Agreed. Just the peer pressure for having a smartphone at all is immense. Some kids have one below the age of 10. That is absolutely insane to me.
Not having it be regulated makes it a lot harder for parents to do their job, because the kids with responsible parents are getting peer-pressured by the kids with irresponsible parents.
Or put another way: you’re not making parents do their jobs; you’re making their jobs impossible by forcing them to choose between ruining their kid’s mental health by letting her be exposed to social media, or ruin her mental health by forcing her to be ostracised for not using social media.
The only way to have a successful outcome is to force everyone else’s kids not to use it, not just your own, and no amount of rugged individualist good parenting can accomplish that by itself!
That said, I am extremely sympathetic to the arguments against age verification laws too, which is why my preferred solution would be to fucking outlaw and destroy corporate social media entirely, for kids and adults alike.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 1 hour ago
Retail4068@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Or like, use the ample parental controls to limit their time to a reasonable amount 🤷♂️
WhyJiffie@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
the parent can only do that on devices they own. they can’t do that on classmates devices
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 hour ago
Yeah man, you’re on top of it.
It’s just lazy parents, right? Like they’re not even trying, huh?
Couldn’t really have anything to do with - I dunno, NO parents except the born-rich, being able to parent properly, on account of having to make the dollars keep adding up.
Probably also NOT the wildly, disgustingly sophisticated Big Fucking Tech doing everything they can to pull our children into their hilariously successful maze of dissatisfaction.
If only the parents would just use the obviously available parental controls! Duh.
Fuck you, for real.
PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
You are exactly right. We’re all in this ugly, trapped situation, together, like it or not.
As a parent, do you remove the obviously ruinous toxins from the kiddo’s environment, entirely? Seems like the only sensible choice.
But then again…for the kid, few things could feel worse. An entire childhood spent alienated from their peers? Permanently out of the loop, to where that becomes the personality trait noticed and remembered by others?
What a horrible bargain, I completely hate it.
“Well, a little hideous poison for you, routinely, I guess. I wouldn’t want you to end up weird, after all…”