Hey, don't just blame the parents. In the back half of this article the author points out that social media harms youth no matter if their parents let them use it or not because of the social webs it creates. If you choose to keep your child off social media then they could just as easily end up isolated from their peers because everyone else IS using it.

This article strikes at a very salient set of points about smartphones and social media. As someone that specifically tries to only use federated social media because it avoids some of these dark patterns, I certainly agree with. I also use my smartphone without any notifications turned on, ever.

Unfortunately the author has a few paragraphs that miss the mark and strike me as coming from more of a centrist or right-wing "kids these days are too soft" which feels very off-base and disconnected from the issue. For example:

This is why life on college campuses changed so suddenly when Gen Z arrived, beginning around 2014. Students began requesting “safe spaces” and trigger warnings. They were highly sensitive to “microaggressions” and sometimes claimed that words were “violence.”

The scare quotes around microagressions, a genuine issue faced my marginalized communities, is really uncomfortable and gives an unfortunate perspective on some of where this author is coming from.

Putting that aside, I really do feel like most of what is said here is on point. Reducing social media use is imperative. Designing smartphone UX that doesn't shove notifications at you would also be a good idea. Getting younger people involved in communities and forming friendships is incredibly important.

I do think that the 4e DMG had a lot of practical DMing "advice" that got dropped for the 5e one sadly. Stuff about how to tell a fun story and organize a full campaign.

I definitely really like the quality of discussion on Lemmy, it makes me feel like it's actually worthwhile to comment and discuss things again. It feels like how it felt when I started using reddit back in 2012 or so.

Monthly Active Users are unfortunately down for the past several months in a row. Something more needs to happen.

Thank god. I can play Halo 2 and Oblivion in peace.

Linux uses the File System Hierarchy which Windows does not use. How do I keep my system organized while keeping to the FSH.
Altogether it's actually not that different from Windows, it's just shuffled around a bit. You'll have your /home/yourusername/ folder, which is where you'll put most of your files. If you have more than one hard drive in your machine you can mount it under /mnt/ and then store the files on it as you would normally. You don't have to worry about where your programs are stored (your package manager will take care of that for you).

re: the command line
For the most part I agree, but I also think it's a solved problem. A linux install with Gnome is on par with Mac OS when it comes to user friendliness, with no need to ever look at a terminal in order to do things. The UX here is nearly a solved issue. However I also feel that "growth" or "mainstream success" is no longer something I feel like I need linux to achieve. When I started using Linux in 2009 half of the programs I tried were pale copies of proprietary software. WINE barely worked. Game support was almost non-existant. WiFi drivers were genuinely almost always broken. Flash forward fifteen years and all of these issues are fixed. Using Linux on a day to day basis makes me happy, I no longer feel like I'm missing out on anything by using it. That is such an incredible leap to take. The key takeaway is that all of these problems were solved without Linux becoming "mainstream". It and the community around it have just kept moving along and making it better over time. It's been lovely to watch it grow like that. A fully-featured and powerful terminal is just one part of this fantastic, open computing environment that I love.

As an additional note to this, I do think that Linux is poised to really take off among one particular demographic: PC gamers that build their own machines and can now finally see a good alternative to forking over $150 to Microsoft for their OS. The Steam Deck has definitely turned heads here. I don't think the legions of people buying laptops to take notes during university lectures and browse Facebook (the "20 wpm typers" out there) will be very interested in Linux machines no matter what we do, so let's focus the energy where it counts.

1) Is Wayland worth using? Especially when you consider all the issues that may come from using an NVIDIA card. Are there any real noticeable advantages/improvements to using Wayland over Xorg.
If you have an Nvidia card you're probably best sticking to Xorg for now. I'm currently running Xorg with Gnome 45 since I have a GTX 1060. As I understand it Wayland is better at handling refresh rates across multiple monitors, as well as DPI scaling. These are minor issues compared to having everything working smoothly. I do feel like Xorg is on the way out now however, and I expect to switch off of it in a year or two.

2) Does bloat actually have a noticeable negative impact on your system or are people just over reacting/joking.
It's mostly just a meme. It certainly won't slow you down. What it does do is take up space on your hard drive and in your menus. I do understand taking pleasure in ensuring that your system is trimmed down to only what you really need. But don't worry about it at all.

3) What are some habits I should practice in order to keep my system organized and manageable?
The same habits you have on Windows. Keep your files and folders in order. Beyond that there's not much you need to worry about, especially with Kinoite.

4) Any habits or standards that I should abide by in order to save myself headaches in the future?
Not that I can think of off the top of my head. Most important is leaning to RTFM, meaning go read the documentation for your distro (or just look at the Arch wiki) when you have an issue. If you run into a problem and need to ask for help, make sure you don't do the XY problem.

5) Any other resources besides the AUR that I should be aware of?
I don't think Fedora Kinoite supports AUR, that's an Arch Linux thing. You'll be getting 99% of your apps from Flatpak.

6) What do you wish you knew when you first started using Linux that would have saved you a headache in the future?
A long time ago I made a thread that got shared around a bit about how I thought the command line was pushed by Linux anoraks who didn't understand the needs of the common user. I've used Linux a lot since then and I've changed my perspective: the command line is your best friend. It lets you do exactly what you want to do very quickly. It's fast, it's efficient, it's beautiful. If you learn it a whole world of additional tools command line tools will open to you (ssh, grep, etc). There's a reason that places like /c/unixporn love pictures of open terminals with neofetch loaded up.

And with it dying I think that's probably the last time I'll look at Twitter. If something isn't publicly available on something like Mastodon it isn't worth making an account to see.

German natives speaking English usually makes for one of my favourite accents, it's very pleasant.

Reddit has a longstanding reputation for being a hive of scum and villainy (like hosting the_donald for years, or kotakuinaction, etc). I really hope that Lemmy keeps with the general left-leaning vibes of the fediverse overall, hopefully being a good space for queer people, women, people of colour, etc.