.
The amountr of sexual explitation that takes place on snapchat is quite staggering from what I have read.
I do not see how Tiktok would be any less of a threat and cause less harm if it is partially owned by a US company. There is no evidence that US social media doing a fanastic job avoiding harm for kids and teens.
I would go so far as to say modern social media is nearly founded on the idea of addiction, and endless attempe at behavioral manipulation to sell ever more ads.
> But when the Kentucky AG’s office was preparing to post their brief against TikTok, whoever was in charge of doing the redaction simply covered the relevant text with black rectangles. Even though you can’t see the text while reading the PDF, you can just use your cursor to select each black section, copy it, and then paste it into another file to read the hidden text. It is great fun to do this — try it yourself! Or just read our version of the brief in which we have done this for you.
I feel like there needs to be more education about redaction and obfuscation tools, namely this black box tool and blurring. It is usually possible to reverse blurring. Not redacting information properly is just embarrassing.
I feel like there needs to be more education about redaction and obfuscation tools, namely this black box tool and blurring. It is usually possible to reverse blurring. Not redacting information properly is just embarrassing.
Just saying "draw a black box" is not sufficient, you need to know the implementation details. If the software saves in a layer-based format, that's no good. If there is alpha channel then it's no good. If there is pre-existing compression artifacts that can leak information. You basically need to know that it does the dumbest thing possible when editing the image. I guess mspaint is probably the best option.
The problem is not TikTok in isolation. It's all of the deeply algorithmic based apps out there trying to get you addicted. Apps are able to utilize so many dark design patterns and there is almost no protection, especially for young people.
> An internal presentation on the 2021 strategy for TikTok describes the company as being in an *"arms race for attention"*
We have a collective psychological experiment in the form of social media, but short-form content combined with an endless scrolling feed is functionally identical to the experiment with the rat pressing the cocaine button.
It is not beneficial for the population to have an increasingly shrinking attention span. If you can't pay attention for 30 minutes to look up candidate position while voting, or you can't even be bothered to pay attention to that boring "politics stuff" in the first place, then we have a major problem.
We have a collective psychological experiment in the form of social media, but short-form content combined with an endless scrolling feed is functionally identical to the experiment with the rat pressing the cocaine button.
It is not beneficial for the population to have an increasingly shrinking attention span. If you can't pay attention for 30 minutes to look up candidate position while voting, or you can't even be bothered to pay attention to that boring "politics stuff" in the first place, then we have a major problem.
the same old story repeating with every generation. historically however, none of the 'devilish technologies' was banned
Like cocaine drops or widespread smoking? Or leaded gasoline? Or forever chemicals?
That is absurd. A competing children-harming platform that is not north american?
Only the US can harm children in industrial scales. Any threat to its sovereigness will be dealt with by our child soldiers.
Only the US can harm children in industrial scales. Any threat to its sovereigness will be dealt with by our child soldiers.
Huh?
I just asked ChatGPT to explain my own response. It got the tone and message good enough.
Give it a try! The prompt was "explain me this answer on an article about tiktok harming children" followed by my comment.
It will save us some time.
Give it a try! The prompt was "explain me this answer on an article about tiktok harming children" followed by my comment.
It will save us some time.
TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (FB, Instagram) - all this garbage needs to go, at least for anyone younger than 18.
We have a plethora of evidence on how destructive social media has been for (especially young) people and still nothing is being done about it.
We have a plethora of evidence on how destructive social media has been for (especially young) people and still nothing is being done about it.
It's not much better with adults. I see it even with people in my age (I'm in my sixties). I take long walks (several hours) with my dog and if I tell about it to people the same age as me, a common question follows – "What headphones you use?". I don't use headphones, it's only me with my thoughts. And people say that they can't do it (any more).
It's amazing how many people are absolutely terrified of a being a little bit bored.
It's good that you're able to go on walks without headphones, and we probably are too aurally stimulated as a society, but the Sony Walkman came out in 1979. You're applauding yourself for not falling prey to a mode of distraction that has been around since your twenties.
It has less to do with the availability of portable audio tech and more to do with the insane amount of media people feel compelled to consume.
Back then, if you rocked a Walkman, you carried 1 tape (about 60 minutes of music) that you listened to on repeat all day. That's very different from today's never ending stream of new media. A more interesting discussion would be about how we interact with media today vs back then.
Back then, if you rocked a Walkman, you carried 1 tape (about 60 minutes of music) that you listened to on repeat all day. That's very different from today's never ending stream of new media. A more interesting discussion would be about how we interact with media today vs back then.
That was way different. Finding a specific album from a specific band that you like and engaging with it is much different than being plugged into a nonstop 24/7 flood. People are listening to podcasts, audiobooks, or algorithm derived playlists.
Binge watching a reality dating show is not the same as intentionally watching a documentary about a subject you are interested in. The medium is not the key factor there.
Binge watching a reality dating show is not the same as intentionally watching a documentary about a subject you are interested in. The medium is not the key factor there.
But if the medium isn't the key factor then why did OP place the emphasis on the medium—headphones?
How do you know that their interlocutors aren't listening to self-curated playlists a la mixtapes or to a carefully selected audiobook?
How do you know that their interlocutors aren't listening to self-curated playlists a la mixtapes or to a carefully selected audiobook?
It isn’t about the specific mode of distraction, but that most people can’t go without it for any length of time. The ability to just “be bored” and allow your thoughts and observations of things around you to ebb and flow, without some sort of instant gratification, is a skill or discipline that is eroded by content stimulation. In the same way the discipline of a balanced healthy diet is eroded by empty calories and super caloric food that messes with your reward centers. If I say I am the only one that can avoid grabbing a donut when they are brought into the office, it isn’t about donuts specifically but an illustration of the broader problem with food.
I'm glad I don't/can't do walks with headphones either, I'd rather hear the sounds of the environment (either nature, or to know if an uncontrolled car is coming at me). Only if I'm sitting in public transport/on a plane do I put them on.
It's funny. I was in a waiting room the other day and everyone, young and old were passing the time on their phones. I just sat there relaxed and enjoyed the quiet and the fact that I didn't have any immediate obligations I had to fulfill.
I think it's because a lot of adults cannot empathize with the lack of self-regulation in children and young adults. They imagine themselves being able to reject the social media firehose (whether true or not ...) and have no real model of being in a formative state.
I was like this(having a lack of self regulation when young), in NA our philosophy leads us to think we have lots of ‘free will’ but our will is not arbitrarily strong and this should be our model of self. Celebrating individualism is good but taken too far makes us think ‘oh I could quit heroin at any time, it’s just a question of willpower, which is the best virtue’
That's a positive view on it.
My view is that the "adults" are just as addicted as the kids and are afraid to admit it.
My view is that the "adults" are just as addicted as the kids and are afraid to admit it.
There is a shocking amount of "Adults" who are just big kids really. It seems lots of people go through middle and high school and don't absorb anything other than "y=mx+b", if even that.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They were always loudly complaining about being made to read classical literature. "Whats the point" says people who insist they are independent thinkers.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised. They were always loudly complaining about being made to read classical literature. "Whats the point" says people who insist they are independent thinkers.
Sorry but have you seen "most adults"? They're the worst. It's how we have America ran by a guy who makes Idiocracy's president look amazing.
I know. I guess I tend to focus on the adults who I think are in principle trying and reachable, because I think there we can make a difference by popularizing the right information.
Impliying those are adults and not oversized children /s
> TikTok, Snapchat, Meta (FB, Instagram) - all this garbage needs to go, at least for anyone younger than 18.
All this garbage needs to go — period. We've seen time and time again that attempts to age-restrict Internet content with law just result in violations of privacy, while kids can still access such content with simple workarounds.
All this garbage needs to go — period. We've seen time and time again that attempts to age-restrict Internet content with law just result in violations of privacy, while kids can still access such content with simple workarounds.
Youtube (esp. shorts)
Do you think you could have a word with the other thread where Discord is introducing age verification (due to a new UK law) and people are acting like it's the Stasi?
People can be against the harms that social media inflict in children without supporting rampant violations of privacy.
Discord's case is especially egregrious because there's so much low-hanging fruit they could pick to make kids safer on their platform.
Discord's case is especially egregrious because there's so much low-hanging fruit they could pick to make kids safer on their platform.
To all the people saying- "but there are benefits!":
Well of course, numbnuts, or else no one would use this stuff.
There are benefits to caffeine, nicotine and other drugs that we still agree we shouldn't expose to children.
Because the harms outweigh the benefits!
Simply don't give your kids a screen. No iPad, no iPhone, no video games, no nothing until they reach a more appropriate age.
What that age is might vary from child to child, but it's certainly not 3 years old!
Well of course, numbnuts, or else no one would use this stuff.
There are benefits to caffeine, nicotine and other drugs that we still agree we shouldn't expose to children.
Because the harms outweigh the benefits!
Simply don't give your kids a screen. No iPad, no iPhone, no video games, no nothing until they reach a more appropriate age.
What that age is might vary from child to child, but it's certainly not 3 years old!
Stop framing TikTok, this is a social media problem which will continue to exist even if TikTok is banned tomorrow.
Instagram is just as bad, meaning it should be put to the same scrutiny.
It’s not ok just because it’s from the US
How do I pretend to fit in here, what is the actual number one proof that some random websites are "causing serious harm" to children? I had to stop reading to stop my blood from boiling at the quote below, before making it to the slew of legal pontification.
> As one internal report put it:
>> “Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” in addition to “interfer[ing] with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”1
This doesn't prove or imply anything. They can believe they are killing people (and probably do, especially with the "large amount of users = woah, i'm god" effect). It still won't be true unless they actually are (which I doubt, but I have never seen this supposedly ground breaking social media webpage before). There are companies causing actual harms on the internet and those are the ones censoring everything and spying on users (coincidentally, not to be a point against this thread) and making false narratives of why everyone needs to buy their spying product and put it on their web page and require using google chrome or mozilla firefox to view the website to be compatible with their spyware.
Edit:
I just scrolled through and only read the CSAM part because that's the only big enough bait to get me to read it and:
> PARA 112: these leaders knew about agencies that recruited minors to create Child Sexual Abuse Material and commercialized it using LIVE.
That sounds incredibly unlikely, when you interpret it at face value. So you're saying some good boy CS grad like everyone on HN - the most milquetoast people on the planet - just went from being afraid of even publishing easily rebukable misinformation, to knowingly assisting people in the most punishable crime on the planet?
> PARA 114: TikTok has long known that virtual gifting is used as a predatory grooming tactic on LIVE. TikTok has internally acknowledged that “perpetrators tend to use tactics such as gift giving, flattery, and gifting money to win the trust of minors.”
Are we supposed to conclude that "gifting" causes child sexual abuse? Okay, then what about the fact that being able to communicate at all does?
> As one internal report put it:
>> “Compulsive usage correlates with a slew of negative mental health effects like loss of analytical skills, memory formation, contextual thinking, conversational depth, empathy, and increased anxiety,” in addition to “interfer[ing] with essential personal responsibilities like sufficient sleep, work/school responsibilities, and connecting with loved ones.”1
This doesn't prove or imply anything. They can believe they are killing people (and probably do, especially with the "large amount of users = woah, i'm god" effect). It still won't be true unless they actually are (which I doubt, but I have never seen this supposedly ground breaking social media webpage before). There are companies causing actual harms on the internet and those are the ones censoring everything and spying on users (coincidentally, not to be a point against this thread) and making false narratives of why everyone needs to buy their spying product and put it on their web page and require using google chrome or mozilla firefox to view the website to be compatible with their spyware.
Edit:
I just scrolled through and only read the CSAM part because that's the only big enough bait to get me to read it and:
> PARA 112: these leaders knew about agencies that recruited minors to create Child Sexual Abuse Material and commercialized it using LIVE.
That sounds incredibly unlikely, when you interpret it at face value. So you're saying some good boy CS grad like everyone on HN - the most milquetoast people on the planet - just went from being afraid of even publishing easily rebukable misinformation, to knowingly assisting people in the most punishable crime on the planet?
> PARA 114: TikTok has long known that virtual gifting is used as a predatory grooming tactic on LIVE. TikTok has internally acknowledged that “perpetrators tend to use tactics such as gift giving, flattery, and gifting money to win the trust of minors.”
Are we supposed to conclude that "gifting" causes child sexual abuse? Okay, then what about the fact that being able to communicate at all does?
In the U.S. people under 18 are allowed to own and shoot firearms, typically rifles. It's silly to allow that that and then complain about a tiny box that shows videos.
Parents are responsible for their children. If a parent doesn't feed their kid, they go to jail. If a parent harms or allows harm through negligence to children, the parent is the one who suffers the consequences and has the child taken away.
If a parent is giving a child a phone and allowing them to use a harmful product, the parent is at fault and should suffer the consequences. Not the rest of us. I don't know why I should have my access to anything restricted because of bad parents. Parents choose to be parents and have and/or keep children and that is their business. Bad parents should suffer consequences and one of those can be no longer being allowed to be a parent.
It's one thing if a provider is specifically trying to get children on its platform - and if a company advertises its services in public places, it's again on the parent to be in control there. Social media companies aren't holding a gun to children's heads trying to get them to join. Kids wanting to do stuff because other kids think it is cool has always existed and that happens when children are not supervised or disciplined. Kids not doing what they are supposed to be doing of their own choice is a parental failure.
Someone under 18 shouldn't be able to purchase a cell phone, and if a parent wants to get them a cell phone, then the parent should accept responsibility for everything on that phone.
The addiction argument is tired. Anything pleasurable can be addictive. If you want people addicted to less things, design society where everyday life is less boring (getting rid of 2 hour commutes and having more parks would be a good start).
Parents are responsible for their children. If a parent doesn't feed their kid, they go to jail. If a parent harms or allows harm through negligence to children, the parent is the one who suffers the consequences and has the child taken away.
If a parent is giving a child a phone and allowing them to use a harmful product, the parent is at fault and should suffer the consequences. Not the rest of us. I don't know why I should have my access to anything restricted because of bad parents. Parents choose to be parents and have and/or keep children and that is their business. Bad parents should suffer consequences and one of those can be no longer being allowed to be a parent.
It's one thing if a provider is specifically trying to get children on its platform - and if a company advertises its services in public places, it's again on the parent to be in control there. Social media companies aren't holding a gun to children's heads trying to get them to join. Kids wanting to do stuff because other kids think it is cool has always existed and that happens when children are not supervised or disciplined. Kids not doing what they are supposed to be doing of their own choice is a parental failure.
Someone under 18 shouldn't be able to purchase a cell phone, and if a parent wants to get them a cell phone, then the parent should accept responsibility for everything on that phone.
The addiction argument is tired. Anything pleasurable can be addictive. If you want people addicted to less things, design society where everyday life is less boring (getting rid of 2 hour commutes and having more parks would be a good start).
So should we let people under 18 legally buy cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana? We definitely shouldn't monitor kids school attendance either. The parents should be the ones who regulate all those things right?
You probably don't have kids because if you did you would know that around age 13 you stop being able to just force them to not do things, you have to start to reason and compromise with them more. Without societal rules there will be many kids who drink, smoke, use social media and barely attend school. Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.
You can't just raise a kid in a silo, and if you don't ban certain things at a higher level the other parents get to have a massive influence on your kids expectations.
You probably don't have kids because if you did you would know that around age 13 you stop being able to just force them to not do things, you have to start to reason and compromise with them more. Without societal rules there will be many kids who drink, smoke, use social media and barely attend school. Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.
You can't just raise a kid in a silo, and if you don't ban certain things at a higher level the other parents get to have a massive influence on your kids expectations.
> So should we let people under 18 legally buy
People under 18 shouldn't be able to legally buy anything unsupervised except certain necessities such as clothes, food, etc. For the same reason they cannot legally enter into contracts.
> you have to start to reason and compromise with them more.
Ok, but if you catch 13 year old about to hurt someone, I hope you are pulling them away and not merely reasoning with them. If you can't keep a phone out of your 13 year old's hands, you failed as a parent or your child deserves to be institutionalized. You're still responsible.
If we are not going to have a communal model of childrearing, e.g. if we insist the optimum situation is that individual parents/families completely fund their own pregnancies, feeding children, educating children, etc., then the parents should own keeping the children out of trouble as well.
> Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.
Part of controlling children is not caring about every opinion they have, such as this one.
People under 18 shouldn't be able to legally buy anything unsupervised except certain necessities such as clothes, food, etc. For the same reason they cannot legally enter into contracts.
> you have to start to reason and compromise with them more.
Ok, but if you catch 13 year old about to hurt someone, I hope you are pulling them away and not merely reasoning with them. If you can't keep a phone out of your 13 year old's hands, you failed as a parent or your child deserves to be institutionalized. You're still responsible.
If we are not going to have a communal model of childrearing, e.g. if we insist the optimum situation is that individual parents/families completely fund their own pregnancies, feeding children, educating children, etc., then the parents should own keeping the children out of trouble as well.
> Those kids have bad parents but to a 13-17 year old they have "cool" parents, and now every other kids is gonna wonder why their parents are so lame.
Part of controlling children is not caring about every opinion they have, such as this one.
>Parents are responsible for their children.
If this is the case, why do we pass any special child protection laws that override what a parent decides is best for their child (and in a way that punishes those involved beyond just the parents)?
As to if any such law is appropriate or not, that would seem to be a question of how much harm is caused and if the law is aimed at preventing the harm. Many things are addictive, but only some of those cause enough harm to justify a ban to protect children.
If this is the case, why do we pass any special child protection laws that override what a parent decides is best for their child (and in a way that punishes those involved beyond just the parents)?
As to if any such law is appropriate or not, that would seem to be a question of how much harm is caused and if the law is aimed at preventing the harm. Many things are addictive, but only some of those cause enough harm to justify a ban to protect children.
100 percent agree. These politicians are trying to explain how dangerous TikTok is to our children while allowing general citizenry to own AR-15s. The hypocrisy is unreal.
The next question is, what lobby is more powerful: the gun lobby or the social media lobby?
> If you want people addicted to less things, design society where everyday life is less boring
I think society has never been so entertaining. I feel like we should instead learn to embrace the boredom. Life is supposed to be boring most of the time. It is healthy.
I think society has never been so entertaining. I feel like we should instead learn to embrace the boredom. Life is supposed to be boring most of the time. It is healthy.
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“Commenting for reach” doesn’t work on an AR or AK.
They don’t touch as many lives, and what a disingenuous comparison.
They don’t touch as many lives, and what a disingenuous comparison.
there are two kinds of hackers
those with children
those without
as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do?
honest question, if tough to answer
or maybe i'm only trying to explain why I don't have a model of being in a formative state.... I mean, dogs don't use tiktok
those with children
those without
as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do?
honest question, if tough to answer
or maybe i'm only trying to explain why I don't have a model of being in a formative state.... I mean, dogs don't use tiktok
>as a hacker without children because i got priced out of the market, why should i care about what tiktok does or ceases to do?
Because you want to live in a society where people have the attention spans necessary to e.g. drive cars safely without distraction and you want people to not be so vastly ignorant at scale that they collectively endorse or tolerate fascist behavior from governments and corporations?
Because you want to live in a society where people have the attention spans necessary to e.g. drive cars safely without distraction and you want people to not be so vastly ignorant at scale that they collectively endorse or tolerate fascist behavior from governments and corporations?
have you considered the fact that you have to co-exist in the same space as other people, and that negative societal outcomes can also harm you?
I think the first thing that needs to be broken up is Apple’s grip on how screen time can be exported.
If screen time data can be accessed, then we can actually know how much time we spend on these doomscrolling social media apps. Only allow X time and no more
If screen time data can be accessed, then we can actually know how much time we spend on these doomscrolling social media apps. Only allow X time and no more
or is it parents who don't control their children's access to such content?
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The world my kids inhabit, they spend most of their time on SnapChat.
Funnily enough, just yesterday the authors posted a follow up to this piece focusing on Snapchat:
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
https://www.afterbabel.com/p/industrial-scale-snapchat
Thanks! I think it makes more sense to have a thread about the recent article, especially since some of the comments in the current thread are criticizing the author for focusing only on TikTok, which is obviously not true.
Social media is hurting all of us on a worldwide scale.
It's a shame because there are good sides to it too.
It's a shame because there are good sides to it too.
China will need to have 4 undercover agents meet in the same place at the same time. They won't all meet each other, but a series of hand offs.
Conveniently, a small local college asian club wants to have a stop asian hate rally on the weekend of the 17th, at a local park which would be an ideal location. Tiktok gets word from Bytedance, who by Chinese law have party members on their board, that this rally needs to be heavily promoted organically to other Asians who live in the area. No ads, if someone talks about it in their tiktok, push it. Push it especially towards beloved Asian influencers with a large follwing.
The day comes and the turnout is a total blowout. A sea of Asians filling the park to support a noble cause.
80% of them are there because the CCP wanted them there to cover their operation, but when asked, every single one laughs at the idea that "Tiktok is a tool for propaganda". They say "I have never seen anything that promotes red flag communism or CCP ideals."
The scenario above is why the US government wants tiktok banned. The privacy stuff is second and the screen addiction stuff a far far third.
Conveniently, a small local college asian club wants to have a stop asian hate rally on the weekend of the 17th, at a local park which would be an ideal location. Tiktok gets word from Bytedance, who by Chinese law have party members on their board, that this rally needs to be heavily promoted organically to other Asians who live in the area. No ads, if someone talks about it in their tiktok, push it. Push it especially towards beloved Asian influencers with a large follwing.
The day comes and the turnout is a total blowout. A sea of Asians filling the park to support a noble cause.
80% of them are there because the CCP wanted them there to cover their operation, but when asked, every single one laughs at the idea that "Tiktok is a tool for propaganda". They say "I have never seen anything that promotes red flag communism or CCP ideals."
The scenario above is why the US government wants tiktok banned. The privacy stuff is second and the screen addiction stuff a far far third.
You think that TikToks strategic advantage is being able to coordinate “seas of Asians” so that undercover Chinese spies can meet, and presumably since all Asian people look alike no one will be able to know?
It's one example. More generally, think of any case where directing public attention in a particular way might be advantageous.
The takeaway is that you can be a useful pawn while being totally unaware of it.
Kim Jung Un had his brother assassinated by local actors who were hired to star in a prank video series in Malaysia. They killed someone while being totally oblivious. An extreme example, but these entities are way smarter than the average "I never see propaganda" tiktok user. It's totally idiotic to trust them, especially authoritarian governments.
Kim Jung Un had his brother assassinated by local actors who were hired to star in a prank video series in Malaysia. They killed someone while being totally oblivious. An extreme example, but these entities are way smarter than the average "I never see propaganda" tiktok user. It's totally idiotic to trust them, especially authoritarian governments.
youtube shorts, same - instagram reels, same - snapchat stories - same.
I honestly think the solution has to be external as these platforms cannot govern themselves and are incentivized to keep your eyes on them at every waking moment.
I honestly think the solution has to be external as these platforms cannot govern themselves and are incentivized to keep your eyes on them at every waking moment.
not just children. just go to testosterone sub and we have been getting weekly posts from 16-18 years old looking to inject due to tik tok gym bros. They are literally destroying their body.
Instagram isn’t far behind when it comes to questionable content.
I hold the opinion that any parent willing allowing their child use content apps like TikTok and YouTube unsupervised are knowingly harming their children and should be ashamed of their behaviour. And if this is you then shame on you.
It's honestly shocking what kids are watching on these apps. "Brain-rot" is obviously a funny euphemism that's come about for this content in recent years, but it's a pretty good description of reality. I watched a kid last weekend skipping YouTube every 30 seconds because he couldn't concentrate beyond a minute, and the content he was watching included a video featuring a dude who lives a house full of piss bottles. The kid in question is 7 for context.
The fact his mum just allows him to do this for hours on end I think is disgraceful. It's so obviously doing him harm and despite the vast majority of people being aware that these apps are harming children for some reason (I guess because it's legal) there is no moral outrage. It's vile parents are doing this to their children.
It's honestly shocking what kids are watching on these apps. "Brain-rot" is obviously a funny euphemism that's come about for this content in recent years, but it's a pretty good description of reality. I watched a kid last weekend skipping YouTube every 30 seconds because he couldn't concentrate beyond a minute, and the content he was watching included a video featuring a dude who lives a house full of piss bottles. The kid in question is 7 for context.
The fact his mum just allows him to do this for hours on end I think is disgraceful. It's so obviously doing him harm and despite the vast majority of people being aware that these apps are harming children for some reason (I guess because it's legal) there is no moral outrage. It's vile parents are doing this to their children.
We can keep social media, but the content algorithms must be made illegal. If Meta, et al. were really serious about communities they would focus on that, instead Facebook is a morass of anger and scams intended to feed the beast.
Ever since Meta was found to cooperate with Israel and ever since they tried to buy Tiktok through bids, I became sure all those articles are merely intended to control a social media outlet to control narrative.
YouTube shorts and Instagram reels are no better.
I think a tangential proof of this that is very telling and does get brought up often enough (but I’ll repeat it oncemore just in case) is that they have a different app in China, that’s the Chinese tiktok; Douyin.
Made by the same company and although it has short form content all the same the difference is that the algorithm in China is designed for Nationalist content, educational content and is restricted to 40 minutes a day for minors.
This is like the children of silicon valley CEOs growing up without phones and tablets and such but on a worldwide scale.
It’s frighteningly genius to be honest, douse the next generation of countries you are competing with with quick dopamine hits till they are basically just existing to swipe, scroll, etc and then rake in all the power for yourself / your own country.
This is like the children of silicon valley CEOs growing up without phones and tablets and such but on a worldwide scale.
It’s frighteningly genius to be honest, douse the next generation of countries you are competing with with quick dopamine hits till they are basically just existing to swipe, scroll, etc and then rake in all the power for yourself / your own country.
Douyin follows Chinese law which is why it has these restrictions. TikTok does not so it isn't allowed. Kind of weird what happens when countries pass legislation around activities they don't want instead of just trying to ban a foreign app while allowing all of the same dark patterns in the domestic competition. China just does a better job of protecting its citizens from this sort of thing. The US could have laws around social media for children like China, but they are more interested in perpetuating the yellow scare and maximizing profit.
It's no coincidence that the anti-Tiktok rhetoric is ratcheting up at the exact same time as the Trump administration is fomenting a trade war, and possibly an actual war, with China.
Every criticism you can make of Tiktok applies to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Reddit, Twitter or Snapchat. So why single out Tiktok?
Easy: because every other company is American-owned and operates in lockstep with American foreign policy. Social media is just an extension of mass media and both play a key role in manufacturing consent [1].
[1]: https://chomsky.info/consent01/
Every criticism you can make of Tiktok applies to Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Reddit, Twitter or Snapchat. So why single out Tiktok?
Easy: because every other company is American-owned and operates in lockstep with American foreign policy. Social media is just an extension of mass media and both play a key role in manufacturing consent [1].
[1]: https://chomsky.info/consent01/
How come this is off the front page :/
It's not surprising that TikTok is this damaging--YT Shorts, IG Reels, Twitter's auto play video feature after finishing any video clip originally embedded on a post are all lumped into that for my anecdote here.
Throughout the past four years or so, as more of my friends (all range 22-35) in my wider social bubble have started consuming shortform content in general, I've noticed that I'm unable to hold a conversation without my friends making reference to some obscure shortform video they saw.
It's fine, I don't think thats the crux of the issue I'm griping about. Reverberating things recently-seen is common in all conversations--I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't do the same. The only shortform content I consume are things only sent to me by my friends who would think I would enjoy it--most of which I do, but I leave my consumption at that. Having my social sphere as a filter in which I consume that stuff is the best way to keep it at arms length, at the expense of knowing everyone around you scrolls endlessly and deeper into it.
What's really the issue is when your friends are unable to talk about anything without prefacing that what I've said reminds them of something they saw, or reciting an opinion of someone else without actually forming their own. I'm seeing my creative friends drop their hobbies because they feel like they have no time for it anymore when they don't realize how much time they waste scrolling. While I'm in between tech jobs amongst the chaos of the market right now and moving across the country, two of my closest friends that I'm happy to be working with as they referred me this nice warehouse job alongside them, do nothing but scroll youtube shorts in between our tasks at the office and it's mind numbing and just sad to see. When I met them nearly a decade ago, they were making music and learning new ways to make art and perform, now it's just tiktok slop and memes and bottom of the barrel stuff.
I'm just one of two friends out here spurring them to make art again in an environment that is robbing people of their creative thinking, they're having a hard time finding how to even get into that flow state of creativity again. I can't imaging what that's going to do to children who want to scroll and never play.
Throughout the past four years or so, as more of my friends (all range 22-35) in my wider social bubble have started consuming shortform content in general, I've noticed that I'm unable to hold a conversation without my friends making reference to some obscure shortform video they saw.
It's fine, I don't think thats the crux of the issue I'm griping about. Reverberating things recently-seen is common in all conversations--I'd be a hypocrite to say I don't do the same. The only shortform content I consume are things only sent to me by my friends who would think I would enjoy it--most of which I do, but I leave my consumption at that. Having my social sphere as a filter in which I consume that stuff is the best way to keep it at arms length, at the expense of knowing everyone around you scrolls endlessly and deeper into it.
What's really the issue is when your friends are unable to talk about anything without prefacing that what I've said reminds them of something they saw, or reciting an opinion of someone else without actually forming their own. I'm seeing my creative friends drop their hobbies because they feel like they have no time for it anymore when they don't realize how much time they waste scrolling. While I'm in between tech jobs amongst the chaos of the market right now and moving across the country, two of my closest friends that I'm happy to be working with as they referred me this nice warehouse job alongside them, do nothing but scroll youtube shorts in between our tasks at the office and it's mind numbing and just sad to see. When I met them nearly a decade ago, they were making music and learning new ways to make art and perform, now it's just tiktok slop and memes and bottom of the barrel stuff.
I'm just one of two friends out here spurring them to make art again in an environment that is robbing people of their creative thinking, they're having a hard time finding how to even get into that flow state of creativity again. I can't imaging what that's going to do to children who want to scroll and never play.
TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter ... no need to single out TikTok. They are all equally bad.
This is in the footnote 12: "Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it."
But indeed focusing on TikTok is probably counterproductive for establishing general regulation. Why not just apply the same regulation to TikTok?
But indeed focusing on TikTok is probably counterproductive for establishing general regulation. Why not just apply the same regulation to TikTok?
They're not actually, many more children use tiktok than the others
Is it TikTok harming the kids or families who don't regulate their kids doing the harm?
In other words if I leave my kid alone in the house with a liquor cabinet, and the kid gets drunk every day, did the liquor do the harm or did I?
That's an imperfect analogy though, because -- at least in the U.S. -- our society has already aligned itself such that our institutions and our devices raise our kids, not our families. As long as we keep that norm, then in a nation that values free speech and capitalism as much as the U.S. does, we're certain to have this problem.
So as another commenter said, if we ban TikTok something slightly more benign will take its place, and that's because we aren't dealing with the real issue: we don't raise our kids anymore.
Personally I look at the commonality of nuclear families[1] as a big culprit here. Once you isolate kids from aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents you're left with just the parents to raise them. Those not rich enough to afford daycare have to either split the duty so they can afford a roof over their heads or leave the kids alone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family#Compared_with_e...
In other words if I leave my kid alone in the house with a liquor cabinet, and the kid gets drunk every day, did the liquor do the harm or did I?
That's an imperfect analogy though, because -- at least in the U.S. -- our society has already aligned itself such that our institutions and our devices raise our kids, not our families. As long as we keep that norm, then in a nation that values free speech and capitalism as much as the U.S. does, we're certain to have this problem.
So as another commenter said, if we ban TikTok something slightly more benign will take its place, and that's because we aren't dealing with the real issue: we don't raise our kids anymore.
Personally I look at the commonality of nuclear families[1] as a big culprit here. Once you isolate kids from aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents you're left with just the parents to raise them. Those not rich enough to afford daycare have to either split the duty so they can afford a roof over their heads or leave the kids alone.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_family#Compared_with_e...
The ship has sailed on hoping for individual solutions. Probably sailed long before we as a species could be considered homo sapiens. I'm not sure why there's this weird reluctance to make systemic changes and improvements, and instead solely pushing the responsibility on every single person that interacts with kids.
Nuclear families became popular long after our species was considered homo sapiens, and even today they aren't the norm for most of our species, so I don't understand what you mean when you say the ship has sailed.
I'm all for systemic changes, but lets make them more real than a national firewall, which is only treating a symptom, and instead focus on how we can make raising kids economically and socially feasible again.
I never said we should "push" responsibility on "every single person that interacts with kids," however, it wouldn't hurt if families would actually "take" a little responsibility in it. If we had UBI it would be a lot simpler for them to do so, but I'm guessing that's not on many peoples' list of systemic changes.
I'm all for systemic changes, but lets make them more real than a national firewall, which is only treating a symptom, and instead focus on how we can make raising kids economically and socially feasible again.
I never said we should "push" responsibility on "every single person that interacts with kids," however, it wouldn't hurt if families would actually "take" a little responsibility in it. If we had UBI it would be a lot simpler for them to do so, but I'm guessing that's not on many peoples' list of systemic changes.
The ship has sailed on us being able to deal with influences like modern social media on an individual level. Modern social media like TikTok, Twitter and even YouTube Shorts are fundamentally designed to take advantage of what our brains evolved into over millions and millions of years.
The nuclear family can't do shit about it. That's just a dream, an ideological fantasy. We don't need a dream. We need real solutions. "People should take a little more responsibility" isn't a solution. It's just empty wishful thinking and part of the reason why things are so screwed up today.
The nuclear family can't do shit about it. That's just a dream, an ideological fantasy. We don't need a dream. We need real solutions. "People should take a little more responsibility" isn't a solution. It's just empty wishful thinking and part of the reason why things are so screwed up today.
I think we're disagreeing about what real solutions are. To me, banning TikTok won't change anything because Instagram, Youtube, etc. will take over what they did and/or VPNs will become the new awesome. To you, altering how families are formed or making child care free, or establishing UBI are (probably accurately) impossible dreams.
So what would systemic changes and improvements would you make, keeping in mind the First Amendment?
So what would systemic changes and improvements would you make, keeping in mind the First Amendment?
> keeping in mind the First Amendment?
The first amendment doesn't apply to companies. Shutting down TikTok doesn't prevent you from exercising free speech. That's not how it works. Like, I'm not going to bother with this conversation if this is the direction you're going to take it.
And the fact that "Instagram, Youtube, etc." will just do it shows that regulations and laws are required. Systems that prevent companies from doing whatever they want in controlling the opinions of citizens in other countries. How is that compatible with the first amendment? Do you even understand the issue? Do you even understand the first amendment?
The first amendment doesn't apply to companies. Shutting down TikTok doesn't prevent you from exercising free speech. That's not how it works. Like, I'm not going to bother with this conversation if this is the direction you're going to take it.
And the fact that "Instagram, Youtube, etc." will just do it shows that regulations and laws are required. Systems that prevent companies from doing whatever they want in controlling the opinions of citizens in other countries. How is that compatible with the first amendment? Do you even understand the issue? Do you even understand the first amendment?
> The first amendment doesn't apply to companies.
It does apply to corporations (https://reason.com/video/2019/09/05/corporations-and-the-fir...).
While Tik-Tok writes the algorithms that allows advertisers and influencers to manipulate people, it's the advertisers and influencers who are doing the manipulating, and it's their speech that would be affected by any laws.
So yeah I guess we aren't going to be continuing this conversation. We just disagree on what is systemic and how to go about fixing it.
It does apply to corporations (https://reason.com/video/2019/09/05/corporations-and-the-fir...).
While Tik-Tok writes the algorithms that allows advertisers and influencers to manipulate people, it's the advertisers and influencers who are doing the manipulating, and it's their speech that would be affected by any laws.
So yeah I guess we aren't going to be continuing this conversation. We just disagree on what is systemic and how to go about fixing it.
Infinite scroll itself should be outlawed anywhere in the world.
ALL social media are harming children at industrial scale.
The author of this blog is one of the leading proponents of this idea!
I'm really starting to think all these whataboutism posts are bots. It just seems too hard to believe that so many people would come here to make this same idiotic point in response to a post by this particular author.
I'm really starting to think all these whataboutism posts are bots. It just seems too hard to believe that so many people would come here to make this same idiotic point in response to a post by this particular author.
You hear the addiction speak. These people are afraid their dependency may be taken away from them.
Just children?
This is NOT a productive discussion in this thread.
So is YouTube
absolutely, people are saying what about facebook, instagram, etc... but youtube has a much bigger impact on children than any of the older social networks
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As new tech, Facebook gave us Trump, I cannot imagine the nemesis that ChatGPT will bring about.
At some point in the distant future (if we haven't blown each other up by then,or reduced ourselves to Somalia) ..
We will figure out good robust rules and regulations to snuff out this depravity from the tech giants.
..
Thankfully, my kid is already in grad school. Maybe in time for her grandchildren.
Please add YouTube to the list. I'm watching my kids' brains slowly melt as they go from YouTube short to YouTube short like little crack addicts trying to get their next fix. Throw in a bunch of AI generated bottom of the barrel swill and I'm on the verge of blocking YouTube entirely yet again. I blocked YouTube for years because of all the garbage child targeted auto generated videos that were flooding the platform. It's very frustrating because there is a lot of good content that I would like them to continue to have easy access to, but the cost of entry is way too high.
I took me a while but I finally figured this out. I think the difficulty is a dark ui pattern that hides the control behind an age selection. In the youtube kids admin settings, there's a part where you select your kids age 0-4, 4-9 etc...
My kid is 4 so I never really looked at the later options but after probably 20 times on that screen, I noticed at the end (where my eyes glossed over the higher ages) there's something along the lines of "control content yourself".
Once I selected it, I could whitelist channels and completely disable search and recommendations. This means the youtube kids app _only_ shows what I say it can.
If I want to give him access to something like "smarter every day" or a specific video that's not on youtube kids, I can click share from my account and share with "kids"
We've still pretty much banned youtube on all devices but, like you said, there's a lot of valuable stuff and I really miss the time when he would get in to "tornadoes" or "helicopters" or some other topic and we could watch a bunch of educational videos without being flooded with trash toy videos and subversive attention leeching ads.
This at least opens the door back up for some of that good content without the garbage.
I considered doing the same but in the end decided I don’t want to use a platform I have to fight against, while still letting them build brand recognition to my kid.
So I downloaded a bunch of the videos on our desktop and blocked the site. Works for my 3.5 year old, not sure the plan when they outgrow it.
So I downloaded a bunch of the videos on our desktop and blocked the site. Works for my 3.5 year old, not sure the plan when they outgrow it.
>I considered doing the same but in the end decided I don’t want to use a platform I have to fight against, while still letting them build brand recognition to my kid.
>So I downloaded a bunch of the videos on our desktop and blocked the site.
Downloading videos from youtube and blocking the site seems more like fighting against the platform (and more work) than turning on a whitelist mode. Seems like the end result is the same but with more work.
>So I downloaded a bunch of the videos on our desktop and blocked the site.
Downloading videos from youtube and blocking the site seems more like fighting against the platform (and more work) than turning on a whitelist mode. Seems like the end result is the same but with more work.
I’m talking youtube-dl and VLC player. No YouTube logos, no concept of what YouTube even is.
Even the sidebar of recommendations is a dark pattern for a 3 year old. Unlike Netflix etc where you have to exit the video to browse something else.
Even the sidebar of recommendations is a dark pattern for a 3 year old. Unlike Netflix etc where you have to exit the video to browse something else.
Maybe he's downloading kid's cartoons from telegram… he didn't say where he's downloading from.
Telegram is a media piracy platform now? I had no idea.
Since like forever. No reason to downvote me just because you weren't aware.
I did the same and it’s great. At some point normal boredom kicks in and no bad habits are formed. I realized a while ago that many kids are primed early throug so many channels, it’s beyond despicable. At this point a big share of blame needs to fall on the parents turning a bling eye to it all.
boredom is an essential ingredient in the development of a healthy mind
Is there a modern parent sysadmin reference?
I miss portability of settings; configuring restrictions for an mdm is soul sucking.
I miss portability of settings; configuring restrictions for an mdm is soul sucking.
It's practically fucking impossible to have a normal amount of tech in the house and keep it under control, while also keeping things not-annoying for the adults. It's so much work, all because the tech is bad at providing simple and powerful solutions.
Everything lacks the basics, and nothing reads system-level e.g. content rating restrictions, it's all per-service and per-device and it's maddening.
Worse, the single most-useful parental control possible, an allow-list, is often absent from TV interfaces and steaming services. Allow-list just the PBS app on AppleTV? Impossible, there is no way to do a case-by-case allow list. Allow-list only the handful of non-brain-rot children's shows on Netflix? Nah, it's just by age rating. Et c.
[EDIT] Our solution, after years and years of banging our heads against this? App-installation blocked everywhere, no YouTube on anything, all streaming services cancelled because they're such a pain in the ass, and the kids have a large curated set of pirated content served by Jellyfin that they can watch when they get TV time, including some things pulled from YouTube by yt-dlp. If we want to one-off stream something for the kids outside of that set of content, we "cast" it from a parent's device.
The non-piracy alternative would be to go back to discs for everything, I guess.
Standard ways of interacting with "modern" media services are just awful, if you're a parent. They're so bad that it's easiest to simply abandon them.
Everything lacks the basics, and nothing reads system-level e.g. content rating restrictions, it's all per-service and per-device and it's maddening.
Worse, the single most-useful parental control possible, an allow-list, is often absent from TV interfaces and steaming services. Allow-list just the PBS app on AppleTV? Impossible, there is no way to do a case-by-case allow list. Allow-list only the handful of non-brain-rot children's shows on Netflix? Nah, it's just by age rating. Et c.
[EDIT] Our solution, after years and years of banging our heads against this? App-installation blocked everywhere, no YouTube on anything, all streaming services cancelled because they're such a pain in the ass, and the kids have a large curated set of pirated content served by Jellyfin that they can watch when they get TV time, including some things pulled from YouTube by yt-dlp. If we want to one-off stream something for the kids outside of that set of content, we "cast" it from a parent's device.
The non-piracy alternative would be to go back to discs for everything, I guess.
Standard ways of interacting with "modern" media services are just awful, if you're a parent. They're so bad that it's easiest to simply abandon them.
I pretty much subscribe to your list, with the further caveat the router I got for Comcast service has a USBA network drive port that can run a 64GB thumbstick of content. A single piece of content can serve 5 devices this way before you start seeing buffering issues. Great for car trips.
Identity needs to be redesigned on the web.
A family unit should own all accounts in the family, parents should be able to reset any password to any owned account from a central dashboard without hunting down email links and 2factor. I don't want to set up a management account for each service. I want all any services management options exposed by api and displayed in my central dashboard. Of my choice.
A family unit should own all accounts in the family, parents should be able to reset any password to any owned account from a central dashboard without hunting down email links and 2factor. I don't want to set up a management account for each service. I want all any services management options exposed by api and displayed in my central dashboard. Of my choice.
so make it
Would it help to do it with a kid on your lap, or otherwise actively involved? Perhaps you could put a laptop on the floor and make a game of it, and certainly in our line there's never any shortage of complicated words that can be said in funny ways.
I don't know. I didn't ever have kids, but if I don't mind letting a $3k laptop wear a few battle scars just for it participating in the life of a photographer, I have to suppose getting a little dinged up to help make a child smile must be at least as honorable.
For that matter, I recall a ferret - now long since gone to her reward, of course, this was decades ago - jumping on an Esc key just in time to cancel a Windows 2000 install, and that was funny enough to laugh about for years. How much more so with a cheerful, clever baby primate? Don't mind me, though. Just getting a little maudlin in my old age.
I don't know. I didn't ever have kids, but if I don't mind letting a $3k laptop wear a few battle scars just for it participating in the life of a photographer, I have to suppose getting a little dinged up to help make a child smile must be at least as honorable.
For that matter, I recall a ferret - now long since gone to her reward, of course, this was decades ago - jumping on an Esc key just in time to cancel a Windows 2000 install, and that was funny enough to laugh about for years. How much more so with a cheerful, clever baby primate? Don't mind me, though. Just getting a little maudlin in my old age.
Children still need to be able to explore the world themselves, I would say most of the time kids spend above 3yo should be without a parent facilitating their activities.
Also, adults have lots of responsibilities other than making sure children are playing constructively. Requiring over-the-shoulder collaboration for all online activity isn't realistic, especially when you have more than one child per parent.
Banning youtube has been a no-brainer for me. The loss of the "smart" shows is a cost well worth reducing attention addiction.
Also, adults have lots of responsibilities other than making sure children are playing constructively. Requiring over-the-shoulder collaboration for all online activity isn't realistic, especially when you have more than one child per parent.
Banning youtube has been a no-brainer for me. The loss of the "smart" shows is a cost well worth reducing attention addiction.
> I would say most of the time kids spend above 3yo should be without a parent facilitating their activities.
3 to 4 year olds are still putting things in their mouth that they shouldn’t be.
In a village raises the kid scenario, there would be older kids and neighbors looking after the kid, presumably with good intentions since they are neighbors.
But in a world (the internet) where anyone from around the world can communicate any of their idea to everyone instantaneously, the village is no longer raising the kid, so village rules don’t apply.
3 to 4 year olds are still putting things in their mouth that they shouldn’t be.
In a village raises the kid scenario, there would be older kids and neighbors looking after the kid, presumably with good intentions since they are neighbors.
But in a world (the internet) where anyone from around the world can communicate any of their idea to everyone instantaneously, the village is no longer raising the kid, so village rules don’t apply.
I was learning dos command line on my grandfather's lap at 3/4.
Reminds me of the time I tried using pkunzip to expand a shareware demo and filled the C drive on accident.
You could be taught to use those machines respectfully, if you knew games were available.
What does a family computer with minimal internet access look like in the constantly connected modern era?
Reminds me of the time I tried using pkunzip to expand a shareware demo and filled the C drive on accident.
You could be taught to use those machines respectfully, if you knew games were available.
What does a family computer with minimal internet access look like in the constantly connected modern era?
More to add, but I would like to note first that I suggested making a game of configuring an MDM profile (indeed natively miserable! Why else suggest inviting along a whole kid to try to make it tolerable, lol) and never suggested that manual filtering must be synchronous filtering.
Download tools and selfhosted video streaming tools exist for YT content. I run them myself. I learned to set them up based on a couple of HN commenters' passing mentions that it was easier than I had made it out to be, by following search terms from their comments, and by screwing around breaking things till they quit falling apart on me.
In other words, old-fashioned sysadmin work, of the kind I loudly hate and quietly love to. In aggregate, it took about two days' (ie ca 16h though not as closely tracked as if billing ofc) work, and though my notes are aides-memoires in no fit state for publication, I would be happy to share them privately and save you some of that time.
(This offer stands for any reader, and my email is in my profile here; to see those, click on the name above this or any comment. My fifty-year-old, brilliant but determinedly nontechnical, beloved catty bitch of an ex-boyfriend had much derision for the content of my library, but none for the quality of service. I confide you won't disappoint your family too badly, either.)
eta: What I wanted to add is this, a short and I hope not too dull piece which I wrote now almost a decade ago. Please excuse the state you find it in; my old website broke ages ago and this needs a rewrite anyway for that the man proved far more vile than I yet knew to paint him. But I think it still can stand as a hint of my real feelings on these matters, which might surprise you somewhat. https://web.archive.org/web/20220125083230/https://aaron-m.c...
Download tools and selfhosted video streaming tools exist for YT content. I run them myself. I learned to set them up based on a couple of HN commenters' passing mentions that it was easier than I had made it out to be, by following search terms from their comments, and by screwing around breaking things till they quit falling apart on me.
In other words, old-fashioned sysadmin work, of the kind I loudly hate and quietly love to. In aggregate, it took about two days' (ie ca 16h though not as closely tracked as if billing ofc) work, and though my notes are aides-memoires in no fit state for publication, I would be happy to share them privately and save you some of that time.
(This offer stands for any reader, and my email is in my profile here; to see those, click on the name above this or any comment. My fifty-year-old, brilliant but determinedly nontechnical, beloved catty bitch of an ex-boyfriend had much derision for the content of my library, but none for the quality of service. I confide you won't disappoint your family too badly, either.)
eta: What I wanted to add is this, a short and I hope not too dull piece which I wrote now almost a decade ago. Please excuse the state you find it in; my old website broke ages ago and this needs a rewrite anyway for that the man proved far more vile than I yet knew to paint him. But I think it still can stand as a hint of my real feelings on these matters, which might surprise you somewhat. https://web.archive.org/web/20220125083230/https://aaron-m.c...
16 hours is like 2-3 weeks of free time for children of young parents.
I cannot really explain to a non-parent how different the life of a parent is. We don't have the ability to sit down and do 16 hours of time in a project in 2 days.
I cannot really explain to a non-parent how different the life of a parent is. We don't have the ability to sit down and do 16 hours of time in a project in 2 days.
This is why parents and especially young parents need a community.
It's nothing for example I would shy away from administering for my neighborhood, tenant per family or account per family or whatever people want in each their own case - in the same sense we share other resources as a community, from a drop cord to a car or a bedroom. Indeed I have no kids of my own in large part because I was terrified I'd be homeless by 50, if I did not focus on building the kinds of skills that make this something I can do in a couple days without mostly at any time putting in a lot of serious effort - this was second-screen stuff I did mostly in bed with a cup of one or another of the embarrassing milk-and-coffee concoctions I like.
I never knew what I would miss that way, focusing on building a reliably remunerative career instead of fostering any other kind of social connection, until too damn late. I don't need to hear (and won't receive well) anything like "it's never too late;" no one else here is competent to speak to my personal regrets, and I speak of this one here only so I can cite it as one motivation among many to try to do something with that so hard-earned skill that makes a difference for folks whose lives are embedded among those of others in just that way I never learned the hang of. What else could I do that's worth more?
No one is asking me to do that for my community, not at the moment. I don't know if anyone else here would think of it; one major reason I bought here is because I've lived here enough years to know it is mostly unattractive to tech people and fast becoming more so. That's good; no monoculture is healthy and that one metastasizes.
So sure. In theory I could build something like a Helm chart or deployable Compose file, or some such awful useless other shit that no one with a life could ever make heads nor tails of. Those are all things I wasted too much of my one and only mortal life learning how to do, but there are no tools we make that a human can use so just that alone doesn't work. So then I'd have to turn it into a business, and pitch to YC just so I could say they rejected me, and eventually Alphabet would sue me into my next incarnation for threatening one Ads PM's metrics bonus best case, and all I ever really wanted to do was help the overworked parents around me make their kids happy in a way that was safe.
To hell with all that, it's for the chumps here whom I grant are in the majority but do not mistake me for one of them. I said before if you want my notes you can email me and I'll share them, Docker Compose file and all; if you don't have time to act on them then you can try to find a friend or family member or neighbor who does, if you still remember how to speak to any such person. Or trade someone for babysitting so you do have the time. Or let your kids learn something about what Daddy does all day! And if you're embarrassed of that, well, maybe you should be. Unless you know some grave occult evil of Jellyfin or yt-dlp, I don't see why you'd feel that way, though.
Any of those you're welcome to by me, or whatever else you like. Not my problem, but for whatever you find it to be worth, I would say any or all of them seems a better use of your precious time than to waste more of it whining to me.
It's nothing for example I would shy away from administering for my neighborhood, tenant per family or account per family or whatever people want in each their own case - in the same sense we share other resources as a community, from a drop cord to a car or a bedroom. Indeed I have no kids of my own in large part because I was terrified I'd be homeless by 50, if I did not focus on building the kinds of skills that make this something I can do in a couple days without mostly at any time putting in a lot of serious effort - this was second-screen stuff I did mostly in bed with a cup of one or another of the embarrassing milk-and-coffee concoctions I like.
I never knew what I would miss that way, focusing on building a reliably remunerative career instead of fostering any other kind of social connection, until too damn late. I don't need to hear (and won't receive well) anything like "it's never too late;" no one else here is competent to speak to my personal regrets, and I speak of this one here only so I can cite it as one motivation among many to try to do something with that so hard-earned skill that makes a difference for folks whose lives are embedded among those of others in just that way I never learned the hang of. What else could I do that's worth more?
No one is asking me to do that for my community, not at the moment. I don't know if anyone else here would think of it; one major reason I bought here is because I've lived here enough years to know it is mostly unattractive to tech people and fast becoming more so. That's good; no monoculture is healthy and that one metastasizes.
So sure. In theory I could build something like a Helm chart or deployable Compose file, or some such awful useless other shit that no one with a life could ever make heads nor tails of. Those are all things I wasted too much of my one and only mortal life learning how to do, but there are no tools we make that a human can use so just that alone doesn't work. So then I'd have to turn it into a business, and pitch to YC just so I could say they rejected me, and eventually Alphabet would sue me into my next incarnation for threatening one Ads PM's metrics bonus best case, and all I ever really wanted to do was help the overworked parents around me make their kids happy in a way that was safe.
To hell with all that, it's for the chumps here whom I grant are in the majority but do not mistake me for one of them. I said before if you want my notes you can email me and I'll share them, Docker Compose file and all; if you don't have time to act on them then you can try to find a friend or family member or neighbor who does, if you still remember how to speak to any such person. Or trade someone for babysitting so you do have the time. Or let your kids learn something about what Daddy does all day! And if you're embarrassed of that, well, maybe you should be. Unless you know some grave occult evil of Jellyfin or yt-dlp, I don't see why you'd feel that way, though.
Any of those you're welcome to by me, or whatever else you like. Not my problem, but for whatever you find it to be worth, I would say any or all of them seems a better use of your precious time than to waste more of it whining to me.
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My frustration is that you can’t add monetized videos to that list, so there’s a lot of great science videos you can’t add.
I started running Pinchflat and a Jellyfin server after I outgrew the restrictions in YouTube kids.
> My kid is 4 so ...
... there is no way in hell I'll give him or her access to the 'net. Right?
Right.
... there is no way in hell I'll give him or her access to the 'net. Right?
Right.
Unless you anticipate your child growing up to live in a world with no internet, it doesn't make much sense to raise them with no internet. Parentally-curated information sources seems like a more than fine approach to that.
Kids grow up in a world full of things that are not appropriate at a young age, but are perfectly fine later in life.
Personally, I worry about the mental models formed at an early age, and how distorting technology can be relative to the real world. It layers abstraction on top of abstraction on top of abstraction at a time when kids are trying to make sense of reality for the first time and establishing internal models that will stay with them into adulthood.
Sure, some carefully curated content may be fine, but I think there’s a deeper question to be asked about the impact of current technology on young brains. Adults certainly haven’t adjusted very well. The truth is, we don’t really know how harmful it is. Maybe we’ll survive the next 100 years to find out.
Personally, I worry about the mental models formed at an early age, and how distorting technology can be relative to the real world. It layers abstraction on top of abstraction on top of abstraction at a time when kids are trying to make sense of reality for the first time and establishing internal models that will stay with them into adulthood.
Sure, some carefully curated content may be fine, but I think there’s a deeper question to be asked about the impact of current technology on young brains. Adults certainly haven’t adjusted very well. The truth is, we don’t really know how harmful it is. Maybe we’ll survive the next 100 years to find out.
There's also what it's taking the place of. Even if it's not directly harmful, and I think that's one hugeeee if, it's a massive timesink that they would otherwise spent doing other things. And it's difficult to imagine anything that could be worse except maybe just sitting in front of the TV. Though even there, TV has the benefit of being much more boring, so the kid may be more inclined to voluntarily seek other entertainment; so perhaps even TV isn't worse.
There's more excellent children's content out there than they could ever watch in a lifetime. I mean videos, books, toys, games, etc. Why would you even need to give them access to the internet until they're 12 or 14 or 16 years old? You just need to curate the good content yourself (hard, time consuming), and that's it.
That doesn’t makes sense to me:
Everybody drinks alcohol. Should I help my toddler tryout alcohol to prepare to the future dinners, parties and weddings?
Everybody drinks alcohol. Should I help my toddler tryout alcohol to prepare to the future dinners, parties and weddings?
I was allowed to try sips of alcohol as a young child (not that young, though). I think knowing what alcohol tastes like is a pretty useful thing to know, for example to detect a spiked drink.
Oh please, kids will detect alcohol as a foreign substance and will hate it, nobody has to teach them that. And spiked drinks are usually alcohol based drinks spiked with other substances. Good luck detecting that!!
Not sure why you get downvoted without any arguments but to add support for your position, I had a similar experience growing up.
I didn’t want to drink before high school gatherings where there was peer pressure and I stopped shortly after that.
I see so many first-world westerners cringe at the idea of letting your child have freedom and make mistakes on their own. Tracking, parental controls everywhere, neighbors snitching when your child is out and about exploring the world, etc, etc.
I didn’t want to drink before high school gatherings where there was peer pressure and I stopped shortly after that.
I see so many first-world westerners cringe at the idea of letting your child have freedom and make mistakes on their own. Tracking, parental controls everywhere, neighbors snitching when your child is out and about exploring the world, etc, etc.
I agree with this approach, especially teaching your kids that "what you put in your brain matters" (kinda like what you put in your mouth matters)
Why? My generation only got access to the internet in high school. I got my first smartphone in my mid twenties. Yet I'm able to navigate the modern world just fine.
This, as someone without kids, I am SHOCKED by how many people are like... "obviously my 2 year old just watches the videos I want them to watch" as if they deserve a pat on the back. Why do these young children need screens?? Parents need to take a step back and question what has been normalized.
Skills compound, so the logic of I didn’t do x until age y, and I was still competitive, doesn’t mean that your kid will be competitive with their peers if they wait until the same age, assuming others are not.
Not that it means 2 year olds should run around the internet with unfettered access, but just that the aforementioned logic is not sound.
There is also benefit to being culturally in sync (not necessarily 1 to 1, but somewhat) with one’s peer group. It can be alienating to be the odd one out.
If it were up to my grandparents, I never would have watched a tv show or movie growing up, or read fiction novels. But while that may have had some benefits, it obviously would have some costs with me being unable to participate in some of my peers’ activities and conversations.
Not that it means 2 year olds should run around the internet with unfettered access, but just that the aforementioned logic is not sound.
There is also benefit to being culturally in sync (not necessarily 1 to 1, but somewhat) with one’s peer group. It can be alienating to be the odd one out.
If it were up to my grandparents, I never would have watched a tv show or movie growing up, or read fiction novels. But while that may have had some benefits, it obviously would have some costs with me being unable to participate in some of my peers’ activities and conversations.
But your generation got access at the same time. You were on the same page as your peers. I don't have kids but my friends that do worry that if they block their kid from social media, their kid won't be able to relate to other kids.
That is a valid concern, but certainly not for pre-schoolers. Once they go to school, peer pressure will gradually kick in and I will need to make compromises. I just wanted to challenge the notion that a 5-year-old should be able to browse the internet, because that is completely ridiculous IMO.
I anticipate my kid needing to live in a word with capitalism, it doesn't ncessarily mean that they need a Mastercard at 4 years old.
Same with many other things: condoms, keys to a car, access to alcohol. There is a time for everything, and at the age of 4, a young human probably has not yet maxxed out on analog stimuli opportunities.
I learned YouTube when it came out in 2006 and I was 21. I've got 19 years of YouTube experience and I'm doing fine. A 21-year old logging into YouTube for the first time in 2025 will probably be doing even better within days. (hours ? minutes ?)
I don't see any reason that a child needs "the internet" (for a value of "the internet" meaning "mass-market apps") to prepare for the future.
Maybe you'd want to give them "Scratch Jr"[0] at some point to give them a head start ; maybe that would make much more sense. But YouTube??
[0]: https://scratch.mit.edu/
Same with many other things: condoms, keys to a car, access to alcohol. There is a time for everything, and at the age of 4, a young human probably has not yet maxxed out on analog stimuli opportunities.
I learned YouTube when it came out in 2006 and I was 21. I've got 19 years of YouTube experience and I'm doing fine. A 21-year old logging into YouTube for the first time in 2025 will probably be doing even better within days. (hours ? minutes ?)
I don't see any reason that a child needs "the internet" (for a value of "the internet" meaning "mass-market apps") to prepare for the future.
Maybe you'd want to give them "Scratch Jr"[0] at some point to give them a head start ; maybe that would make much more sense. But YouTube??
[0]: https://scratch.mit.edu/
It's more like giving them pocket money than a Mastercard. Given the dwindling number of ways to spend physical cash these days, a prepaid card might actually make sense, if you can monitor its usage.
The only place I would use physical money that doesn't take a form of digital payment, is public transportation (And that one is a matter of time)
While there are many formative opportunities about handling physical money (The sensation of exchanging physical coins is big on a kids mind or knowing they have money and having missplaced it), I can 100% see a case for a card instead, trackable, instant access to emergency money, etc
While there are many formative opportunities about handling physical money (The sensation of exchanging physical coins is big on a kids mind or knowing they have money and having missplaced it), I can 100% see a case for a card instead, trackable, instant access to emergency money, etc
Why does a child who isn't even in school yet need the internet?
True, but 4 years old? The reactions that 4 year olds have to videos on screens is like drugs. They are fully hipnotized while watching the video, to the point that its difficult to get them to react to the outside world, and turning off the screen triggers some hard withdrawal reactions. At that age they have 0 tools to control and understand their emotions.
I certainly don't. Occasionally we watch photos or music videos together. There is no unsupervised device usage.
Side note: Just a few days ago I witnessed a mom letting her ~2 year old daughter browse TikTok while shopping groceries. The kid mindlessly swept to the next video every few seconds. I was horrified.
Side note: Just a few days ago I witnessed a mom letting her ~2 year old daughter browse TikTok while shopping groceries. The kid mindlessly swept to the next video every few seconds. I was horrified.
They don't need internet access at that age, don't listen to what other people say (trust your gut on this one)
My first computer was at age 13 and I had internet (broadband, directly) at 20.
Now, obviously both of those are very late for 2025+ and social pressure would be overbearing.
But I think internet usage before, say, 7, is useless. There is so much to learn in the real world before that, anyway (outdoors activities including sports, books, card and boardgames, crafting, ...).
Thankfully I live in a place where they're introducing school bans for smartphones, total ones in primary and during classes in secondary. That should reduce social pressure massively.
If all goes well computers will be introduced around 7, supervised (probably with a locked down Linux and various educational programs, maybe some simple multiplayer games, etc). A dumb phone will probably appear in a few years and a locked down smartphone as late as possible, maybe around 12?
I expect mobile device mastery to happen almost instantly, instilling desktop computer usage is the real target, maybe some programming.
Unsupervised internet usage is a tricky thing. Not sure when exactly, they need to learn about NSFW and especially NSFL. And of course about the crack-manufacturers employed by FAANG.
My first computer was at age 13 and I had internet (broadband, directly) at 20.
Now, obviously both of those are very late for 2025+ and social pressure would be overbearing.
But I think internet usage before, say, 7, is useless. There is so much to learn in the real world before that, anyway (outdoors activities including sports, books, card and boardgames, crafting, ...).
Thankfully I live in a place where they're introducing school bans for smartphones, total ones in primary and during classes in secondary. That should reduce social pressure massively.
If all goes well computers will be introduced around 7, supervised (probably with a locked down Linux and various educational programs, maybe some simple multiplayer games, etc). A dumb phone will probably appear in a few years and a locked down smartphone as late as possible, maybe around 12?
I expect mobile device mastery to happen almost instantly, instilling desktop computer usage is the real target, maybe some programming.
Unsupervised internet usage is a tricky thing. Not sure when exactly, they need to learn about NSFW and especially NSFL. And of course about the crack-manufacturers employed by FAANG.
I gave my kid the Youtube Kids app at that age. I curated the channels he was allowed to watch. It was pretty good. I loved it when my kid quoted random science facts to me that I didn't know.
YMMV.
YMMV.
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There's a lot of good stuff on the internet. More information than we had access to as kids. Better to raise them to be responsible, well adjusted humans than to shield them from reality.
Do they need access to that information at the age of 4 though? Almost certainly not. They don't even have basic reading proficiency until age around age 7 or 8. Kindergarten is still mostly focused on phonics.
> They don't even have basic reading proficiency until age around age 7 or 8.
Some develop advanced reading proficiency well before that, and the more they read the more likely that is to become the case.
Every child is different, but the more you assume they can't do certain things, the more you'll find that to be self-fulfilling.
(That said, that makes an argument for extensive access to reading materials, not videos.)
Some develop advanced reading proficiency well before that, and the more they read the more likely that is to become the case.
Every child is different, but the more you assume they can't do certain things, the more you'll find that to be self-fulfilling.
(That said, that makes an argument for extensive access to reading materials, not videos.)
This is completely wrong. Kids can easily learn to read at age 5. A child who is working on "basic reading proficiency" at 8 is very behind and has not been well-served by the people responsible for raising them.
Yes, but still I would argue that books are the more appropriate reading material :)
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Yeah, 100% with you on that.
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there must be a ReVanced alternative for web browsers, ever since cracking YouTube I find myself only using it when I want to search for a video because I have disabled the home screen and disabled shorts so I never see the slop
I use https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/improve-youtube-%F0... and my YouTube start page is empty... it can also remove shorts from the search results.
Untrap YouTube + Brave browser + Sponsorblock works quite well, too. I've disabled pretty much every "recommended" section: no in-video cards, no "related videos", nothing except on the main page, so the only way to get "random suggestions from the algorithm is is by intentionally refreshing the home page.
You are completely correct. I'm watching the same thing happen to my little cousin. Please hear me: take the phones and take the computers and take the ipads and make them go play outside. We do this when my cousin visits and it's amazing how quickly he shapes up. But there will be a point at which it's gone too far and the damage is much harder to repair.
You can youtube-dl whatever is good and stick it on a raspberry pi running kodi with no internet. You can get them el cheapo kindles and load them up with all the books they could ever read. You can let them use computers supervised for khanacademy. But please, as the rare adult who's aware of and cares about this issue, don't let your kids fall victim to it.
You can youtube-dl whatever is good and stick it on a raspberry pi running kodi with no internet. You can get them el cheapo kindles and load them up with all the books they could ever read. You can let them use computers supervised for khanacademy. But please, as the rare adult who's aware of and cares about this issue, don't let your kids fall victim to it.
I completely agree (I use yt-dlp to download curated content onto VLC on the iPad) but in practice, for two working parents and 2+ kids, there are often times where you're too exhausted to do anything but plop them in front of screen so you can take a sanity break / do some chores / prep meals / etc.
I'm fortunate enough to make enough to afford live in child care and a stay at home wife, so we're able to avoid almost all screen time. But the vast majority of families don't have this luxury.
"If you can't responsibly parent, why did you have kids?" This is a very difficult choice for many people. The drive to have kids is fundamental to being human. But it's very expensive and hard.
I'm fortunate enough to make enough to afford live in child care and a stay at home wife, so we're able to avoid almost all screen time. But the vast majority of families don't have this luxury.
"If you can't responsibly parent, why did you have kids?" This is a very difficult choice for many people. The drive to have kids is fundamental to being human. But it's very expensive and hard.
You could also plop them in front of toys or puzzles or hell even a movie on tv. All better than algorithm driven apps.
Yes, yes, yes! There is no way my 5 year old daughter gets access to apps like YouTube. Occassionally, I let her use a drawing app or we watch some photos or music videos together, but that's about it regarding mobile devices. She may watch kids shows/movies on DVD while I'm preparing dinner, but not more than 30 minutes.
She spends her time with toys, puzzles, drawing, painting, crafting, Legos, books, playing outside, playing with friends, playing with her little brother, etc. She can easily do Origamis for one hour. I hope I can sustain this as long as possible. I know it will get harder and harder once she goes to school.
She spends her time with toys, puzzles, drawing, painting, crafting, Legos, books, playing outside, playing with friends, playing with her little brother, etc. She can easily do Origamis for one hour. I hope I can sustain this as long as possible. I know it will get harder and harder once she goes to school.
Yes. I don't know at what age it's no longer feasible to restrict apps, but my young kids will never get access to youtube, tiktok, twitch until at least middle school if not high school. Until then, it's slower moving kids shows on Netflix or downloaded high quality content from youtube. And yes, even those are the last resort for when it's raining outside, we've already cycled through all the indoor playgrounds, no one is available for play dates, the toys and puzzles and books have been all cycled through, and both parents are unable to provide supervised play.
Agreed. Doing this from the start yields great results.
Imagine going the other way round is detox, you need to pushback hard since they will fight you on everything.
I think it's worth it even in that case. Though obviously if you never offer that option from the start, you're golden. Toys, puzzles, long form entertainment, etc.
Imagine going the other way round is detox, you need to pushback hard since they will fight you on everything.
I think it's worth it even in that case. Though obviously if you never offer that option from the start, you're golden. Toys, puzzles, long form entertainment, etc.
Yes, thank you. It feels like whenever this topic is brought up everyone argues between some false dichotomy of letting the kid binge on algorithmic slop or personally engaging with them in some wholesome activity.
Meanwhile a couple generations of us grew up with two working parents who were happy to just throw us in front of the TV or our lego sets when they needed a break. And that seemed to work fine?
Our daughter is only 2, but she's still absolutely thrilled whenever we let her zone out to some Disney movie on the TV, and has yet to even hold a tablet (that we know of, at least). I know things will probably change for us as she gets older, so I try to withold too much judgement from the parents I see happily plopping a tablet with YouTube in front of their kid. But for now, it's just hard for me to even imagine doing that.
I'm sure many would ask "whats the difference between a movie on TV amd YouTube on a tablet?" Well, tons, just from my personal experience. But her pediatrician, early child development professional we work with, and research I've read, all seem to indicate there's a pretty big difference.
Meanwhile a couple generations of us grew up with two working parents who were happy to just throw us in front of the TV or our lego sets when they needed a break. And that seemed to work fine?
Our daughter is only 2, but she's still absolutely thrilled whenever we let her zone out to some Disney movie on the TV, and has yet to even hold a tablet (that we know of, at least). I know things will probably change for us as she gets older, so I try to withold too much judgement from the parents I see happily plopping a tablet with YouTube in front of their kid. But for now, it's just hard for me to even imagine doing that.
I'm sure many would ask "whats the difference between a movie on TV amd YouTube on a tablet?" Well, tons, just from my personal experience. But her pediatrician, early child development professional we work with, and research I've read, all seem to indicate there's a pretty big difference.
A movie requires following a plot line for a sustained amount of time (like 1.25 hours). YouTube shorts are like 30 second dopamine hits that make a movie seem like a chore. Think about that. What we used to do for fun is considered by some to be exhausting now.
I was really shocked last week when I met two women in their early 20s in a bar. Someone mentioned The Lord of the Rings. I said I'd read it.
They were shocked! They were asking about the film.
And I was probably more shocked when they said they don't read books because they don't have the patience. One said she once read a whole book and it was really good, but hasn't don't so since.
They were shocked! They were asking about the film.
And I was probably more shocked when they said they don't read books because they don't have the patience. One said she once read a whole book and it was really good, but hasn't don't so since.
I have to disagree on this. I was not an "easy child", and there were periods where both my parents worked, but they never budged and pacified me. I never had a videogame system and didn't have a cell phone until I got a job and earned the money. TV was almost never permitted; generally when someone was sick or family movie night a few times per year. If they had conceded when my siblings and I were young, if they had established they were weak and could effectively be bullied into giving us our way, that really would have been poor parenting. It's how one winds up with spoiled brats. And I remember vividly during the various tantrums of various children, my mother in particular would tell us, "I refuse to raise a brat."
I know I probably sound incredibly boomer rn, but I see the effects of this in my generation (zoomers) and much, much more sharply with kids. I can't say it's "easier", but from my limited experience handling kids, it's trading a short-term hassle for huge long-term benefit.
I know I probably sound incredibly boomer rn, but I see the effects of this in my generation (zoomers) and much, much more sharply with kids. I can't say it's "easier", but from my limited experience handling kids, it's trading a short-term hassle for huge long-term benefit.
Both parents working makes child rearing extremely hard but there are some obvious taboos around this discussion.
The worst is both parents working high pressure jobs that bleed into hours outside of "9-5 on weekdays" and even when not working, the stress is omnipresent. I haven't met a single person who is superhuman enough to work one of these jobs and be an involved parent while not allowing their own mental/physical health to deteriorate. One of us had to become a full-time parent and the size of the paycheck determined who it was. Taboos be damned, it felt like life and death at that point.
You are right but in my experience sticking with clasic entertainment solutions works out better.
And I think people are responding to your dilemma with the very sensible solution of just not having kids. Unless you have a very flexible setup somehow, or lots of cash (or both), yeah, child rearing is nightmare fuel.
And I think people are responding to your dilemma with the very sensible solution of just not having kids. Unless you have a very flexible setup somehow, or lots of cash (or both), yeah, child rearing is nightmare fuel.
This is an area where Americans’ lack of a functioning government is so incredibly glaring and obviously harmful, that I’m amazed nobody seems to mention it. Have regulations become so stigmatized that sensible, widely supported steps to protect the minds of our youth (arguably every bit as important as ensuring their food is not literal poison) isn’t even worth debating? I think this is another symptom of how totalitarian capitalism has been allowed to erode the common sense of society well past the point it can reasonably function.
You can do both. I'm not sure why people have this as an either or thing. My kid (6) plays outside after school and watches youtube or whatever on her tablet. I don't consider it much different than when I did the same and came home to play videogames. I have greatly restricted youtube because I do think it's a blight on my kid's mind, but she has other apps like PBS and hell even good ol' digital junk food silver surfer. Everything in moderation.
In the 1990s, there wasn't a free TV channel for children in Britain. At the right time of day there might be two choices, later only one, then nothing.
It was not unusual not to want to watch what was available, and have to do something else.
I think this is a huge difference compared to modern video media.
It was not unusual not to want to watch what was available, and have to do something else.
I think this is a huge difference compared to modern video media.
To some extent I feel the same about video games too.
I watch my ~9 year old Nephew play games on his Switch and he swaps between games every ~5 minutes.
I think as a 90s kid we had a hand full of games for our Gameboys, N64, etc. but had to wait for a holiday to actually get new physical content. Now it's easy and cheap enough to just download a slough of digital games (with fast resume and what not) and hop between them like crazy.
I watch my ~9 year old Nephew play games on his Switch and he swaps between games every ~5 minutes.
I think as a 90s kid we had a hand full of games for our Gameboys, N64, etc. but had to wait for a holiday to actually get new physical content. Now it's easy and cheap enough to just download a slough of digital games (with fast resume and what not) and hop between them like crazy.
I have an 8 year old and I just curate the hell out of things he's allowed to play, and limit time consistently and ruthlessly. Right now he gets 10 minutes/day for video games, and his options are Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, and Braid. He's happy to play the games provided, and I'm happy that he's basically choosing between a math test, chess, and logic puzzles.
I give him another 20 minutes a day of creative time that he can use for things like TinkerCad or drawing apps. He only takes me up on it about half the time.
I do a similar thing with video content. He can choose from a very limited list of educational-ish shows (1 per day). Total screen time is under an hour/day, and I don't feel like any of it is brain rot. It does take more work up front for me on the curation end, but we don't need to revisit options all that often.
I give him another 20 minutes a day of creative time that he can use for things like TinkerCad or drawing apps. He only takes me up on it about half the time.
I do a similar thing with video content. He can choose from a very limited list of educational-ish shows (1 per day). Total screen time is under an hour/day, and I don't feel like any of it is brain rot. It does take more work up front for me on the curation end, but we don't need to revisit options all that often.
>Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, and Braid
Those are all great slow-paced single-player games with a lot of depth. There are no dailies, loot boxes, battle passes, or activity feeds. They're entirely self-contained with practically no link to the Internet dopamine sludge machine.
Those are all great slow-paced single-player games with a lot of depth. There are no dailies, loot boxes, battle passes, or activity feeds. They're entirely self-contained with practically no link to the Internet dopamine sludge machine.
Slay The Spire has dailies, but I get your point generally.
They’ll surely enjoy playing fewer games rather than an avalanche of content that will leave them disoriented, bored and anxious. It happens with adults too.
I had just a conversation with parent who said she allows her kids to play videogames only because it's the only thing they are able to do with focus. At the same time she is worried that they seem to be unable to listen even 4-minute pop hits from start to finish. They only listen "best parts of hits" – intro, beginning of first chorus, bridge and skip to next piece.
> unable to listen even 4-minute pop hits from start to finish
Maybe the kids have realised that those pop hits are repetitive and uninteresting...
Maybe the kids have realised that those pop hits are repetitive and uninteresting...
Or their attention span is simply destroyed by social media and YouTube.
Plenty of pop music is excellent. But if you give it 30 seconds you will never find out if that’s true.
Plenty of pop music is excellent. But if you give it 30 seconds you will never find out if that’s true.
I can't decide if username checks out or not...
To be fair, 30 seconds of Bohemian Rhapsody is about the maximum I've ever been able to handle!
Even when watching Wayne's World?
I had no clue what that is. Had to Google it, I thought it was a video game. So, no :)
Content length is not the sole determinant factor for focus retention.
I, extremely strictly personally, find TikTok ironically un-addictive for this reason: it depletes my attention too fast to get me hooked.
I, extremely strictly personally, find TikTok ironically un-addictive for this reason: it depletes my attention too fast to get me hooked.
My impression is that's a problem with Google Shorts.
Google has been trying to get me to watch Shorts since they introduced them with little effect.
One day they offer me a video of a Chinese girl transforming into a nine-tailed fox on Shorts which was a good choice for me. After that they want to show me endless AI slop videos of Chinese girls transforming into all sorts of things on America's Got Talent always with the same music, the same reaction shots, etc.
I tend to look at the recommendation problem as a classification problem [1] but one thing that challenges that is that the answer to "do you want to see more content like this?" is different for content that is 5% of your feed (you relish it) to the very same content if it is 95% of your feed (you're disgusted.) My own answer to the diversity problem [2] is to k-Means the content into 20 clusters and rank the cluster independently so I am always operating at the 5% point.
With ordinary YouTube content I frequently get introduced to something like Techmoan or Jay-Z videos that I can binge with relish the same way I can binge episodes of Shangri-La Frontier season 2. But shorts don't do that for me.
If I was developing a recommendation-based content site based on short content in 2025 I would take a cue from Yostar games and make it so people are actually discouraged from sitting in really long sessions but rather you get them to keep coming back frequently to graze. I'm amazed at how a mechanism like oil in Azur Lane can rescue you from a grindy task right when you are starting to get sick of it forcing you to either engage with some other part of the game or real life for a while. There are a few of us who will spend the holiday break playing Dynasty Warriors 9 or Asgard's Wrath 2 and realize we spent a few work weeks worth of time playing a game, but even then you burn out, I think mobile games are more successful at getting more people to spend more time with games, often with content that is thinner.
[1] ... actually every problem, Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog is not a joke in my pod
[2] which I haven't seen in the literature. I used to think that I didn't understand or believe many ideas in the recommender literature such as "negative sampling", now I think the recommender literature is frequently wrong
Google has been trying to get me to watch Shorts since they introduced them with little effect.
One day they offer me a video of a Chinese girl transforming into a nine-tailed fox on Shorts which was a good choice for me. After that they want to show me endless AI slop videos of Chinese girls transforming into all sorts of things on America's Got Talent always with the same music, the same reaction shots, etc.
I tend to look at the recommendation problem as a classification problem [1] but one thing that challenges that is that the answer to "do you want to see more content like this?" is different for content that is 5% of your feed (you relish it) to the very same content if it is 95% of your feed (you're disgusted.) My own answer to the diversity problem [2] is to k-Means the content into 20 clusters and rank the cluster independently so I am always operating at the 5% point.
With ordinary YouTube content I frequently get introduced to something like Techmoan or Jay-Z videos that I can binge with relish the same way I can binge episodes of Shangri-La Frontier season 2. But shorts don't do that for me.
If I was developing a recommendation-based content site based on short content in 2025 I would take a cue from Yostar games and make it so people are actually discouraged from sitting in really long sessions but rather you get them to keep coming back frequently to graze. I'm amazed at how a mechanism like oil in Azur Lane can rescue you from a grindy task right when you are starting to get sick of it forcing you to either engage with some other part of the game or real life for a while. There are a few of us who will spend the holiday break playing Dynasty Warriors 9 or Asgard's Wrath 2 and realize we spent a few work weeks worth of time playing a game, but even then you burn out, I think mobile games are more successful at getting more people to spend more time with games, often with content that is thinner.
[1] ... actually every problem, Hot Dog/Not Hot Dog is not a joke in my pod
[2] which I haven't seen in the literature. I used to think that I didn't understand or believe many ideas in the recommender literature such as "negative sampling", now I think the recommender literature is frequently wrong
Except google doesn't consider this a problem.
Just like modern casino slot machines aren't actually fun despite being made by the exact same companies as very fun arcade and home video games, it's just more efficient/profitable to optimize for the easily addicted.
A casino makes most of it's money from addicts, so why waste any effort/money on making actual "good" anything when they can just press harder on the addiction buttons. Everything in a video slot machine is optimized around pressing the very specific dopamine buttons in a gambling addicts brain, to the point that it is WORSE for those who are less prone to gambling addiction.
In the exact same way, google doesn't care if you watch shorts, you are less profitable than the user who spends all day doomscrolling. So the content isn't optimized for you explicitly because the optimizations that make it more addictive for problem users, and therefore more profitable, are diametrically opposed to making "good" media.
The creative mind behind Spongebob wanted to finish after one season. "It's done, it's good, I like it as art". But Nickelodeon couldn't let that happen because it was a cash cow. So it's gone for like 8 slop filled seasons, that everyone recognizes as "worse" than the first season.
But "Good" has never been as profitable as "Addicting", so any market where you can sell something "Addicting" will be completely filled by addicting slop.
Just like modern casino slot machines aren't actually fun despite being made by the exact same companies as very fun arcade and home video games, it's just more efficient/profitable to optimize for the easily addicted.
A casino makes most of it's money from addicts, so why waste any effort/money on making actual "good" anything when they can just press harder on the addiction buttons. Everything in a video slot machine is optimized around pressing the very specific dopamine buttons in a gambling addicts brain, to the point that it is WORSE for those who are less prone to gambling addiction.
In the exact same way, google doesn't care if you watch shorts, you are less profitable than the user who spends all day doomscrolling. So the content isn't optimized for you explicitly because the optimizations that make it more addictive for problem users, and therefore more profitable, are diametrically opposed to making "good" media.
The creative mind behind Spongebob wanted to finish after one season. "It's done, it's good, I like it as art". But Nickelodeon couldn't let that happen because it was a cash cow. So it's gone for like 8 slop filled seasons, that everyone recognizes as "worse" than the first season.
But "Good" has never been as profitable as "Addicting", so any market where you can sell something "Addicting" will be completely filled by addicting slop.
Well I know a lot of people who are addicted to TikTok or who bring disgusting foods to parties that they saw on TikTok or who are deluded they are going to be TikTok stars, I don’t know anybody who is addicted to Shorts though maybe there is one somewhere.
Just found out that my Spotify client added a Shorts-like feature where instead of playing my entire playlist, it just plays "excerpts" from the songs!
And at the opposite end of the spectrum - I've been using Suno AI to literally extend pop songs I like where the originals are only 60-90 seconds because of gaming the Spotify algorithm :-)
And at the opposite end of the spectrum - I've been using Suno AI to literally extend pop songs I like where the originals are only 60-90 seconds because of gaming the Spotify algorithm :-)
Relatedly, I just found out Spotify spent €2bn on comp last year. Would you say this feature is worth €2bn?
Well. On my desktop the feature always plays silently, so I figure something in my firewall is blocking some IP or domain it needs to play sound (despite the fact that regular Spotify playlist plays just fine).
So I would say this feature has so far been worth to me exactly two HN comments.
So I would say this feature has so far been worth to me exactly two HN comments.
> They only listen "best parts of hits" – intro, beginning of first chorus, bridge and skip to next piece.
I know adults who do this. I believe it's a lack of patience created by always available convenience. When nothing is hard it's not worth the focus.
Growing up there was no next/skip/shuffle - pick a radio station and deal with it. That or dub to tape which takes effort, and skipping also takes effort. Same with video games, as another poster mentioned we only got one game at a time so that was our focus. You had the new game and a few old games. Deal with it.
No ones has to deal with much of anything anymore and companies know this. And people dont seem to mind because its so addicting.
I know adults who do this. I believe it's a lack of patience created by always available convenience. When nothing is hard it's not worth the focus.
Growing up there was no next/skip/shuffle - pick a radio station and deal with it. That or dub to tape which takes effort, and skipping also takes effort. Same with video games, as another poster mentioned we only got one game at a time so that was our focus. You had the new game and a few old games. Deal with it.
No ones has to deal with much of anything anymore and companies know this. And people dont seem to mind because its so addicting.
Yikes this is terrifying! What have we done to people? This needs to be setting off alarms. I don’t know how anyone can be okay with this, let alone work at a company that contributes to it. Amoral it is.
>What have we done to people?
Uh, we monetized attention? Like, most of the people on this very board did this.
When you monetize something like that, of course it sets off an arms race and puts pressure on everyone's resources of attention.
The attention economy needs to be eradicated.
A newspaper of yesteryear couldn't print infinite ads. They had roughly a set number of pages, mostly down to the economics of printing itself, and had to find the most valuable advertising to fill that space with.
In the modern day, you can create more space. No longer do you have to curate advertising to ensure it is getting everyone reasonable value, because instead of having a competitive market, everyone just created digital heroin.
Imagine how awful the world would be if literally any shithead with a few dollars could slap a sign down on your front lawn that completely blocked your view and there was nothing you could do about it.
Don't imagine, because that's the very world software developers have built
Uh, we monetized attention? Like, most of the people on this very board did this.
When you monetize something like that, of course it sets off an arms race and puts pressure on everyone's resources of attention.
The attention economy needs to be eradicated.
A newspaper of yesteryear couldn't print infinite ads. They had roughly a set number of pages, mostly down to the economics of printing itself, and had to find the most valuable advertising to fill that space with.
In the modern day, you can create more space. No longer do you have to curate advertising to ensure it is getting everyone reasonable value, because instead of having a competitive market, everyone just created digital heroin.
Imagine how awful the world would be if literally any shithead with a few dollars could slap a sign down on your front lawn that completely blocked your view and there was nothing you could do about it.
Don't imagine, because that's the very world software developers have built
Your comment mentions that your nephew swaps between games every 5 minutes but it doesn’t say why that is bad. Or maybe I don’t see how the argument follows.
I think GP means it as a symptom. If you can't remain on a single game (which is supposed to be a highly entertaining, dopamine-optimized experience) for more than 5 minutes, what is the likelihood you can stick with any harder task in everyday life for longer?
Plenty of valuable things are less exciting than a video game in their first 300 seconds, and last much longer than 5 minutes.
Plenty of valuable things are less exciting than a video game in their first 300 seconds, and last much longer than 5 minutes.
When I was a child, my parents had me work on a lot of puzzles. They saw this as a way to build attention span, ability to focus, and persistence to achieve long term goals (not to mention that we had the coolest, most intricate puzzles). I would probably work with my children work on something a bit more constructive and realistic, but the point is that as children we build intellectual habits and attention span from what we do, and being unable to focus on highly addictive stimuli for more than five minutes is a symptom of a strong deficit. One might even consider it an intellectual disability.
cheap enough meaning parents are paying and enabling
... does this mean $80/ea. Switch 2 cartridges are completely justified
You can put 80 hours or more into an AAA game so I think you get more entertainment out of an expensive game than you do out of a movie that costs $12 for 2 hours.
Trouble is today's AAA game competes with yesterday's AAA game on sale or an AAA game a little older than that used at Gamestop for $10 minus your $5 pro discount. Or a mobile game that will suck in more people for longer that costs most players $0.00 but finds enough people who crave what premium currency can buy (or who just find a $5/month subscription enhances their fun) that they are dominating the industry in terms of revenue and leaving the business folks wondering if they can afford to go on developing AAA games.
Trouble is today's AAA game competes with yesterday's AAA game on sale or an AAA game a little older than that used at Gamestop for $10 minus your $5 pro discount. Or a mobile game that will suck in more people for longer that costs most players $0.00 but finds enough people who crave what premium currency can buy (or who just find a $5/month subscription enhances their fun) that they are dominating the industry in terms of revenue and leaving the business folks wondering if they can afford to go on developing AAA games.
> a mobile game that will suck in more people for longer that costs most players $0.00
You realize that most mobile gaming operate on the same aspects of exploiting addiction, manipulating young people, and so on, who don't understand the value of money or have a distorted perception of how much things cost.
Somewhere between 1% to 5% of all the players that play the game are addicted or hooked into addiction through the use of dark patterns, behavioral manipulation or intentionally misleading game mechanics. They account for a "whale's" portion of the revenue.
They shouldn't be allowed, honestly.
You realize that most mobile gaming operate on the same aspects of exploiting addiction, manipulating young people, and so on, who don't understand the value of money or have a distorted perception of how much things cost.
Somewhere between 1% to 5% of all the players that play the game are addicted or hooked into addiction through the use of dark patterns, behavioral manipulation or intentionally misleading game mechanics. They account for a "whale's" portion of the revenue.
They shouldn't be allowed, honestly.
Yeah, but many of them are good games, otherwise, in an industry that is often failing to connect with fans. Nikki is heartwarming, Arknights is a tower defense game in a decade that hasn’t had any, like it not Azur Lane has inspired more fandom than almost anything, I meet so many players that got into Genshin Impact who aren’t playing tired JRPGs.
I mean -
- if the kid cannot play each of cheap games for more than 5 minutes straight, likely cost >$80 total, does it make sense to buy them multiple games?
- if answer to above is `false`, does it really matter if the game in the bundle cost $80 if bought separately?I mean, Calvin Ball is a real game kids play where they change the rules constantly. It's somewhat of a natural kid thing that they grow out of.
True, but I don't think Calvin Ball rewards the brain as much as YouTube or video games (a personal take of course). Loads of people of all ages are "suffering" from shortened attention spans with YouTube, TikTok, games, etc. but I haven't heard of any having the same with Calvin Ball.
I do miss me some Calvin Ball though.
I do miss me some Calvin Ball though.
We used to call it "Superman" in the late 1970s and I thought it was no fun at all.
The author of this blog wrote a whole freaking book about exactly this!
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. How is this like 95% of the comments here, as if Haidt didn't write an incredibly well known book about how all of this is bad!
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. How is this like 95% of the comments here, as if Haidt didn't write an incredibly well known book about how all of this is bad!
Most people here didn't even follow the link and are just responding to the title. They don't know who wrote the piece, much less what it actually says.
They've also been scrolling too much.. Their attention span cant handle it lol.
Their propensity for scrolling has degraded their ability to criticize it.
Their propensity for scrolling has degraded their ability to criticize it.
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I don't get what you are trying to say? Can't people share their experiences?
This comment isn't so bad, but there were a bunch of comments earlier that were implying or stating outright that the author of TFA was targeting TikTok specifically for political reasons, which is clearly nonsense if you have even a passing familiarity with Haidt's body of work.
OP followed a similar pattern by starting with "please add YouTube to the list", but they did at least elaborate and didn't imply that TikTok was being targeted unfairly.
OP followed a similar pattern by starting with "please add YouTube to the list", but they did at least elaborate and didn't imply that TikTok was being targeted unfairly.
You're totally right. I wouldn't have written what I wrote, if I had seen this comment before seeing the ten thousand other comments on this page that just say "whatabout {other social media app}". Not fair to the author of this comment who was just sharing an experience. Too late to delete it now, so I just have to live with my shame :)
Because even though he is reposted here every few months not everyone has deigned to actually read any of his stuff
That's fine, but if you're going to post "now do X" in response to a criticism of Y, it behooves you to understand whether the author might have already opined on X.
disable Youtube history and no more shorts or AI suggested content. It quickly becomes a useful tool since you can see channels you subscribe to or if you are interested in a subject you have to search for it instead of getting pulled in the AI suggested contents as soon as you open the app.
THANK YOU so much for this. I'd spend some time researching how to disable YouTube shorts only to come to the conclusion that I had to use a different client (I picked NewPipe, but faced frequent issues with playback and I ended up having to click out to YouTube 90% of the time anyway)
I've disabled YouTube history now and it's almost exactly what I'd hoped for. Shorts are disabled, no 'feed', no suggestions, just my subscriptions. I owe you a beer.
I've disabled YouTube history now and it's almost exactly what I'd hoped for. Shorts are disabled, no 'feed', no suggestions, just my subscriptions. I owe you a beer.
My pleasure, I went down that rabbit hole myself until I saw a comment in reddit that helped me to make youtube the way I like it. I am just passing it forward and glad to hear it helped you.
We're trying a new thing in our house to curb the dopamine addiction.
Screens allowed every 2nd day. So far it has been working well, and our kid always finds something creative to do on the screen free days.
Screens allowed every 2nd day. So far it has been working well, and our kid always finds something creative to do on the screen free days.
This is an interesting idea thanks! I realize mine (by coincidence) do something similar but it's in two day stretches.
They want to play Minecraft sometimes but other times they want to go play outside or play with their toys or watch a show.
They definitely have a harder time stopping some kinds of shows though regardless of only watching them some days so I have to remove some them.
They want to play Minecraft sometimes but other times they want to go play outside or play with their toys or watch a show.
They definitely have a harder time stopping some kinds of shows though regardless of only watching them some days so I have to remove some them.
Have you considered switching to Nebula? A lot of the YouTubers I like and tend to trust are also active on that platform. Will there is still some fluff, Nebula does seem to be far more discerning about the content it hosts.
Yeah. From time to time, you hear that reading books is somehow obsolete, and that valuing books reflects an undue emphasis on medium rather than content. This view is mistaken. The form in which information is delivered is not irrelevant to how it is processed, understood, or retained. There is a crucial difference between sustained engagement with a coherent body of thought and the piecemeal consumption of isolated informational fragments.
Short-form content, whether in the form of articles, posts, or "snippets", habituates the reader to a fragmented mode of attention. Over time, this practice undermines the capacity for deep focus and coherent understanding. The effects are cumulative: what is lost is not merely quantity of information, but quality of comprehension. Certain kinds of understanding only emerge over time, in context, and in continuity. A complex argument, or a meaningful dialogue, cannot be replaced by a summary or a highlight reel. To suggest it can overlooks the way serious thought takes place.
Short-form content, whether in the form of articles, posts, or "snippets", habituates the reader to a fragmented mode of attention. Over time, this practice undermines the capacity for deep focus and coherent understanding. The effects are cumulative: what is lost is not merely quantity of information, but quality of comprehension. Certain kinds of understanding only emerge over time, in context, and in continuity. A complex argument, or a meaningful dialogue, cannot be replaced by a summary or a highlight reel. To suggest it can overlooks the way serious thought takes place.
Continuously frustrated to see the YouTube app return to my Apple TV home screen. I can appreciate why Google makes it hard for me to block their apps on their platforms, but why won't Apple allow me to explicitly allow or disallow which apps can be installed on my Apple TV? Why don't screen time limits apply to the Apple TV?
The lack of screen time limits on the Apple TV just demonstrates Apple's complete lack of credibility in this area too.
And the parental controls on their other devices are illogical and remarkably buggy. Clearly not a priority.
And the parental controls on their other devices are illogical and remarkably buggy. Clearly not a priority.
Huh? I can remove the YouTube app from my AppleTV
https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/install-or-delete-apps-at...
https://support.apple.com/guide/tv/install-or-delete-apps-at...
The kids can easily add back free apps with their Apple ID.
Google has created Family Link app to allow parents to control the allowed screen time, apps they can see and sites they can open etc. Conveniently, they allow blacklist/whitelist only at a domain level and YouTube shorts have the same domain as YouTube i.e. https://www.youtube.com/shorts - they could have very easily provided a regex/pattern based blacklist/whitelist feature. Blocking YouTube in its entirety is not feasible because lots of educational videos are hosted on it. The only option is to externalize the filtering via pihole etc.
I suppose allowing parents to prevent their kids from watching the inane garbage that is shorts is a step too far in Google's books.
I suppose allowing parents to prevent their kids from watching the inane garbage that is shorts is a step too far in Google's books.
I'm thinking that piHole wouldn't work for the same reason? (it's all on the same domain, so DNS-based filtering would be worthless)
Seems like piHole does support regex based filtering: https://docs.pi-hole.net/regex/
Yes, but the regex is still run at the DNS-filter level, so you can use the regex to filter IPs or domains, not URL paths.
You can filter
You can filter
(.*).youtube.com
youtube.com/(.*)Thanks for checking it - bad news all around I guess.
I noticed just last week Youtube Shorts (and long vids too) have become so full of fake AI Generated stuff it's not even worth watching. Sure it looks perfectly real,even if it's fake, but as an adult I find it just a waste of time. However children cannot TELL which things are fake quite as well as an adult can, so they'll end up basically going insane watching that crap, and end up with a very distorted view of the world.
It's truly a National Security issue at this point. I hope America bans TikTok, and if I had children they wouldn't be allowed to watch this garbage. Sadly most Americans value their "friendship" with their kids more than they value their parenting responsibilities, and so they let the kids do whatever they want just so they stay on good terms with them without the kids being mad all the time.
Also today's generation of moms and dads all grew up in the internet world, so to them, blocking technology from their kids seems like abuse of a sort, when it's not.
It's truly a National Security issue at this point. I hope America bans TikTok, and if I had children they wouldn't be allowed to watch this garbage. Sadly most Americans value their "friendship" with their kids more than they value their parenting responsibilities, and so they let the kids do whatever they want just so they stay on good terms with them without the kids being mad all the time.
Also today's generation of moms and dads all grew up in the internet world, so to them, blocking technology from their kids seems like abuse of a sort, when it's not.
I commented on here before about this. I'm certainly not perfect, but what I've done is basically YouTube is something the kid doesn't watch on their own. They can watch documentaries with me or whatever (occasionally some video game stuff), but almost all YouTube kids is awful. There are a lot of really good kids shows out there across different streaming services with actual plots and character development that make them think without frying their brains. For a kid in the 8-14 year range: Avatar the Last Airbender, Gravity Falls, Owl House, Dragon Prince...etc are prob fine depending on the kid (dragon Prince is a bit darker). As a parent you need to make sure they're not watching content you object to though. I'll also find some episodes of something like Star Trek that is interesting with some moral dilemmas and just talk it out with them. TV is fine in moderation. Make sure you keep reading to them as well.
I’m building a new YouTube player experience for my kids.
You can block shorts. Block keywords (e.g. Minecraft, MrBeast)
Email me if you’d like to test.
[email protected]
You can block shorts. Block keywords (e.g. Minecraft, MrBeast)
Email me if you’d like to test.
[email protected]
I'll only respond to this but I do see a lot of people share your viewpoint. I think I agree with you partially. There are ways to rot the brain on YouTube. I noticed it maybe 8-9 years ago for me. I unsubscribed from all the gaming channels and only watched tech/EE/CS videos. It got to the point where in college I had weeks of 40+ hours of YouTube (does it adjust for 2x speed? Unsure) but it was mostly on STEM content. I believe that's what let me ace my classes in my later years. I just learned better from them than reading textbooks.
So, please don't give up on trying to only block the brainrot. Also, kids are crafty and usually have more time than adults so be prepared to fight an uphill battle once they figure out VPNs, DNS, and other ways.
So, please don't give up on trying to only block the brainrot. Also, kids are crafty and usually have more time than adults so be prepared to fight an uphill battle once they figure out VPNs, DNS, and other ways.
I wish YouTube allowed a filter for minimum video length. I don’t want my kid watching anything under 5 minutes, ideally 10 minutes long.
My biggest concern is the attention thrashing. If they’re going to watch some garbage, at least be stuck with it for 10 minutes so you’ll get bored of it…
My biggest concern is the attention thrashing. If they’re going to watch some garbage, at least be stuck with it for 10 minutes so you’ll get bored of it…
We banned YouTube entirely for the kid, best decision we ever made.
All the (popular) social medias morph towards the tiktok short form content. Instagram, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Snapchat, YouTube, etc.
It’s the most attention holding thing a.t.m.
It’s the most attention holding thing a.t.m.
Some of my relatives and colleagues actually actively encourage this. They give them an iPad with YouTube on it after meals and so on. It acts as a pacifier.
Are you so confident that they're not doing so in a limited and appropriate manner?
There’s no appropriate level of short form swipe through content for kids. Adults can barely cope with it.
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The only solution I have found is using YouTube kids (and now Pinchflat) and only allow approved content.
I wrote a blog post about it here: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids
I wrote a blog post about it here: https://abparenting.substack.com/p/effective-youtube-kids
There are alternatives to YT for educational content, like Nebula. However, even that platform lacks control and it's slowly getting flooded with non educational content. It sucks because there is no solution here short of curating your content via ytdl and rolling your own YT like software.
An awesome app would be something that could hijack algorithms for various social media apps on home WiFi and feed kids parent-approved content silently without them even knowing, and messing with search results so they struggle to find things you don’t want them to see.
Related: I pay for YouTube premium and there is still no way to hide/ignore Shorts in the entire platform or any of their apps. It’s infuriating, and a feature that is badly needed. It should be there for free but at the very least allow premium paying users to hide that garbage.
Why do you pay for a platform that is actively hostile to you and the creators who produce content you like?
This is the primary reason I won't ever pay for premium. Youtube actively works against the interests of creators I have been following since before Youtube even existed. There's always some bullshit going on. I'm a grown ass man watching other grown ass men (they had to click the checkbox that their content is NOT FOR KIDS), but if they say "Fuck" too many times they still make zero dollars.
If I could see the ads, I know they are often softcore pornography or literal scams, but god forbid those companies get placed next to someone saying fuck I guess.
Google has spent near two decades reducing how much money they pay you for your content, despite their market only increasing. They treat content creators like dirt.
Google doesn't want ten thousand Simon Gertz and BPS.Space and AvEs and Applied Science and Practical Engineerings and Stuff Made Heres. Google doesn't want the channel that covered WW1 and WW2 in "real time". Google doesn't want Dan Olsen (Folding Ideas) content. Google doesn't want LGR.
Google wants 100 Mr Beasts. Google wants a hundred more fake "crafts" channels. Why pay money to that?
This is the primary reason I won't ever pay for premium. Youtube actively works against the interests of creators I have been following since before Youtube even existed. There's always some bullshit going on. I'm a grown ass man watching other grown ass men (they had to click the checkbox that their content is NOT FOR KIDS), but if they say "Fuck" too many times they still make zero dollars.
If I could see the ads, I know they are often softcore pornography or literal scams, but god forbid those companies get placed next to someone saying fuck I guess.
Google has spent near two decades reducing how much money they pay you for your content, despite their market only increasing. They treat content creators like dirt.
Google doesn't want ten thousand Simon Gertz and BPS.Space and AvEs and Applied Science and Practical Engineerings and Stuff Made Heres. Google doesn't want the channel that covered WW1 and WW2 in "real time". Google doesn't want Dan Olsen (Folding Ideas) content. Google doesn't want LGR.
Google wants 100 Mr Beasts. Google wants a hundred more fake "crafts" channels. Why pay money to that?
Download content of your choosing (yeah, you can even DL from youtube), put it offline and let kids watch from a playlist you curated yourself. Yank off any wifi connectivity, it’s poison finds ways to dumb down the kids.
Yes, you should prohibit it.
You should have never introduced them to it in the first place.
Not trying to be mean- just trying to be frank.
Our kids get almost no screen time. We watch a movie once a week as a family. That's it. We have no problems because we have never introduced screens to them beyond that.
Our kids like playing outside.
You should have never introduced them to it in the first place.
Not trying to be mean- just trying to be frank.
Our kids get almost no screen time. We watch a movie once a week as a family. That's it. We have no problems because we have never introduced screens to them beyond that.
Our kids like playing outside.
[deleted]
Yeah, me too.
It will be blocked again and just handpickes local videos and games to choose from. I never thought I would have to do this as an adult, but what else you do?
It will be blocked again and just handpickes local videos and games to choose from. I never thought I would have to do this as an adult, but what else you do?
Disable “watch history” and Shorts will go away.
Wait, really?
I work at Google and that is what people are telling each other when the issue of “I don’t want my kids to see this” comes up.
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YouTube really needs to provide an option in their mobile app to disable shorts.
I think as a parent you're supposed to... prevent that by talking to them?
I say block it again. Get those kids outside in the creek!
You have to filter it manually for them. There's no other way, though in a year or two we might start to see products backed by true multimodal models that are actually worth looking at.
I don't mean to seem blunt or rude. I don't actually have kids, so even if I were inclined to judge, I've no basis. But just looking at what YouTube has been doing over the last couple of years, even as a premium subscriber and so never seeing ads - I mean, it's terrible, it's as if it is actively trying to drag me down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, in the sense that I might watch a half dozen videos today about simulated jet-plane gunfights in DCS, and tomorrow I'm seeing recommendations for what I only recognize as "Intro to 5G Covid Conspiracy (CONT 101, 3 credits)" because I have studied the subject. I report these videos and they stop coming, until the next time.
It isn't as though there is a game here on the other side of which for there to be an adversarial mind, but there are times when it feels enough that way - when I'm half asleep, perhaps, and most especially - that I just don't even open the app or website entirely, but listen to an old podcast episode instead because those at least I can trust. (I pay subscriptions or buy copies; anything 'ad-supported' is a hard stop. I prefer people just say outright 'this is what I have and what I think it's worth, let's see if we can make an honest deal' because I am an American.)
I am seriously considering hosting a local Invidious instance, or similar, and terminating my now about ten-year YouTube Premium subscription. Ads are a technical problem that I was happy to pay a few bucks a month rather than however many hours to solve. I did enough years of sysadmin work for a living that I no longer enjoy it even slightly, so that's no small trade for me to consider. But now I'm really looking hard at what that money's going to, and by the sound of things lately, I'm among the least enthusiastic of such critics.
I don't mean to seem blunt or rude. I don't actually have kids, so even if I were inclined to judge, I've no basis. But just looking at what YouTube has been doing over the last couple of years, even as a premium subscriber and so never seeing ads - I mean, it's terrible, it's as if it is actively trying to drag me down a conspiracy theory rabbit hole, in the sense that I might watch a half dozen videos today about simulated jet-plane gunfights in DCS, and tomorrow I'm seeing recommendations for what I only recognize as "Intro to 5G Covid Conspiracy (CONT 101, 3 credits)" because I have studied the subject. I report these videos and they stop coming, until the next time.
It isn't as though there is a game here on the other side of which for there to be an adversarial mind, but there are times when it feels enough that way - when I'm half asleep, perhaps, and most especially - that I just don't even open the app or website entirely, but listen to an old podcast episode instead because those at least I can trust. (I pay subscriptions or buy copies; anything 'ad-supported' is a hard stop. I prefer people just say outright 'this is what I have and what I think it's worth, let's see if we can make an honest deal' because I am an American.)
I am seriously considering hosting a local Invidious instance, or similar, and terminating my now about ten-year YouTube Premium subscription. Ads are a technical problem that I was happy to pay a few bucks a month rather than however many hours to solve. I did enough years of sysadmin work for a living that I no longer enjoy it even slightly, so that's no small trade for me to consider. But now I'm really looking hard at what that money's going to, and by the sound of things lately, I'm among the least enthusiastic of such critics.
Kind of weird, because I use youtube premium, a LOT. I don't get anything political, or conspiracy theory. I do get WAY too many wood working suggestions, AI tech, and astrophysics stuff. However, these are at the expense of the other channels on topics that I've subscribed to, like body weight fitness, health nutrition, some music stuff.
The YouTube alg is obviously broken. By broken, it's optimized for monetary profit. I get tired of specifically having to search out my other channels that I subscribe to, that I'm contemplating giving up Premium, and only using it on an as needed basis, since I need to search for my workout channels anyway.
The YouTube alg is obviously broken. By broken, it's optimized for monetary profit. I get tired of specifically having to search out my other channels that I subscribe to, that I'm contemplating giving up Premium, and only using it on an as needed basis, since I need to search for my workout channels anyway.
I don't even know how it makes sense for it to do what I see it doing!
It isn't as though I would be asked to pay more or less either way, and I can't imagine the ad placements on that malignant pareidolia slurry are worth as much as on actual content: I recall reading that Premium distributions to creators are scaled to predicted revenue on the ads that would've been shown - or actual revenue? I don't actually know they don't auction the slot as normal, and it would make a lot of sense if they did. In any case, I would think that would tend to make the slop worth less to try to divert me into, because whether or not I actually see those ads, they're still going to only sell to fringe psychos and so sell for much less than when I'm watching the LPs and stream VODs that are the vast bulk of what I actually do watch - nothing highbrow I grant, but nothing I or anyone else need be embarrassed to be seen with, either: just plain old 21st-century light entertainment you can sell razor blades or home loans next to, no problem.
I can't model it in my head in a way that doesn't have YouTube hurting itself massively with this, and though it's titanic enough to survive like that for decades, it won't last forever. It would help explain all the new revenue streams we see them lately and somewhat desperately adding. But a really convincing just-so story is always first and easiest sold oneself, and maybe there's something here I'm missing.
It isn't as though I would be asked to pay more or less either way, and I can't imagine the ad placements on that malignant pareidolia slurry are worth as much as on actual content: I recall reading that Premium distributions to creators are scaled to predicted revenue on the ads that would've been shown - or actual revenue? I don't actually know they don't auction the slot as normal, and it would make a lot of sense if they did. In any case, I would think that would tend to make the slop worth less to try to divert me into, because whether or not I actually see those ads, they're still going to only sell to fringe psychos and so sell for much less than when I'm watching the LPs and stream VODs that are the vast bulk of what I actually do watch - nothing highbrow I grant, but nothing I or anyone else need be embarrassed to be seen with, either: just plain old 21st-century light entertainment you can sell razor blades or home loans next to, no problem.
I can't model it in my head in a way that doesn't have YouTube hurting itself massively with this, and though it's titanic enough to survive like that for decades, it won't last forever. It would help explain all the new revenue streams we see them lately and somewhat desperately adding. But a really convincing just-so story is always first and easiest sold oneself, and maybe there's something here I'm missing.
My theory is that brain-dead slop gets more view time.
Similar to the theory that Netflix movies are optimized to be mediocre without a satisfying ending because it keeps you unsatisfied enough to keep watching something else
Think of it: challenging satisfying content is like a plate of fresh fruit or veggies. You can only spend so much time consuming it before you're full.
AI-generated viral conspiracy SHOCKING FACE content is like chocolate-coated salted nuts for your brain: no fiber, you can consume unlimited amounts for an infinite amount of time (which means watching aaaaall the included ads)
Similar to the theory that Netflix movies are optimized to be mediocre without a satisfying ending because it keeps you unsatisfied enough to keep watching something else
Think of it: challenging satisfying content is like a plate of fresh fruit or veggies. You can only spend so much time consuming it before you're full.
AI-generated viral conspiracy SHOCKING FACE content is like chocolate-coated salted nuts for your brain: no fiber, you can consume unlimited amounts for an infinite amount of time (which means watching aaaaall the included ads)
Well sure, obviously, superstimulus is superstimulus, what I'm saying is I think the engagement maximizer must be running totally unclutched from reality and I think it's started burning down YouTube because it can want nothing in the universe save to transform all matter and energy into wonderfully, infinitely rewarding eyeballs. You know, the classic failure mode.
I guess we've just found what the "paperclip maximizer" will really be maximizing... one AGI paving the universe with infinitesimally short synthetic MrBeast videos, and another one doing the eyeball thing.
Ever thus. This is what Yudkowsky and his whole passel of too-clever-by-half puppies lack the nous to realize they are quite correctly afraid of - more specifically, of when it starts happening to things whose destruction for recycling would be a lot more real and impactful than one video website and a few thousand jobs.
Sorry. I don't really have a joke to play that off with, unless it's what always happens when some of the very cleverest people on Earth get together and stop listening to anyone else for too long. Five to ten milliseconds is enough to get that ball rolling, I think, but everything goes faster these days.
Sorry. I don't really have a joke to play that off with, unless it's what always happens when some of the very cleverest people on Earth get together and stop listening to anyone else for too long. Five to ten milliseconds is enough to get that ball rolling, I think, but everything goes faster these days.
War gaming and anything related to war really seems to have a pull into videos that tend to "Hello, would you like to become a Nazi".
My typical viewing on YT sounds kind of like yours. Wood working, AI, Astro, some rebuilding of heavy equipment. That's all fine. It's when you get into any war tech that it quickly spirals off into some rather insane conspiracy crap, even if the videos you watch are just reasonable documentaries.
My typical viewing on YT sounds kind of like yours. Wood working, AI, Astro, some rebuilding of heavy equipment. That's all fine. It's when you get into any war tech that it quickly spirals off into some rather insane conspiracy crap, even if the videos you watch are just reasonable documentaries.
Eh, I would say yes and no, for a couple of reasons.
First, it definitely isn't just miltech, though you are absolutely correct it is heavily that. That was top of mind for me today, but I would say there is also, for example, "light side" and "dark side" machining/mechanical content. Abom79 and Blondihacks are pure "light side". Zip Ties and Bias Plies was "dark side," though as a fellow Borderer-descended redneck asshole, I am sure that as with many former "Canadian American Patriots," he has smartened up pretty damn fast in recent months. (I wouldn't know; I got fed up with his ignorant, drunk, belligerent, impertinent comments on my government quite a long time ago.) AvE started out light side, lost his way for a while, and lately is with genuinely admirable sheepishness comporting himself so as to suggest embarrassed recognition of his prior excesses. And there are lots I just "don't recommend channel"/"not interested" as soon as I see it. I also see the same for gaming - I like some classic Doom mods that some fascist infants also have strongly stupid opinions about, for example - and from this I conclude that there is something in essentially any genre that could be pressed to support this sort of subtext-to-text transition in at least some stage. I doubt I would observe the same in makeup tutorials, for example, but the days when eyeliner improved my looks lie decades behind me now. And who knows anyway? I haven't actually checked. For all I know, half an hour of that, maybe I start hearing about "DID sfw agere unalived" and the trans-flavored "stranger danger" moral panic of the moment.
Second, miltech and history content on YT does not remotely for the most part constitute "reasonable documentaries," unless you refer to forgotten VHS and DVD transfers that are nearly never surfaced anywhere unless you search for them by name, and when you do, they spin for a glacial age before playback can begin. Not to indict modern "creators" (screenwriters, actors, directors, artists etc) en masse, of course. But few today even strive for the standard that older stuff, made before mere record-high count of eyeballs was taken as the only end, reached as a matter of course.
People do as good a quality of work today as ever, of course. It becomes available for streaming over the web only by accident and happenstance, and if that sounds like what a conspiracist would say, keep reading: sure, you'll find a million people on YT talking about the stupid Nazi UFO sex fantasy, and what the hell good is any of them? No one there will help you decide whether you think, if Lee Atwater didn't die of that damned brain tumor, we could've never ended up with Trump in the White House at all. Few I suspect could even appreciate the question.
First, it definitely isn't just miltech, though you are absolutely correct it is heavily that. That was top of mind for me today, but I would say there is also, for example, "light side" and "dark side" machining/mechanical content. Abom79 and Blondihacks are pure "light side". Zip Ties and Bias Plies was "dark side," though as a fellow Borderer-descended redneck asshole, I am sure that as with many former "Canadian American Patriots," he has smartened up pretty damn fast in recent months. (I wouldn't know; I got fed up with his ignorant, drunk, belligerent, impertinent comments on my government quite a long time ago.) AvE started out light side, lost his way for a while, and lately is with genuinely admirable sheepishness comporting himself so as to suggest embarrassed recognition of his prior excesses. And there are lots I just "don't recommend channel"/"not interested" as soon as I see it. I also see the same for gaming - I like some classic Doom mods that some fascist infants also have strongly stupid opinions about, for example - and from this I conclude that there is something in essentially any genre that could be pressed to support this sort of subtext-to-text transition in at least some stage. I doubt I would observe the same in makeup tutorials, for example, but the days when eyeliner improved my looks lie decades behind me now. And who knows anyway? I haven't actually checked. For all I know, half an hour of that, maybe I start hearing about "DID sfw agere unalived" and the trans-flavored "stranger danger" moral panic of the moment.
Second, miltech and history content on YT does not remotely for the most part constitute "reasonable documentaries," unless you refer to forgotten VHS and DVD transfers that are nearly never surfaced anywhere unless you search for them by name, and when you do, they spin for a glacial age before playback can begin. Not to indict modern "creators" (screenwriters, actors, directors, artists etc) en masse, of course. But few today even strive for the standard that older stuff, made before mere record-high count of eyeballs was taken as the only end, reached as a matter of course.
People do as good a quality of work today as ever, of course. It becomes available for streaming over the web only by accident and happenstance, and if that sounds like what a conspiracist would say, keep reading: sure, you'll find a million people on YT talking about the stupid Nazi UFO sex fantasy, and what the hell good is any of them? No one there will help you decide whether you think, if Lee Atwater didn't die of that damned brain tumor, we could've never ended up with Trump in the White House at all. Few I suspect could even appreciate the question.
> tomorrow I'm seeing recommendations for what I only recognize as "Intro to 5G Covid Conspiracy
A simple trick to see what conspiracy stuff is being pushed in your area is to open yt in incognito, accept cookies, and then watch one or two videos with titles in non-latin languages. Kpop fancams, NHK news, that kind of thing. Then look at the recommendation column. You will see two types:
- "related videos" (similar topic and language to what you were watching)
- "geo-IP videos" (not in the language that you were just watching, but clearly based in your country. These are almost always garbage)
A simple trick to see what conspiracy stuff is being pushed in your area is to open yt in incognito, accept cookies, and then watch one or two videos with titles in non-latin languages. Kpop fancams, NHK news, that kind of thing. Then look at the recommendation column. You will see two types:
- "related videos" (similar topic and language to what you were watching)
- "geo-IP videos" (not in the language that you were just watching, but clearly based in your country. These are almost always garbage)
Yeah, I see this as a side effect whenever I drop a YT link into a private tab that I don't want even theoretically influencing what happens on my actual account.
Usually links like that come from here. It's quite eye-opening, like turning on showdead in your profile and just rolling around in the [flagged] [dead] "politics" for awhile.
But you will want to take a shower after, and you should; when Nietzsche said it looks back, this is what he meant, and it will ruin you if you let it. We all eventually become what we pay enough attention to, and we always pay a great deal of attention to what we hate. That's why it's worth so much money to get us doing it.
(I know I'm not saying anything new to you the extremely veteran commenter to whom I reply, of course. But as of course you also know, there are always young 'uns here who hadn't seen it said so plainly yet.)
Usually links like that come from here. It's quite eye-opening, like turning on showdead in your profile and just rolling around in the [flagged] [dead] "politics" for awhile.
But you will want to take a shower after, and you should; when Nietzsche said it looks back, this is what he meant, and it will ruin you if you let it. We all eventually become what we pay enough attention to, and we always pay a great deal of attention to what we hate. That's why it's worth so much money to get us doing it.
(I know I'm not saying anything new to you the extremely veteran commenter to whom I reply, of course. But as of course you also know, there are always young 'uns here who hadn't seen it said so plainly yet.)
This x10000.
I really wish that the EU would step in and force Google to either kill Shorts or give us full control over the crap they're pushing down our throats.
As this is HN and full of smart people - if there are any workable (OSS) options to filtering YouTube to remove shorts (and the far-right/Nazi crap) then please let us know.
I really wish that the EU would step in and force Google to either kill Shorts or give us full control over the crap they're pushing down our throats.
As this is HN and full of smart people - if there are any workable (OSS) options to filtering YouTube to remove shorts (and the far-right/Nazi crap) then please let us know.
Maybe you could rig something up with invidious? https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
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the panda is dissatisfied
tiktok is geofenced
tiktok is geofenced
Someone should do something, like pass a law.
... Oh wait.
... Oh wait.
OK let's ban social media and roll back to 20 years ago. I'm perfectly happy with that. With social media it's so easy to manipulate than emails, websites and phones.
Technological advancement is not always good (for ordinary people).
Technological advancement is not always good (for ordinary people).
I often wonder if we (the tech industry) have come up with anything actually good since about 2005 or so, in terms of being a net win for society or something people actually need.
Increasingly, we seem to provide solutions in search of a problem, or worse, substitutes for much healthier activities. The power we have to do so is staggering; we are changing the parameters and modes of how people relate to each other on a daily basis.
I feel a strong urge to have more "ok, so where do we go from here?" and "what does a tech industry that promotes net good actually look like?" internal discourse in the community of practice, and some sort of ethical social contract for software engineering.
The open source movement has been fabulous and sometimes adjacent to or one aspect of these concerns, but really we need a movement for socially conscious and responsible software.
Increasingly, we seem to provide solutions in search of a problem, or worse, substitutes for much healthier activities. The power we have to do so is staggering; we are changing the parameters and modes of how people relate to each other on a daily basis.
I feel a strong urge to have more "ok, so where do we go from here?" and "what does a tech industry that promotes net good actually look like?" internal discourse in the community of practice, and some sort of ethical social contract for software engineering.
The open source movement has been fabulous and sometimes adjacent to or one aspect of these concerns, but really we need a movement for socially conscious and responsible software.
Maps/GPS navigation is really nice. But it also is a crutch. If I get somewhere with maps, I probably can't find my way back without maps. When I used to plan in advance using a paper map, that was less often the case.
I like online banking, shopping, bill-paying.
Everything else is sort of bleh. I'm as guilty as anyone of killing a few hours on YouTube but don't think I would really miss it.
I like online banking, shopping, bill-paying.
Everything else is sort of bleh. I'm as guilty as anyone of killing a few hours on YouTube but don't think I would really miss it.
How to's and videos of experts (not your average randos) doing stuff on the internet has been extremely helpful.
When doing home projects trying to thumb thru 50 VHS tapes of This Old House really isn't practical.
When doing home projects trying to thumb thru 50 VHS tapes of This Old House really isn't practical.
Yeah that is very true. Used to go to the library and get books on home repair for that sort of thing, but it's not as convenient, and for some things nothing beats watching a video. If a picture can say 1,000 words a good video can amplify that 10x or more.
> Maps/GPS navigation is really nice. But it also is a crutch.
This is a really interesting point which can be extrapolated to many different areas. If something is more convinient, but causes us to lose a useful manual skill, should it be classed as good or not?
This is a really interesting point which can be extrapolated to many different areas. If something is more convinient, but causes us to lose a useful manual skill, should it be classed as good or not?
I too feel this urge. It's a difficult path to go down, and an even more difficult path to lead others down.
Mainly because the destination is an alternate economy where "companies" are smaller, returns are not concentrated to "founders" or investors or even shareholders, and so on.
The tech industry has become "evil" because it has put on social blinders while pursuing profits. To give up that path and choose another path is to choose more prosperity for "we" and less prosperity for "me". It's not a difficult choice in the abstract, but it's a very difficult for people with (oftentimes spurious, but still) bills to pay.
There are vanishingly-few ways to ethically draw a six figure salary (inflation-adjusted for 2016 dollars) out of this economy. Giving up that illusion is going to be really difficult (perhaps impossible) for the people in our industry who were drawn here by that promise and have grown comfortable with the terms of the bargain.
Mainly because the destination is an alternate economy where "companies" are smaller, returns are not concentrated to "founders" or investors or even shareholders, and so on.
The tech industry has become "evil" because it has put on social blinders while pursuing profits. To give up that path and choose another path is to choose more prosperity for "we" and less prosperity for "me". It's not a difficult choice in the abstract, but it's a very difficult for people with (oftentimes spurious, but still) bills to pay.
There are vanishingly-few ways to ethically draw a six figure salary (inflation-adjusted for 2016 dollars) out of this economy. Giving up that illusion is going to be really difficult (perhaps impossible) for the people in our industry who were drawn here by that promise and have grown comfortable with the terms of the bargain.
I think we do, and many of them are excellent candidates. But social media + big data + algorithm is really "evil" (use quotes because many may not agree), plus it is often exposed to teens and younger kids. It's like mindless TV channel switching with 1) way more channels, 2) way less information for each program and 3) recommendations.
The laser printer might have been the last good thing. (Just kidding, not really.)
I really like the positivity of your post. This is an attitude I hope more of us (myself included) can adopt going forward in the world of tech we are creating around us.
Our current advances in LLMs might just represent the biggest achievement humans have made since discovering fire.
I completely disagree, unless this was sarcastic.
> Increasingly, we seem to provide solutions in search of a problem, or worse, substitutes for much healthier activities.
LLMs (and generative AI in general) are probably the most egregious and prominent examples of this, IMO.
> Increasingly, we seem to provide solutions in search of a problem, or worse, substitutes for much healthier activities.
LLMs (and generative AI in general) are probably the most egregious and prominent examples of this, IMO.
How would you say they’re solutions in search of a problem? I engage LLMs more than 50 times a week to solve problems at work, in my personal projects, and in my personal life. I respect your opinion but thoroughly disagree.
Just for my own context and perspective, do you use generative AI or not?
Just for my own context and perspective, do you use generative AI or not?
20 years ago we had reality TV, video games, and rock music which were the perveyor of body issues and FOMO etc. The issue is not technology, but popular culture. Pre the end of the 20th century most people considered knowledge and skill to be the peak of human progression. Now it is money and image. As money and image can easily be given/bestowed whilst knowledge and skill cannot, I believe the general population has become much easier to manipulate by using these traits.
There are very few young people today who dont value money and image as something to aspire to. IMO this is a really dangerous thing of which there is no way back.
There are very few young people today who dont value money and image as something to aspire to. IMO this is a really dangerous thing of which there is no way back.
Vanity and greed are called deadly sins for a reason. It is clear these are afflictions humans have always had to deal with. Unfortunately, culture isn't built from the top down and takes generations to change. I am sure we will see a swing back toward traditional values as people learn the hard way that not all things old should be thrown out.
I do agree, and we have seen this in the past with things like the punk movement, which was a purely creative output from the working class in response to poor social conditions. Hopefully there is a similar movement against similar modern technological conditions at some point.
There are a couple of differences here though. For example everybody has the same tiktok. The upper classes and lower classes are for the first time being subjected to the same issues simultaneously.
Also the modern medium of tiktok has proven so addictive that people are not showing any signs of rising up against it, and so it is taking legislation to protect people from themselves.
These are all new factors which will change the swing somewhat, Im with you in hoping that it all works out.
There are a couple of differences here though. For example everybody has the same tiktok. The upper classes and lower classes are for the first time being subjected to the same issues simultaneously.
Also the modern medium of tiktok has proven so addictive that people are not showing any signs of rising up against it, and so it is taking legislation to protect people from themselves.
These are all new factors which will change the swing somewhat, Im with you in hoping that it all works out.
The upper classes have a lot more resorces and their children will be affected at a lower rate.
The endless series of 10 second video clips, selection optimized by algorithm to keep your attention just enough to continue on and on and on...
That's not at all the same as TV, video games, or rock music.
That's not at all the same as TV, video games, or rock music.
I believe it is. We saw the same thing with the rise of cable and reality TV and teenagers watching endless reruns of the Kardashians and the Osbournes as it was the first time you could watch shows back to back for days on end.
With Video Games we had the introduction of the MMO and news stories of people forgetting to feed their kids, and even dying in their homes from not looking after themselves properly.
People are the problem, not the tech. As long as people are willing to be lazy and allow their brains to be subjected to a constant stream of repetetive digital content for entertainement, then we will have these issues.
With Video Games we had the introduction of the MMO and news stories of people forgetting to feed their kids, and even dying in their homes from not looking after themselves properly.
People are the problem, not the tech. As long as people are willing to be lazy and allow their brains to be subjected to a constant stream of repetetive digital content for entertainement, then we will have these issues.
I think the tech has raised stimulation levels exponentially, which feeds people's desire to consume in ways that was impossible in the past. But, I also think your examples are quite valid, and what we're seeing here now is probably only marginally worse than Neil Postman days back in the '80s and '70s when TV was the big boogeyman. Meaning that our society has already been screwed for half a century, and we should probably try to look at the problem through this lens rather than just trying to turn back the clock by a mere decade or two.
Maybe things were already bad when radio achieved mass adoption and people couldn't get enough of it? Maybe in some ways today's unlimited aural stimulation, of having access to music and podcasts at any moment, is also unnatural and undesirable for mental health?
Maybe things were already bad when radio achieved mass adoption and people couldn't get enough of it? Maybe in some ways today's unlimited aural stimulation, of having access to music and podcasts at any moment, is also unnatural and undesirable for mental health?
Yes I like the idea that we need to go back about 50 years to really see the root of this. IMO it is visual media in general which is causing these issues (TV/Games/Social Media) which started probably in the 70s.
The difference is so obvious. I think the people who deny it either haven't seen the tech's impact on people or they are coping as an addict themself. It's totally the same as a good book you guys!!
My girlfriend and some friends are captivated by doomscrolling tiktok/insta. They'll do it and let hours pass if left undisturbed.
They can't watch TV or play games for hours because that gets boring and samey.
On the other hand, my girlfriend will aspire to play a game she bought or watch a show she wants to watch, but then get immediately sabotaged by instagram shorts because it's so much more stimulating.
My girlfriend and some friends are captivated by doomscrolling tiktok/insta. They'll do it and let hours pass if left undisturbed.
They can't watch TV or play games for hours because that gets boring and samey.
On the other hand, my girlfriend will aspire to play a game she bought or watch a show she wants to watch, but then get immediately sabotaged by instagram shorts because it's so much more stimulating.
> It's totally the same as a good book you guys
Its nothing like a book, however it is very similar to addiction on MMO games like World of warcraft and Roblox.
> They can't watch TV or play games for hours because that gets boring and samey.
I would argue that its not because its boring, its because it doesnt give as frequent rewards for engagement and so becomes less attractive for the user.
> get immediately sabotaged by instagram shorts because it's so much more stimulating
Its not stimulation, its lazyness. I guarantee that anybody would get more stimulation from investment in a decent story in a book, movie, or game, but it takes more effort to get there. Its much easier to get that tiny hit of dopamine from a 10 second video than it is to invest 2 hours into a story to get a decent payoff. Its this lazyness of wanting the easy hit instead of putting the time in that is making people put down that book and jump on Instagram.
Its nothing like a book, however it is very similar to addiction on MMO games like World of warcraft and Roblox.
> They can't watch TV or play games for hours because that gets boring and samey.
I would argue that its not because its boring, its because it doesnt give as frequent rewards for engagement and so becomes less attractive for the user.
> get immediately sabotaged by instagram shorts because it's so much more stimulating
Its not stimulation, its lazyness. I guarantee that anybody would get more stimulation from investment in a decent story in a book, movie, or game, but it takes more effort to get there. Its much easier to get that tiny hit of dopamine from a 10 second video than it is to invest 2 hours into a story to get a decent payoff. Its this lazyness of wanting the easy hit instead of putting the time in that is making people put down that book and jump on Instagram.
Sure, the culture is the content and human drive behind it, but the technology has made it so that we cannot avoid it and cannot easily practice good hygiene when it comes to social engagement. Or another metaphor, food, imagine if you had candy/sugar laying around everywhere and that was placed in front of whole foods everywhere you looked, such that you technically could choose a better option, but you were always fighting your human instincts to prioritize fast/cheap energy. As an adult, you know that you need to override these base instincts, and have evidence from your childhood where you encountered the structure of choosing healthy options even when you probably wanted something more sugary/fatty. The argument is that kids are not getting the opportunity to develop this healthy digital content diet because their parents either do not have the technical ability nor the actual functional ability to do anything about it.
There's a reason why most teenagers are on tiktok, but believe that they would be better off if it never existed. [1] https://fortune.com/well/article/nearly-half-of-gen-zers-wis...
There's a reason why most teenagers are on tiktok, but believe that they would be better off if it never existed. [1] https://fortune.com/well/article/nearly-half-of-gen-zers-wis...
I see your point, but I dont agree with your metaphors at all.
Governments around thwe world have had to tax sugary products to save people from themselves. You make it sound like there isnt currently an obesity epidemic because adults know enough to not eat too much sugary foods. In reality the vast majority eat way too much even though they know its not good for them, just like social media use. Its the same as alcohol and drug abuse etc. Humans are terrible at restricting themselves when it comes to stuff that makes them feel good. Tiktok scrolling is just an extension of that, not the cause.
Governments around thwe world have had to tax sugary products to save people from themselves. You make it sound like there isnt currently an obesity epidemic because adults know enough to not eat too much sugary foods. In reality the vast majority eat way too much even though they know its not good for them, just like social media use. Its the same as alcohol and drug abuse etc. Humans are terrible at restricting themselves when it comes to stuff that makes them feel good. Tiktok scrolling is just an extension of that, not the cause.
I actually think I communicated my point incorrectly, I also agree with you, I meant more that at least if you had some guidance as a child and your environment wasn't so antagonistic, you might have a fighting chance, not even that you will definitely succeed. We see it now with food deserts, etc. It's a challenging environment to navigate when you have all of this "freedom". :p
>Pre the end of the 20th century most people considered knowledge and skill to be the peak of human progression. Now it is money and image. As money and image can easily be given/bestowed whilst knowledge and skill cannot, I believe the general population has become much easier to manipulate by using these traits.
It was like that in the 80s as well. Probably the 90s, depending on your inner circle. Money and prestige (image) has always been prominent in the US. We probably inherited it from the UK before we existed.
Knowledge and skill were socially important in the US once Sputnik was launched and we viewed science and engineering as the battlefield against the Soviet Union.
It was like that in the 80s as well. Probably the 90s, depending on your inner circle. Money and prestige (image) has always been prominent in the US. We probably inherited it from the UK before we existed.
Knowledge and skill were socially important in the US once Sputnik was launched and we viewed science and engineering as the battlefield against the Soviet Union.
> The issue is not technology, but popular culture.
It's both. When I was growing up as a kid (and I'm now going back over 40 years instead of 20) you didn't take your cable TV with you in your pocket. (And not even your video games unless you consider Electronic Football a video game.)
(Okay, so the Walkman came along and I could take my music with me. Big sin!)
Entertainment, distractions in general had a specific time and place. There was a large part of every day when you were left to interact with the world that was right around you ... maybe even get bored from time to time.
It's both. When I was growing up as a kid (and I'm now going back over 40 years instead of 20) you didn't take your cable TV with you in your pocket. (And not even your video games unless you consider Electronic Football a video game.)
(Okay, so the Walkman came along and I could take my music with me. Big sin!)
Entertainment, distractions in general had a specific time and place. There was a large part of every day when you were left to interact with the world that was right around you ... maybe even get bored from time to time.
> you didn't take your cable TV with you in your pocket
Thats a good point I hadn't taken into consideration. Yes we had addictive MMOs and binging reality TV, but they werent portable. The outside world was a safe haven from visual media content.
Portability is definitely a major factor.
Thats a good point I hadn't taken into consideration. Yes we had addictive MMOs and binging reality TV, but they werent portable. The outside world was a safe haven from visual media content.
Portability is definitely a major factor.
Yes, that's big. When we have a family reunion, outdoors in a park, half the family (and all the kids) are staring at their phones, effectively alone. That didn't really exist even 10 years ago. We had phones and social media then, but only the most addicted needed to be active on them so consistently like that.
> Pre the end of the 20th century most people considered knowledge and skill to be the peak of human progression. Now it is money and image.
The 80s would like to have a word
The 80s would like to have a word
Sorry I meant generally pre the last period of the 20th century, not the actual hard end. IMO you are right in saying it began in the 80s.
And I'd still disagree with you. There's a long line of fops, dandies, social climbers, hangers-on and aspirants however far you choose to look back in history. We may be in a particularly acute period right now but the desire to be wealthy and admired didn't just appear 50 years ago.
Well if it helps, just think that today we have a 2000's reality-TV star as POTUS, so within a short few years, we'll have a TikTok influencer instead :-)
>now it's money and image
It always have been.
It always have been.
Lets ban TV, video games, rock and roll music and dungeons and dragons, too. When I was growing up, those were what was harming children at an industrial scale.
The author has addressed that point before [1] in an article worth reading in its entirety:
> I think it is a very good thing that alarms were rung about teen smoking, teen pregnancy, drunk driving, and the exposure of children to sex and violence on TV. The lesson of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is not that after two false alarms we should disconnect the alarm system. In that story, the wolf does eventually come.
That page also shows some graphs that to this day still surprise me, namely, the way in which rates of depression and psychological stress among teens explode around 2010. Unlike TV and DnD, this time we do have data, and it looks bad.
[1] https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...
> I think it is a very good thing that alarms were rung about teen smoking, teen pregnancy, drunk driving, and the exposure of children to sex and violence on TV. The lesson of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is not that after two false alarms we should disconnect the alarm system. In that story, the wolf does eventually come.
That page also shows some graphs that to this day still surprise me, namely, the way in which rates of depression and psychological stress among teens explode around 2010. Unlike TV and DnD, this time we do have data, and it looks bad.
[1] https://www.afterbabel.com/p/phone-based-childhood-cause-epi...
I remember 40-30 years ago I heard exactly the same thing we hear about TikTok from parents leaving their kids in front of the TV 4 to 10 hours a day.
It was something like "The Japanese plan is to make our children stupid with their animations to overtake us"
It might be true but also you don't put your child in front of the TV at 3 years old...
It is like serving them beer and then blaming the Belgians for turning our kids into alcoholics.
It was something like "The Japanese plan is to make our children stupid with their animations to overtake us"
It might be true but also you don't put your child in front of the TV at 3 years old...
It is like serving them beer and then blaming the Belgians for turning our kids into alcoholics.
> like serving them beer
Censorship is often justified by comparisons to physical substances like this - chemicals can irreparably harm your body, therefore ideas can irreparably harm your brain. I don't believe that these are the same. There's no way to really prove it, but there is a way to prove that censorship (which is what banning social media amounts to) _is_ objectively bad.
Censorship is often justified by comparisons to physical substances like this - chemicals can irreparably harm your body, therefore ideas can irreparably harm your brain. I don't believe that these are the same. There's no way to really prove it, but there is a way to prove that censorship (which is what banning social media amounts to) _is_ objectively bad.
I am not advocating for censorship or in a fact any measure from the gov to restrict access to internet or social media.
Kids are gonna be able to once in a while get their hand on porn, a beer, a cigarette or whatever.
The problem is the lack of supervision and parents who use devices to avoid having to take care of their children.
Kids are gonna be able to once in a while get their hand on porn, a beer, a cigarette or whatever.
The problem is the lack of supervision and parents who use devices to avoid having to take care of their children.
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death is probably worth a read. The problem is with the medium, and how it strips away critical information. Television stripped that information away from typography, TikTok strips away even more. It's fundamentally still the same problem.
Yes, TV from decades ago and the internet on our phones now can both be shitty.
Well that wouldn't make sense, since they watch the same animations in Japan.
However Tiktok is banned in China; the domestic app Douyin promotes content differently.
However Tiktok is banned in China; the domestic app Douyin promotes content differently.
>I remember 40-30 years ago I heard exactly
I mean if you look at how some of those 40-50 year olds are behaving in public and voting maybe they were right?
I mean if you look at how some of those 40-50 year olds are behaving in public and voting maybe they were right?
Since everyone banning anything is exactly the same level of pointless are you also in favor of bringing back more asbestos, lead, and child labor as well? Or would you say that context matters, evidence matters, and critical thinking about the actual circumstances under discussion is often necessary?
The context provided by GP seems to be "media". I think there are some things about short-form video platforms that form a bit of a different argument than the traditional "new media bad" stance but just jumping into why chemical poisons and forced labor were bad isn't going to help drive that nuance.
It sounds like you're agreeing that context matters and just underlining my point for me. Comparing chemical poisons to media is every bit as ridiculous as comparing pre-algorithmic media to social media.. I think everyone who is interested in serious conversation with nuance already knows that.
Forgetting the adults in the room who still want to lean into all kinds of disingenuous what-aboutism for a moment, and just considering kids who are understandably self-interested in defense of their addictions.. really now. How could a generation of people who grew up wanting to be influencers actually be ignorant of the effectiveness of algorithmic manipulation? It's a contradiction. So why the insistence on some absurd comparison to old media? I'm all for nuance but there's not much of that to be had. I'd settle for a little reflection, sincerity, and logical consistency.
Forgetting the adults in the room who still want to lean into all kinds of disingenuous what-aboutism for a moment, and just considering kids who are understandably self-interested in defense of their addictions.. really now. How could a generation of people who grew up wanting to be influencers actually be ignorant of the effectiveness of algorithmic manipulation? It's a contradiction. So why the insistence on some absurd comparison to old media? I'm all for nuance but there's not much of that to be had. I'd settle for a little reflection, sincerity, and logical consistency.
Yes, I'm agreeing with your (core) point through and through - the nuance came into play with the way you tried to argue the point. It sorta made sense if you already saw things the same way, otherwise it came across as completely ignoring the context GP provided to demand GP consider context without further example of why their context was incomplete. At the end of the day, a part saying "and this is why it's actually different in that context" is still unanswered and you're just telling them to ignore that.
The same is true of the second call. If we dismiss the need to explain why this case is different as just disingenuous what-aboutism to be ignored the argument is left as "if one takes this as problematic then it's clear how it'll be problematic to counter". There's still no persuasion of why it's differently problematic if you don't already see reasons why yourself, just the assertion it is if one thinks enough (which could be asserted about anything true or false).
I think the biggest things that make this problem unique from the media context GP provided are:
- The individualized and targeted nature of the algorithmic feed being a different type of influence concern than content for mass or group consumption.
- The above individualized nature leading into much stronger "echo chamber" polarization, especially when combined with the endless and always on nature of the feeds.
- The content itself is delivered in many more technological layers of dark patterns than traditional mass/group media ever carried.
The only argument I hear a lot which I exclude from my list is the quality/type of content. I think, if you remove the above problems, the content would really not be as different from typical content as we'd like to think. I know others disagree and say it's the short nature itself which is harmful but I don't think that's actually a new unique argument to why people are worried about this latest media trend.
The same is true of the second call. If we dismiss the need to explain why this case is different as just disingenuous what-aboutism to be ignored the argument is left as "if one takes this as problematic then it's clear how it'll be problematic to counter". There's still no persuasion of why it's differently problematic if you don't already see reasons why yourself, just the assertion it is if one thinks enough (which could be asserted about anything true or false).
I think the biggest things that make this problem unique from the media context GP provided are:
- The individualized and targeted nature of the algorithmic feed being a different type of influence concern than content for mass or group consumption.
- The above individualized nature leading into much stronger "echo chamber" polarization, especially when combined with the endless and always on nature of the feeds.
- The content itself is delivered in many more technological layers of dark patterns than traditional mass/group media ever carried.
The only argument I hear a lot which I exclude from my list is the quality/type of content. I think, if you remove the above problems, the content would really not be as different from typical content as we'd like to think. I know others disagree and say it's the short nature itself which is harmful but I don't think that's actually a new unique argument to why people are worried about this latest media trend.
In all seriousness, television has almost certainly harmed some not-insignificant fraction of our population. Nothing is more toxic than a bad idea, a malmeme, and some of them can be so subtle that they go unnoticed for years or decades. Ironically, music is probably less pathogenic, there's just less bandwidth for these memes to make use of. Lyrics, moods, and a single picture of album art? Compare that to a half-hour time slot with complex depictions of social interactions that humans model their own internal mental state from.
Everyone on every point of the political spectrum claims that the basic principle is true. That we can be manipulated to believe untrue things and to behave inappropriately and in maladaptive manners. We just tend to disagree on which media and which content does so.
Everyone on every point of the political spectrum claims that the basic principle is true. That we can be manipulated to believe untrue things and to behave inappropriately and in maladaptive manners. We just tend to disagree on which media and which content does so.
I don't think you mean simply "bad ideas". All our ideas are bad (they're worse than better ones we'll get later).
I think your comment, while not especially constructively formed, is a good warning about alarm-ism. However, I think you should at least consider a few things:
1. The concerns about D&D were quite different. Most parents admired the creativity involved in role-playing. The concerns came from a relatively small subset of parents who were concerned about the morality of the subject matter (monsters, demons etc.). For the record, I thought at the time that these concerns were pretty silly and had little merit, and still do.
2. Just because there have been moral/social panics in the past, doesn't mean the concerns about social media today are invalid. Sometimes worries are wrong, sometimes they are right. Having been wrong before does not make it rational to never be concerned again.
3. It is entirely possible that concerns about high-volume TV watching were correct. Just because my generation (X) survived the TV era does not mean we came out of it unscathed. Much of the ignorance and obnoxiousness of our current age may very well be caused by today's middle aged people growing up watching television. (Or maybe it was the lead paint our parents grew up with?)
1. The concerns about D&D were quite different. Most parents admired the creativity involved in role-playing. The concerns came from a relatively small subset of parents who were concerned about the morality of the subject matter (monsters, demons etc.). For the record, I thought at the time that these concerns were pretty silly and had little merit, and still do.
2. Just because there have been moral/social panics in the past, doesn't mean the concerns about social media today are invalid. Sometimes worries are wrong, sometimes they are right. Having been wrong before does not make it rational to never be concerned again.
3. It is entirely possible that concerns about high-volume TV watching were correct. Just because my generation (X) survived the TV era does not mean we came out of it unscathed. Much of the ignorance and obnoxiousness of our current age may very well be caused by today's middle aged people growing up watching television. (Or maybe it was the lead paint our parents grew up with?)
TV, video games, rock and roll music, nor dungeon and dragons were specifically designed for compulsory use, reduced the users' ability to focus, or exposed them to the kind (or sheer quantity) of harmful material that TikTok does.
You could get reprieve.
With TikTok on mobile, it's ubiquitous.
You could get reprieve.
With TikTok on mobile, it's ubiquitous.
Well, TV might have been. But then TV was pretty bad for us.
TV, video games and rock and roll music is just as ubiquitous as TikTok. All of these things are on the same mobile device. They are also designed for compulsory use and can expose them to harmful material as well. Nobody writes a song you only want to listen to once or a game you only play for 10 minutes then never again.
This type of hyper fixation on TikTok is pop science and self soothing. It springs from the generational anxiety that the kids are not okay and something must be wrong with them. TikTok can be that boogey man for boomers, gen x and millennials. Same as older generations felt about TV, video games, rock and roll music, and D&D.
This type of hyper fixation on TikTok is pop science and self soothing. It springs from the generational anxiety that the kids are not okay and something must be wrong with them. TikTok can be that boogey man for boomers, gen x and millennials. Same as older generations felt about TV, video games, rock and roll music, and D&D.
> When I was growing up, those were what was harming children at an industrial scale.
Have you ever considered that maybe people were right about all that stuff? The problem so many people have is they either aren't forward thinking enough or only look back a few years at most when arguing against "moral crusaders."
Take for example violence in movies and videogames. Back in the 80s, the MPAA came down hard on the Friday the 13th movies, and the violence level in those movies absolutely pales in comparison to what you see now in Saw X, a mainstream R-rated horror movie. In the early 90s, there were federal hearings about violence in video games, Mortal Kombat being the prime example. Compare what gave people heart attacks back then to what the latest Mortal Kombat game features. Maybe those people were right all along, and we should have done something other than just laugh at their concerns?
With the benefit of decades of hindsight, there's a lot of issues in society where the "slippery slope"-ists turned out to be right.
Have you ever considered that maybe people were right about all that stuff? The problem so many people have is they either aren't forward thinking enough or only look back a few years at most when arguing against "moral crusaders."
Take for example violence in movies and videogames. Back in the 80s, the MPAA came down hard on the Friday the 13th movies, and the violence level in those movies absolutely pales in comparison to what you see now in Saw X, a mainstream R-rated horror movie. In the early 90s, there were federal hearings about violence in video games, Mortal Kombat being the prime example. Compare what gave people heart attacks back then to what the latest Mortal Kombat game features. Maybe those people were right all along, and we should have done something other than just laugh at their concerns?
With the benefit of decades of hindsight, there's a lot of issues in society where the "slippery slope"-ists turned out to be right.
You should talk to some teachers who've been teaching since before 2010. They almost all say that kids got noticeably dumber around the time smartphones became common. They also say that grading standards today don't resemble anything they used to; most kids today would fail a 2009 curriculum.
College lit professors are now saying they get kids in their class who've never read a book from cover to cover. Those that have, say their favorite book is a YA book like Percy Jackson. Most can't even focus on something like a sonnet. This was described by a professor at Columbia, and they say that this is a recent phenomena and it's the majority of their students now.
Something has fundamentally changed, and there's evidence that points to kids missing key developmental windows. It's not just them on social media either, it's probably also their parents who are on their phones and not interacting with their kids who need that to develop normally.
College lit professors are now saying they get kids in their class who've never read a book from cover to cover. Those that have, say their favorite book is a YA book like Percy Jackson. Most can't even focus on something like a sonnet. This was described by a professor at Columbia, and they say that this is a recent phenomena and it's the majority of their students now.
Something has fundamentally changed, and there's evidence that points to kids missing key developmental windows. It's not just them on social media either, it's probably also their parents who are on their phones and not interacting with their kids who need that to develop normally.
That's a fun anecdote but not connected to what data shows. Educational attainment for high school and college has only continued to steadily grow. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184260/educational-attai...
This is only a counter if the standards to get those levels of attainment have stayed the same (or increased). The previous claim includes a claim of the standards dropping, meaning that the people who obtain them can increase even as the population average descends.
this is not a good measure because attainment is measured in graduation and not academic standards. the standards HAVE dropped and kids are forced through with relatively meaningless degrees.
I guess nothing can ever again harm us now that it turned out those things didn't, nice. Do you have a link to the studies that say those things didn't do any harm, btw?
That's what ignorant culture warriors claimed was harming children. There was never much evidence to support those claims; they were the ravings of clowns, not statements to be taken seriously.
The damage from social media is widespread, well-studied, and unequivocally harmful to millions of people. There is no equivalence, it's a different technology with objectively worse impacts.
The damage from social media is widespread, well-studied, and unequivocally harmful to millions of people. There is no equivalence, it's a different technology with objectively worse impacts.
> Lets ban TV, video games, rock and roll music and dungeons and dragons, too. When I was growing up, those were what was harming children at an industrial scale.
I'd be fine with that, if it means I never have to hear that robotic argument ever again.
I'd be fine with that, if it means I never have to hear that robotic argument ever again.
So your conclusion is that nothing can ever broadly negatively influence a generation of children in any circumstances whatsoever?
And don't forget the societal scourge of men with long hair
Crosswords, pinball, paperback books.
We had social media 20 years ago.
And what would happen in another 20 years? What exactly would prevent this from happening again?
Maybe instead of just knee-jerk reactions like "Ugh stupid social media, let's ban it" we should think it through and solve the underlying issues.
And what would happen in another 20 years? What exactly would prevent this from happening again?
Maybe instead of just knee-jerk reactions like "Ugh stupid social media, let's ban it" we should think it through and solve the underlying issues.
You are correct, we had social media 20 years ago. What we did not have was advertising revenue based addiction generating algorithms manipulating the minds of the entire worlds population.
We did not have the social media technology and pervasiveness of today, 20 years ago. Absolutely objectively not.
Or enforce age requirements just like we already do for alcohol, tobacco, gambling, opening bank account, etc. Including online.
How do you define "social media"? I suppose HN could qualify.
The core problem is media being a for-profit organization. As long as the primary goal is profits it will be focused on extracting as much as attention as possible. It's an insignificant issue that it also ruins our attention, spreads misinformation etc. as long as profits go up.
I love the parents in the tech community. They had unfettered computer and internet access which formed them into the successful people they are today. But they were special and their circumstance was special and their kids are not allowed to use the internet because now its bad.
old_man_yells_at_cloud.jpg
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Lots of people in the tech community also struggle with attention and social disorders. Being good at computers is not the only thing that matters in life.
It's not that the internet is bad, the internet is very different from what it used to be. Apps using mainly algorithmic based recommendations, such as TikTok, use that and other dark design patterns to exploit users more than ever before.
There is a huge survival bias that you are not considering. Today's parents that had unlimited access to the Wild West that was 90s internet and are successful today do not represent the whole population of people who had access to internet in that era.
The unfettered computer and internet access was a desktop machine (which needed to run a minimalist distro) on dial-up in a very public room. The fun that taught me tech stuff was getting to distro to work, and there was no privacy. Parents were much more aware of the dangers back then.
Nowdays everythibg on smartphones "just works", and the OS won't even let the user access system files. I meet college students who have no idea what a file system is, or what a DNS server is.
Times have changed, indeed.
Nowdays everythibg on smartphones "just works", and the OS won't even let the user access system files. I meet college students who have no idea what a file system is, or what a DNS server is.
Times have changed, indeed.
Yeah well only in the last 10 years did internet companies start employing psychology PHDs to find the best possible ways to exploit people they can. That is basically what the problem is. Short-form content and algorithmic display of what evidently appeals to you the most is literally zombifying people.
So to follow my example, that would be no computer or internet until age 15. I don't know, seems harsh. I'll also have to swap my TV for a 10" one that only gets 2 stations.
It's true, by the time I was in college, I did have unfettered access to USENET. ;-)
Yeah but this is the old debate old vs new. Plus is not the kids is the parents.
Let me give another example: a nice village where I spend my childhood. Every day on the streets, forests, you name it. No time/hours limit, no space limit - play until fully tired. Now, visiting again, there are no kids on the streets. I thought to ask my relatives and people I know. And I find out that is not that kids do not want to play outside, they are _not allowed_ to play outside!!.
Why? "the kids are now kidnapped from the street" - "how?" "I heard from a neihbour from her cousin that lives in the village 10km that this happened!" ( not true - the kid got in a black car which was the uncle showing of his new BMW )..". Another example "Rapist are now free!" ... "no way!" "Yes, yes, this happened" ( was a case 3 years ago in a city 30 km away - a normal man got in a quarrel with a girl and the little mischevious said to get away that he touched ...no comment ).
yelling_and_pulling_hair.tiff
Let me give another example: a nice village where I spend my childhood. Every day on the streets, forests, you name it. No time/hours limit, no space limit - play until fully tired. Now, visiting again, there are no kids on the streets. I thought to ask my relatives and people I know. And I find out that is not that kids do not want to play outside, they are _not allowed_ to play outside!!.
Why? "the kids are now kidnapped from the street" - "how?" "I heard from a neihbour from her cousin that lives in the village 10km that this happened!" ( not true - the kid got in a black car which was the uncle showing of his new BMW )..". Another example "Rapist are now free!" ... "no way!" "Yes, yes, this happened" ( was a case 3 years ago in a city 30 km away - a normal man got in a quarrel with a girl and the little mischevious said to get away that he touched ...no comment ).
yelling_and_pulling_hair.tiff
Infinite-scroll content (especially mindless VIDEO content) was NOT a thing when we were kids. And we also had to sit down at a desk and browse the internet on a computer.
Having 24/7 access to infinite amounts of brainless content in your pocket is not something we ever had to contend with. This is uncharted territory. And it's terrifying.
Having 24/7 access to infinite amounts of brainless content in your pocket is not something we ever had to contend with. This is uncharted territory. And it's terrifying.
LOL... to have unfettered access to games, I had to program them myself though.
I fully intend to extend the same circumstances to my own kid, seems fair
I fully intend to extend the same circumstances to my own kid, seems fair
Between TikTok and fentanyl China is covertly doing serious damage to the USA, and most people don't care.
Between Meta/X and opioids, the USA is overtly doing serious damage to the USA, and most people don't care.
(In all seriousness, I do agree that TikTok is awful, but I find the fascination with TikTok while ignoring all other social media and their dangers to be interesting)
(In all seriousness, I do agree that TikTok is awful, but I find the fascination with TikTok while ignoring all other social media and their dangers to be interesting)
Who is ignoring all other social media? Meta is literally on trial right now and there are comments about how bad they are almost daily on this site.
>Meta is literally on trial right now
For the social harm to children that they cause? I thought it was to break out WhatsApp & Instagram into their own entities from like a monopoly perspective, but I admit I am not keeping up on the current trial at all, so I could be wrong.
>about how bad they are almost daily on this site.
This site is hardly representative of the average citizen. In my daily life, local news, etc., most people I encounter will talk about how bad TikTok is for children but barely (if ever) mention harms of other social media.
For the social harm to children that they cause? I thought it was to break out WhatsApp & Instagram into their own entities from like a monopoly perspective, but I admit I am not keeping up on the current trial at all, so I could be wrong.
>about how bad they are almost daily on this site.
This site is hardly representative of the average citizen. In my daily life, local news, etc., most people I encounter will talk about how bad TikTok is for children but barely (if ever) mention harms of other social media.
Specifically calling out kids? No. But that also isn’t a law. “This hurts the mental well being of children” isn’t a statute.
For causing harm in general? Yes.
>The FTC’s argument hinges, in part, on its claim that Meta harmed users after acquiring the two companies by increasing the quantity of ads and watering down privacy protections.
> This site is hardly representative of the average citizen. In my daily life, local news, etc., most people I encounter will talk about how bad TikTok is for children but barely (if ever) mention harms of other social media.
And yet in my daily life almost everyone one in my circle of friends has deleted Facebook because of their disgust with the platform. Ironically the biggest issue is the number of people that don’t understand Instagram is also a meta property.
For causing harm in general? Yes.
>The FTC’s argument hinges, in part, on its claim that Meta harmed users after acquiring the two companies by increasing the quantity of ads and watering down privacy protections.
> This site is hardly representative of the average citizen. In my daily life, local news, etc., most people I encounter will talk about how bad TikTok is for children but barely (if ever) mention harms of other social media.
And yet in my daily life almost everyone one in my circle of friends has deleted Facebook because of their disgust with the platform. Ironically the biggest issue is the number of people that don’t understand Instagram is also a meta property.
Kids don't use X and Facebook is for their grandparents now
> Facebook is for their grandparents now
I use Facebook for the local buy nothing group. Everytime I open Facebook I'm shocked by the manipulative AI slop (person in a boat pulling barnacles off a dolphin that's standing up in the water) that shows up in the first screen. I'm terrified that grandparents who vote are engaging with this stuff.
I use Facebook for the local buy nothing group. Everytime I open Facebook I'm shocked by the manipulative AI slop (person in a boat pulling barnacles off a dolphin that's standing up in the water) that shows up in the first screen. I'm terrified that grandparents who vote are engaging with this stuff.
I think actually lots of people do care about all these problems.
It's weird how so many of these threads are "whatabout other social media", when there is no contradiction in just saying "that too", and essentially none of the people who agree with the premise that TikTok is bad will argue that other social media is good.
It's weird how so many of these threads are "whatabout other social media", when there is no contradiction in just saying "that too", and essentially none of the people who agree with the premise that TikTok is bad will argue that other social media is good.
You are posting in a thread where the OP is saying China is covertly doing damage via TikTok. Do you seriously not see the contradictions here?
China is doing damage to us when we are doing damage to ourselves too? Really? It’s going after the wrong thing and so not finding the actual problem and hopefully the solution.
China is doing damage to us when we are doing damage to ourselves too? Really? It’s going after the wrong thing and so not finding the actual problem and hopefully the solution.
That is not at all the primary point of this article. This article focuses nearly entirely on the damage done by TikTok as a social media application, very much in keeping with the exact same criticisms the author makes of other social media. It focuses very little on the national security implications of Chinese ownership.
Personally, I think the national security argument is the much stronger one for the divestment bill (which the current administration is illegally refusing to enforce at the moment). But that's just not what this author cares most about.
Personally, I think the national security argument is the much stronger one for the divestment bill (which the current administration is illegally refusing to enforce at the moment). But that's just not what this author cares most about.
I meant the GP of your previous post. Your criticism of whataboutism is flawed under the context of that GP accusing China of everything under the sun.
Look, I hate the current admin deeply, but China is very much not our "friend"
Extremely few countries are “friends.” Maybe the past Canada/US relationship could have been considered legitimate friendship between two countries, but it was a very rare thing.
China is just a competitor, not some sort of boogeyman.
The US is a competitor with a lot of countries. Maybe they should ban our social media, but for whatever reason that is mostly not done. If we want to set that as the convention, it is certainly worth considering.
China is just a competitor, not some sort of boogeyman.
The US is a competitor with a lot of countries. Maybe they should ban our social media, but for whatever reason that is mostly not done. If we want to set that as the convention, it is certainly worth considering.
>but China is very much not our "friend"
Sorry, but which part of my comment implied that I think they are?
Sorry, but which part of my comment implied that I think they are?
Fentanyl is made from common chemicals that are used in normal industrial processes. We use them for everything from making insulation to medicine. And it only takes a small amount of these chemicals to make a large batch of fentanyl. All the fentanyl produced in a year only takes 1,800 gallons (around 33 oil drums) of chemicals to make.
The latest Annual Threat Assessment: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...
Noted that production of those precursors has shifted to India.
The fentanyl itself is made in labs in Mexico and then smuggled across the border. It requires no sophisticated lab equipment to make. You can easily obtain everything needed at consumer retail stores and make a batch in a garage. One liter of finished fentanyl is enough to create 50,000 to 100,000 doses.
So if you squeeze the balloon, it just pops up somewhere else. Put pressure on China and India starts supplying the chemicals. Start shutting down Mexican labs and they'll make the stuff in Oklahoma.
Not that these are bad things to do but unless you address the actual demand for the stuff it's going to be nearly impossible to eliminate it.
The latest Annual Threat Assessment: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...
Noted that production of those precursors has shifted to India.
The fentanyl itself is made in labs in Mexico and then smuggled across the border. It requires no sophisticated lab equipment to make. You can easily obtain everything needed at consumer retail stores and make a batch in a garage. One liter of finished fentanyl is enough to create 50,000 to 100,000 doses.
So if you squeeze the balloon, it just pops up somewhere else. Put pressure on China and India starts supplying the chemicals. Start shutting down Mexican labs and they'll make the stuff in Oklahoma.
Not that these are bad things to do but unless you address the actual demand for the stuff it's going to be nearly impossible to eliminate it.
I don't know anything about Fentanyl, but something about this description seems off to me. If it's as easy to make as you describe, why wouldn't people just make it here already? Why are they taking the risk of smuggling it across borders?
Most criminals aren't capable chemists. Given a laboratory and barrels of precursor chemicals, they couldn't make perfectly legal drugs like ibuprofen either. Most capable chemists aren't willing to risk property seizure and incarceration to make drugs for the black market. The few capable criminal chemists and their laboratories are concentrated in places where law enforcement is weak, like gang controlled regions of poorer countries.
DEA list 1
Not covertly. Overtly, and most Americans do know about it and care deeply.
Our “leaders” have abandoned us.
China can’t do those things to us without our help. I think there is a culture of addiction here and it’s hard to blame the drug dealer for our own problems
Who forces Americans to consume both?
Do you blame prostitutes when husbands cheat on their wives at a whorehouse too?
Do you blame prostitutes when husbands cheat on their wives at a whorehouse too?
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No, but I'm also not a die hard libertarian, so I'm open to arguments that 1. This is bad, and 2. There may be net positive policy interventions available.
On prostitution, I'm a bit skeptical that the policy interventions over time have been net positive, but maybe they have.
On social media, unfortunately I'm very skeptical of the proposed policy interventions, in general. But I'm convinced that the status quo is bad. But sometimes there just isn't a policy solution available that doesn't have tradeoffs that make it even worse than a bad status quo. It's still good to bring attention to the problems with that status quo, though.
In the case of TikTok in particular, I think forcing divestment is a no-brainer, but for totally different reasons than what Haidt is writing about.
On prostitution, I'm a bit skeptical that the policy interventions over time have been net positive, but maybe they have.
On social media, unfortunately I'm very skeptical of the proposed policy interventions, in general. But I'm convinced that the status quo is bad. But sometimes there just isn't a policy solution available that doesn't have tradeoffs that make it even worse than a bad status quo. It's still good to bring attention to the problems with that status quo, though.
In the case of TikTok in particular, I think forcing divestment is a no-brainer, but for totally different reasons than what Haidt is writing about.
In America this is precisely what happens — blame falls on the woman
Tiktok is not more guilty than any US company. Instagram, facebook and most modern social media went this path long before Tiktok. We shouldn’t singlehandedly blame one party but go to the root of the issue.
The opioid crisis is a uniquely American problem, entirely of its own creation. Blaming it on other countries is convenient but false.
This is decidedly not true on almost every account.
Europe has its own opioid crisis, and we absolutely can blame other countries who play host to the primary runners of heroin and synthesizers of fent. The pain industry is just the first baby step to hard drugs. We already handled our side after OxyContin - it’s impossible to get more than ibuprofen from a doctor without doing backflips through flaming hoops.
Europe has its own opioid crisis, and we absolutely can blame other countries who play host to the primary runners of heroin and synthesizers of fent. The pain industry is just the first baby step to hard drugs. We already handled our side after OxyContin - it’s impossible to get more than ibuprofen from a doctor without doing backflips through flaming hoops.
I live in the European country most like the USA, in a poor area of a major city. I'm not aware of any crisis. It was never that easy to get opioids here and our doctors work for the government, not themselves.
> We already handled our side
What did you do about the millions of Americans already hooked?
As I understand it, stopping the supply from pills mills lead to people hitting the street to buy product cut with fent. Some handling.
> We already handled our side
What did you do about the millions of Americans already hooked?
As I understand it, stopping the supply from pills mills lead to people hitting the street to buy product cut with fent. Some handling.
I am from Spain, from a blue collar town. Nope, that's utterly bullshit. There's no opioid crisis there.
It's not that I don't care. I don't know how real it is. Bad faith arguments and pseudoscience are ubiquitous.
When I was growing up the same types of people were saying that D&D was a demonic movement meant to turn kids to satanic rituals so I never got to play D&D. Rock music had subliminal messages that were converting children into zombies but I listened to it anyway and that's how I discovered that most adults were full of shit and straight-up lying to us. There's so much garbage out there that separating the noise from true threats is an overwhelming task for most average people.
When I was growing up the same types of people were saying that D&D was a demonic movement meant to turn kids to satanic rituals so I never got to play D&D. Rock music had subliminal messages that were converting children into zombies but I listened to it anyway and that's how I discovered that most adults were full of shit and straight-up lying to us. There's so much garbage out there that separating the noise from true threats is an overwhelming task for most average people.
the USA also seems to be starting its own cultural revolution, so we've got a lot going on right now
TikTok isn’t doing much that our domestic social media overlords aren’t doing to us themselves. Yeah Facebook is for boomers and Instagram is for millennials, but they’re only targeting the platforms like that because TikTok has already seized the younger demographics. If it wasn’t there they’re be on a Meta, Snap, YouTube, or Twitch app instead and still having their brains rotted.
We need actual data privacy laws that make that business model of invasive surveillance capitalism non-viable as well as some of severe regulations placed on algorithmic recommendation engines to limit these harms. At the very least, users should be permitted to tune their algorithm parameters, including deciding how much they see things they’ve explicitly requested to see less of.
Yeah we can scaremonger about TikTok all we want, but it’s not solely TikTok’s fault that it’s trash. The economic incentive structure is to produce a surfeit of brainwashing trash that erodes people’s mental health. We need to structurally change privacy laws and force market competition to crack these network effect monopolies if we want that to stop.
We need actual data privacy laws that make that business model of invasive surveillance capitalism non-viable as well as some of severe regulations placed on algorithmic recommendation engines to limit these harms. At the very least, users should be permitted to tune their algorithm parameters, including deciding how much they see things they’ve explicitly requested to see less of.
Yeah we can scaremonger about TikTok all we want, but it’s not solely TikTok’s fault that it’s trash. The economic incentive structure is to produce a surfeit of brainwashing trash that erodes people’s mental health. We need to structurally change privacy laws and force market competition to crack these network effect monopolies if we want that to stop.
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foreign adversary my ass. our sons of bitches don't like competition from their sons of bitches. add facebook and youtube and twitter and twitch and... to the list, and i'll get on board.
The content on Tik Tok is far superior to YouTube shorts and IG reels. There are even memes about it. Shorts and especially reels is geared more towards a millennial to boomer audience.
TL;DR
If you have a kid, please be a parent.
If you have a kid, please be a parent.
Henchman21(1)
I would love to first shut off Facebook before we do anything to TikTok.
I would love action to be swift and simultaneous.
bsenftner(14)
magicseth(3)
Same goes for instagram reels, the cheapest and shittiest copy seen in a generation
YouTube shorts too
Gosh I forgot those were a thing. Does anyone use this cheaper than cheap copy of a cheap copy?
I did, before I disabled the watch history which then also disables shorts, effectively. Shorts may be the wish/temu version of TikTok (though increasingly less so), but is absolutely as addictive.
How does disabling watch history disable shorts?
Well, shorts stop working if you do: https://i.imgur.com/cbFjIF4.jpeg
wow i've been looking for a way to do this for a while, guess I needed to google other ways of doing it. thank you
I hate when people copy other's ideas. Gmail was such a hotmail/yahoo copy.
Gmail was an improvement though. What did Youtube Shorts improve on tik tok exactly?
I don't think it matters if it's better or worse. There are plenty of bad browser based email implementations. I think we should be encouraging companies to borrow and steal good software ideas from each other, because otherwise we end up stifling innovation.
I don't know why exactly, but I don't get almost any "watch part 2" content on YouTube shorts. That's actually the only reason I started using it instead of TikTok - those really enraged me.
Cherrypicking? What about all the TikTok content promoting body positivity, etc?
Body positivity is a myth. Being obese is not healthy or anything to celebrate.
People like you are the cause of the problems described in the article, not TikTok.
If you have studied the matter and have research showing the positives of Tik Tok outweighs the negatives, publish it!
tiktok bodypositivy videos or an IQ > 80, choose one
IQ is 80% heritable.
First of all, no it's not.
Second of all, whether you wear earrings is drastically more heritable than IQ.
A good rule of thumb: unless the thread is literally about bioinformatics, the concept of "heritability" is probably an unuseful distraction.
Second of all, whether you wear earrings is drastically more heritable than IQ.
A good rule of thumb: unless the thread is literally about bioinformatics, the concept of "heritability" is probably an unuseful distraction.
The main reason TikTok is being targeted is because it doesn't silence pro-Palestinian perspectives on the conflict. This is a direct threat to the leadership of the people in charge because it fractures their narrative they work tirelessly to promote (the perpetual victim).
I'm sure that plays part in the motivation of some people, but to levy this accusation against Jonathan Haidt, who has extensively written about his views on social media in general, is very much unserious and a huge distraction best.
They may be part of why the American rhetoric is against Tiktok specifically rather than other platforms, but this specific author has a far wider remit against social media as a whole.
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=afterbabel.com
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=afterbabel.com
Wasn't the previous ban put in place by the Biden administration? And then Trump flipped sides to become the savior of TikTok or something like that?
Doesn't exactly align with your claim.
Doesn't exactly align with your claim.
Of course it does. https://www.instagram.com/p/DIepR0EMuRN/
Then why does the current administration keep suspending the ban?
Because they stroked his ego. Just like other tech leaders are attempting.
> "In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," the company said in a statement. "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States."
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-restoring-service/sto...
> "In agreement with our service providers, TikTok is in the process of restoring service. We thank President Trump for providing the necessary clarity and assurance to our service providers that they will face no penalties providing TikTok to over 170 million Americans and allowing over 7 million small businesses to thrive," the company said in a statement. "It's a strong stand for the First Amendment and against arbitrary censorship. We will work with President Trump on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States."
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/tiktok-restoring-service/sto...
> The main reason TikTok is being targeted is because it doesn't silence pro-Palestinian perspectives on the conflict.
First of all, TikTok was being in the crosshairs ever before Hamas decided to slaughter and take hostage civilians on Oct 7th.
Second, why is it always the pro-Palestine crowd that acts like their issue is the most important thing in the world, completely de-railing any debate? Seriously, no other geopolitical conflict has so many people injecting it into any debate they can find.
First of all, TikTok was being in the crosshairs ever before Hamas decided to slaughter and take hostage civilians on Oct 7th.
Second, why is it always the pro-Palestine crowd that acts like their issue is the most important thing in the world, completely de-railing any debate? Seriously, no other geopolitical conflict has so many people injecting it into any debate they can find.
The entire identity of being pro-Palestinian is one of resistance to power, so it's natural they would view all issues through that lens. The only form of activism for that movement is posting about it online, so it makes sense that it would seem to infest everything.
Well an active genocide seem like quite an important thing and that is happening right now not years ago.
[deleted]
The same people who continue to make excuses for and rationalize the ongoing genocide are in charge in the USA in the political and business sphere. All dissent will be crushed until morale improves.
Come on man. Think about what you're saying. Was the Rwandan Genocide just another "geopolitical conflict"? Ethnic cleansing is a major event.
Because if Hamas isn’t victimizing themselves as hard as possible, everyone will remember that they abducted, raped, and maimed 1500 people at a concert. And then refused to apologize. And took hostages. And still have the hostages.
I guess the closest analog is the rape of Nanking? I don’t think Japan ever truly apologized or even properly acknowledged it and I’d definitely still be salty if I was a Chinaman today. That said, the Japanese got nuked twice and lost their dignity in a number of other ways.
Edit: I forgot about the 6+ million Chinese the Japanese wiped out in WW2! WW2 China really is what Palestine thinks it is today.
I guess the closest analog is the rape of Nanking? I don’t think Japan ever truly apologized or even properly acknowledged it and I’d definitely still be salty if I was a Chinaman today. That said, the Japanese got nuked twice and lost their dignity in a number of other ways.
Edit: I forgot about the 6+ million Chinese the Japanese wiped out in WW2! WW2 China really is what Palestine thinks it is today.
Any sources for that you care to share?
Enough with this nonsense already.
While I don’t agree with the whole “Palestinian views should be censored” thing, that might be the ticket we need to set a precedent for regulating children’s access to social media. That’s the thing about politics—you have to be willing to make compromises with people you don’t see eye to eye on.
If your principles get in the way of making compromises that could help, you’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Something to think about.
If your principles get in the way of making compromises that could help, you’re letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. Something to think about.
Reminds me of the "stimulus" cheques during Covid.
Giving people money so they can pay rent and buy food during lockdown? Preposterous!
Giving people money so they can "stimulate the economy"? Now we're talking!
Giving people money so they can pay rent and buy food during lockdown? Preposterous!
Giving people money so they can "stimulate the economy"? Now we're talking!
"The Chinese government is using TikTok to harm our kids. Someone else should be using TikTok to harm our kids, and other people should be using other apps to harm our kids."
Infinite, algorithmically-curated content is the problem. It's designed to be addictive and manipulative. There's data that shows that stuff like this basically exploits our ability to delay gratification by offering big pops of reward at random intervals. This develops pathways that encourage continued interaction because, essentially, you don't know when a reward is coming but you know that a reward is coming eventually so your brain keeps drip-feeding you from the memory of the last reward. It's similar to how people end up mindleslly bashing away at penny slots all day for years and years.
Infinite, algorithmically-curated content is the problem. It's designed to be addictive and manipulative. There's data that shows that stuff like this basically exploits our ability to delay gratification by offering big pops of reward at random intervals. This develops pathways that encourage continued interaction because, essentially, you don't know when a reward is coming but you know that a reward is coming eventually so your brain keeps drip-feeding you from the memory of the last reward. It's similar to how people end up mindleslly bashing away at penny slots all day for years and years.
Who exactly do you think you're quoting there? I can't find it in TFA, and the article actually says exactly the opposite: that the current US approach is misguided because it focuses on the ownership of the company rather than the fact that the product is just plain dangerous in any hands.
Here's an actual quote from the conclusion of TFA, with a footnote:
> These harms may not be presented tomorrow to the Justices of the Supreme Court, but we think they should be decisive in the court of public opinion. TikTok should be removed from American childhood. 12
> 12. Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it.
Here's an actual quote from the conclusion of TFA, with a footnote:
> These harms may not be presented tomorrow to the Justices of the Supreme Court, but we think they should be decisive in the court of public opinion. TikTok should be removed from American childhood. 12
> 12. Of course, if TikTok is removed, many children will just move to TikTok’s competitors: Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts. This is why it’s so important for countries to follow Australia’s lead: raise the age for opening social media accounts to 16 and require the companies to enforce it.