Why not just give them feature phones? Things that you can communicate with but which don’t have social media on them? If you need to access a website, just do it at home on a laptop or something. It’s important for kids to be able to experience being a kid before we thrust a digital life on them
Kids are online because interaction in person has become increasingly difficult. School should probably only take up half or less of the current amount of time it does, of course kids are going to be doomscrolling while waiting out the clock to go home like we do at work.
We can give them dumb phones, if we also close off most roads so no cars are allowed on them, and stop assigning homework, and stop treating school like a day care prison, and allow loitering.
All the things that enabled kids to be kids instead of miniature adults before we started blaming phones for these problems.
That would be great, for children to foster a sense of freedom and independence in their society.
But I don’t think we are ready for having the real conversations
When it comes to social media specifically, having am engagement boosting recommendation algorithm is the root cause of several problems. That’s why Mastodon, Lemmy and Pixelfed are so great.
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 months ago
It’s not possible to participate in society without a phone
It’s not a good thing to stunt the development of people we expect to depend on phones one day.
It’s good to ban them during class because they’re a distraction. But human beings need phones to live in this world.
Phones =/= bad, that’s lazy boomer logic
anachrohack@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Why not just give them feature phones? Things that you can communicate with but which don’t have social media on them? If you need to access a website, just do it at home on a laptop or something. It’s important for kids to be able to experience being a kid before we thrust a digital life on them
SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Kids are online because interaction in person has become increasingly difficult. School should probably only take up half or less of the current amount of time it does, of course kids are going to be doomscrolling while waiting out the clock to go home like we do at work.
We can give them dumb phones, if we also close off most roads so no cars are allowed on them, and stop assigning homework, and stop treating school like a day care prison, and allow loitering.
All the things that enabled kids to be kids instead of miniature adults before we started blaming phones for these problems.
That would be great, for children to foster a sense of freedom and independence in their society.
But I don’t think we are ready for having the real conversations
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
There’s some great ideas here
anachrohack@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Sure, fix schools, too. But phones are their own specific problem and we should ban smartphones for kids under 16. They are bad for kids
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
Screens aren’t the problem. It’s how we tend to use them for the most part.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
Big corporate assholes have ruined internet communities but we can easily take back control, and we are right here right now actually
TranquilTurbulence@lemmy.zip 3 months ago
When it comes to social media specifically, having am engagement boosting recommendation algorithm is the root cause of several problems. That’s why Mastodon, Lemmy and Pixelfed are so great.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
Also it’s being done explicitly because of Gaza. they’ve admitted it