Summary
A YouGov poll revealed that 77% of Germans support banning social media for those under 16, similar to a new Australian law.
The survey found that 82% believe social media harms young people, citing harmful content and addiction.
In Australia, the law fines platforms up to AUD 49.5 million (€30.5M) for allowing under-16s to create accounts, with enforcement trials set before implementation next year. Critics
All the things you’re saying that kids need to learn about are things that they do not and cannot and will not learn about in closed wall garden environments ran by corporations. Which constitutes an ever-growing majority of children’s “experience” with the internet. “The Internet” to many is “Instagram” or “Facebook” or “Tic Tok”. It doesn’t mean anything else other than a portal to access their addiction through.
They won’t learn about online threats or how to critically think or how to avoid being manipulated.
Young users funnel it into centralized corporate ran networks are abused for financial gain using carefully and intentionally crafted content designed over decades to take advantage of the human psyche algorithmically shoved down their throats until they are addicted.
This isn’t the internet children need to be on, it’s not the Internet, it’s just a corporate controlled environment that just so happen to exist along the same wires as the rest of the internet.
As such I don’t see where your argument has any room to stand.
Algorithmically & bot driven social media IS the “online threat” these days.
The only skills that they are learning are how to adapt to fit that corporate environment, which is a transitive state that often comes with the cost of actual life skills.
Kids need to be on the internet I agree with this but their use of the internet needs to be as romantically hued as you state it. Which is unfortunately not the reality we see today.
Yes, you need to teach your kids these things. Not the schools, because they don’t have the manpower; not the corporations, because they won’t do it. No, you must teach them.
You can try to keep them off social media for as long as possible, but they’ll eventually find a way. Use that time to teach them about all these predatory mechanics, so when they do go on social media, they’ll understand what’s going on.
I’m not sure what argument you’re making here yes of course parents should be teaching their children these skills instead of letting them go on social media.
How is that relevant to the argument that I’m making though?
This is obviously not occurring today so how do you expect it to occur tomorrow when we make no changes today?
You do realize that the children of tomorrow will be raised by the children of today right? And as we let the children of today become addicted to social media and don’t provide them with the tools skills and safety to protect themselves from social media how do you expect them to teach their children how?
Sure I may be cognizant of this but again, as stated previously in these messages…, this is a systemic problem. You cannot solve a systemic problem by putting the burden of solution on each individual involved in the problem. Systemic problems require systematic solutions, this is largely an inarguable point.
I think we’re talking past each other.
My Argument is basically if I could I would block Instagram and TikTok for everyone under 16. If that’s not possible then block rather everything then nothing. But I also think it’s neither wise nor possible to keep children away from social media. You can limit their exposure yes, but because of their friends, their school or even a relative they will access social media before the set age. Use this time of limited exposure to prepare them as good as you can. Otherwise they will still access social media and will be even more vulnerable to scams, algorithms and fake news.