this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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So teens who don't fit in well in the IRL spaces that are available to them should have 0 ways to have social interactions?
If teen me hadn't had the internet, I would have 0 joyful memories whatsoever of my teen years. Anyone sympathizing with the ideas in the OP is in my mind purely evil and oppressive, I have no other words to describe this.
Are you genuinely comparing social media to social interactions? Twitter for example is like a parody of what social interactions are, and I think this article is talking about things like Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, and other algorithmic platforms that give the user an anonymous feed of slop. I can't imagine this is advocating for a ban on platforms like fb messenger, WhatsApp, ect. that aren't nearly as invasive and generally do serve a good social function.
The case isn't clear for platforms like reddit and Lemmy imo, on one side they do have a slop feed effect, but they also feel a lot less aggressive to me for some reason.
Sounds like it's the platforms that are the issue, not the kids. Would you believe that maybe the corporations havent been acting with ours or our children's best interests at heart and should, shock horror, be forced into doing that? It's almost like designing social media to be an ad casino shouldn't have been allowed.
Again, how do you define "social media"?
I grew up on IRC as well as web forums and found those social interactions very fun overall, not dissimilar from IRL social interactions.
I would draw the line at having an algorithmic content feed as the primary way of interaction. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook (mostly), YouTube, Twitter, Reddit would be out or would have to drastically change their content discovery system. By algorithmic I mean - one that adapts to the user's personal viewing habits.
I'd classify stuff like IRC and web forums as communicators, in the same basket as WhatsApp, email, sms, and perhaps Discord. I agree that they have, in general, valuable social interactions. They also don't have the same effect as algorithmic platforms where you can be scrolling for 2 hours and not remember a single thing you read, or where you're served content tailored to keep you engaged.
I'm sure there are some valuable platforms that would get hurt by this distinction, but imo it's a good first guideline.
It's a possible distinction to make, the main problem is that the article in the OP didn't make that distinction.
You're right, I guess I just assumed the author had the same view as me.
Calling people who are trying to protect children pure evil is unhelpful rhetoric. Disagreeing with their opinion is helpful. Sharing an anecdote against their proposals is helpful. Personal attacks are unhelpful and do more harm than good for the conversation. I will admit that they set the stage in bad faith by calling their stance 'inarguable'.
I tend to be unsympathetic in general to ideas that anyone (including young people) needs to be "protected" from their own decisions.
They only want to ban social media and even then only the big ones with an exception for youtube.
OK, what's the definition of "social media" for that purpose then?