Comment by mystcb
6 hours ago
Probably going to illicit some bad responses, but hopefully here, people might see what I am trying to say.
While I am annoyed a "ban" has to come into play for social media, it seems to be the only thing we can do in the short term, but as a person in the IT industry, I do wonder if we are missing doing an RCA on the issue.
Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers.
However, I see the root cause as these are commercial platforms which enable the person with more money to throw their version of events at all of us, not just kids and adults. I can see that it isn't just the kids we have to worry about, but we have adults in high places who will believe the same thing, and while we worry about the children in this, there are adults who could do serious damage to themselves and others, and people would look the other way.
These days, people need to have different ways to talk to each other. Yes, I know we used to have letters, then telegrams, then everything evolves, but live changes, and information is so much more freely available. Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture. Moving closer to sensorship.
For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on. How many times have we as IT people left something and had to then deal with the issues later on.
Social media is just that, it isn't good. I try to stay away from it, but in a way it is the only way I do get updates on what happens to my friends, globally. The world is changing, and we need to adapt, but we need to put the right guardrails in the right place.
Personally, I think the blanket ban is not the right thing to do, but in the short term, we have ended up being the only option we can do, and that isn't good. That is why for me, a ban isn't good. It isn't because I don't think it will help, I just believe it doesn't solve the problem itself.
> I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it
The social pressure to get on those platforms grows rapidly, well before they are 16. It starts with group chats, and who wants to be left out, where kids start posting funny things from tiktok or whatever, and then it's game over.
We kept ours a bit tight: first phone at 12, no internet, but everyone in the vicinity had whatsapp. Not much later we succumbed. Recently, my daughter told me she felt isolated, because the other kids in her class had access to much more. And that's 12 years ago. I cannot image the current levels of pressure.
Regulation is the only way. Meta, ByteDance, etc. are only moving forward with ever more addictive patterns. And it's killing society.
Edit: I recently was in a conversation with young parents, and one of them said: I do hope there's a ban soon.
Exactly this, the pressure from everyone, not just the kids themselves, is a lot. We are in a digital world right now, and without "digital access", you become part of the crowd that can get bullied for not being up to date. It is a terrible place to be, and you get torn between the two ends of the scale.
I think there is such an issue with closed platforms as well on top of it all. I wouldn't want my kid on WhatsApp being perfectly honestly, I can't really control to a level where I feel that they would be safe on that platform. While all the adults in her life are on there, means we are limited to the odd platform here and there.
I have an Apple device for her, I have used Apple Configurator and profiles to properly lock down what they can do on the device. Even then its timed and monitored, but then we hit the issue. Half the family are Apple, half the family are Android, and same with her friends too. The only way we have been able to get some semblance of chat is Google Meets, but even then messaging doesn't always work, and she is left with SMS, which for some of the other kids, they don't have a SIM in their device (and probably for good reason). It means that keeping the links up between her and everyone is just like being in an IT support department! But at least I know she isn't going to get to anything bad.
Even at school you hear what the other kids have seen, to a point where the school had to pull in Safegarding because one of their kids basically had unfettered access to YouTube, and started telling the class everything.
The ban needs to happen, because we have set ourselves up for this globally, without the right pressure to the right places, to the platforms themselves, the world has to take other actions, and the pressure continues.
It's always the way that we always wish for the things we can't have, as children I remember my own meltdowns back in the day, over Lego of all things!
It isn't good, at all.
Again, I didn't want my post to say I disagree, its just, there needs to be more done, and this is just a plaster over the issue.. it will help, but over time it will become less and less effective :(
100% agreed that at least short term, we should ban it for children.
But beyond..? If we believe in freedom of speech, what's the angle? How is it different from an awful tabloid pushing its own warped reality on us? Colorful "newspapers" with topless models and stories about a stoned postman were also ragebait and dopamine hacking, only offline. I don't like them, but then some time around 18th century we concluded we let almost everyone say almost anything, to make sure no tyrant can shut down ideas singlehandedly.
IMHO the fundamental issue is a failure of education. We're in a position where people (adults) are literally too stupid to tell how bad, deceitful and dangerous this stuff can be. We should teach people properly, then let them read whatever.
Banning cigarettes is one thing, banning (awful but bon-criminal) free speech feels off.
> Even as an adult with a child, I can't see us ever letting our kid actually use social media till they understand it, and that comes down to parenting properly, teaching them the right way, and letting them know of the dangers
Just answering to this part explicitly: Proper parenting is not doable in a lot of modern societies. There are so many children being neglected by their parents. So we'd have to go for a mix of parenting and regulating.
I agree, it needs to be in collaboration though. We can't rely just on one side to do all the work. It has to be a very good balance otherwise it will feel like we are pushing to hard, or being turned into a nanny state.
I agree, it isn't possible to keep up these days on everything. I know for myself, I have my kid with a phone, but I also happen to use Apple Configurator and provide a massively locked down platform for her. It contains enough for her to call us, emergency contacts, a few very selected games, and fully restricted, and monitored. But this I know is only because I am in the IT world, and do this sort of stuff generally. For general parent #1, they will always struggle, so need the support.
Either way, I do agree with you, it needs a mix, a balance, but we also need to use that regulation to hit the source, not plaster over it!
I agree with you on a few key points. Social media is structurally harmful, it amplifies those with money and reach, and good parenting and education are important. Where I disagree is in thinking that “good parents” and awareness are enough; you sound like you’re doing the right thing for your own kids, but that’s the exception, not the norm, and many parents are themselves oblivious to how these products work, so legal guardrails are needed in the same way we regulate alcohol or cigarettes.
If anything, a 16+ cutoff is still quite conservative. These platforms deliberately target developing reward systems and social comparison in the brain, and there is growing evidence (summarized well in the book “The Anxious Generation”) that the risk profile changes meaningfully only in the late teens, so pushing first exposure from 11–13 to 16 gives kids a better chance of resisting those algorithms.
Banning under‑16s from highly optimised, social feeds is also not the same as stopping them from talking to each other; you can still have calls, SMS, WhatsApp, group chats, email and offline social life. In my own case I’ve been social‑media‑free for about four years while still talking to friends and family regularly through these channels.
As someone who grew up all over the world and never stayed in one country for more than five years, I’m 35 and still in touch with close friends around the world purely through direct communication, which has also made it obvious how distorted social media’s notion of “friends” is. Once you leave, you quickly see who actually reciprocates effort instead of passively consuming a curated feed of your life.
You are right that bans don’t fix the deeper structural issues of commercial platforms or information asymmetries, but that’s not an argument against shielding children while we work on those deeper problems. In practice, a simple, blanket rule is often the only thing enforceable at scale that doesn’t depend on every parent being highly technically and psychologically literate.
In that sense, an under‑16 ban is not perfect and does not “solve the problem itself,” but it is still the right move compared to the current situation of throwing undeveloped brains into systems explicitly tuned to hijack their focus. The consequences of which we are only beginning to see now... the issue is tremendous.
> Locking people out of good information means that you are essentially stopping them from seeing the wider picture.
Good information is impossible to define, not least because it's different for every person. There is no single wider picture, certainly not one any two people could agree on and certain not one that can be legislated.
> Moving closer to sensorship.
Censorship for children is an absolute and unabated good. We should be censoring what children can see. We already do in other forms of media and communications.
> For me, its frustrating that this the direction we are going in, but it doesn't actually solve the issue. It just passes it along to later on, further time away, for it to then cause more damage later on.
No, unfettered access to obscene, extreme, & traumatising information, and unfiltered communication with a globe's worth of predators, is orders of magnitude more damaging to children than to adults. Delayed access until both biological and psychological processes mature dramatically reduces overall harm and introduces no new harm.
Fair point on the good information; it is always relative to the person.
What I do want to say is that with the unfettered access side, I completely agree with this too. Right now, because of what has happened, it is the only real option we do have, and it does mean that the wrong things get caught in the collateral. Its frustrating when it does, but if its the right thing to do, then it should be. My point was that while we are putting effort into ensuring people are safe, we need to also put effort into sorting the root cause of the problem too, we can't just ignore it. It will fester and continue, so that when that access is lifted because "they are old enough" then whats stopping it happening then, when they are older.
Just wanted to say I don't disagree with what is happening, I just wish there was more work to help with the root of the problem, to start to actually deal with it further down the rabbit hole.
As we have seen with adult verification too, its a cat and mouse game, and right now, the mice are winning.
I do agree that any ban is of limited future utility if kids go from a safe kiddie pool into deep waters that are lethal for a majority of the population.
Still, dismissing a ban is throwing the baby out with the bath water. (I couldn't help myself with the water analogies. Sorry)
Free speech is the cornerstone of our ability to debate and understand the shape of reality. It remains the best way forward. The issue is that the modern attacks on the market place of ideas are designed to circumvent our intuitions and safeguards.
Today control is achieved by overwhelming the network and users. An Abundance of privately generated content instead of central regulation and restriction of content.
However the threat is the same- reducing the ability for humans to engage in fair debate.
If you want a better environment for kids to be able to transition to, we need to triage.
1) Ensure an even playing field. This means regulation, which by nature will be censorial, as well as the creation of independently funded news and information bodies.
2) Transparency and Data from tech firms. When we find out a substance is harmful, and have the data to prove it, we make rules to mitigate those harms.
3) Valuing informational health and hygene. Junk food used to be dominant globally, and today we joke about avocado toast and the latest health food fad. People shifted consumption habits when costs and benefits were made clear.
Social media are detrimental for a young human being under development. A child's brain works in no way the same as our adult brains, so we cannot apply the same caring logic as you would with adults. I see this in the same category as cigarettes, drugs and alcohol.
Until you are old enough and we can assume (or hope) there is mental capacity to properly contextualize life choices and being able take a stance for / against these things, a ban is appropriate.
Please cite reliable studies rather than just-so stories.