this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2024
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I mean, that's kind of my point - in situations like that, it seems like using Tiktok is small potatoes compared to the more significant issues that'd cause problem behavior. The Tiktok consumption is just another symptom, and if it wasn't tiktok it'd be some other escape mechanism.
To me, the article seems lazy, complaining about a superficial problem without spending effort to even consider or mention underlying root causes that could give rise to it and must be solved first.
And to be clear I'm not blaming the parents, they're not the "root cause" I'm talking about. They're victims too, in large part. They and their kids are stuck in a harmful cycle, and people with the ability to break that cycle are unwilling to do so.
You explicitly said you couldnt imagine 30% of 5-7 year olds having essentially unfettered access to TikTok, and you said the TikTok problem is a symptom of general mental health decline in youths.
You did not say your point was that 30% of 5-7s are using TikTok habitually, you expressed incredulity to this, to which I responded.
Anyway, you want a root cause?
Poverty, drug addiction, poor parenting.
Yeah, I am going to blame the parents, at least partially.
Oh you have kids and you are not able to actually raise them, hand them off to TikTok instead? You shouldn't have had kids you can't actually raise.
Obviously, this would happen a lot less if maybe we redistributed some wealth from the top to the bottom, actually had an economy and society that allowed for all people to live well.
Sure the article is superficial in the sense it isnt exploring root causes, but it doesnt really purport to try. That would probably end up being a completely different and much more complex piece of writing.
Further, this is honest-broker, a website for basically well to do yuppies who were born into connections and managed to maintain the socio economic strata they were born into, where they fret about how the poors are poor because theyre stupid, and minutiae about their investments.
What did you expect?
Yeah, I know I shouldn't expect much from a site like that, but since it's shared here I felt like I should shine a little light on the deeper issues.
This kind of superficial "journalism" rage-baiting boomers for clicks is really frustrating to me. Shit like this is brain-rot at least as bad as Tiktok is. It has always existed, but the extent to which it has replaced actual analysis and investigation is depressing.
Yes, the parents are partially at fault, of course. But as you indicated, there are significant societal pressures that force families into dynamics like this and it's not realistic to expect an overwhelming majority to be able to resist it, alone. And since we're not about to engage in class-based eugenics, it's up to society to give them a serviceable ladder to climb out of their situation.
So, TLDR; I wanted to shine a light on deeper issues, so that people don't think that this is solely a moral failing of parents, and that they DO understand that we have a collective responsibility to help families.