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Comment by pier25 | Hacker News Reader

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, are super focused on adding new users and creating an addiction on a massive scale never seen before. Of course it's bad for kids.

Social media, smartphones, and tablets, are the new smoking.

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I've been saying this for a while, particularly with respect to how our kids and grandkids will view these devices, systems, and patterns of behaviours— "Oh, there's grandpa, needing to leave the restaurant for a few minutes to get his social media fix because they've banned screens in here for privacy/ambiance/preference reasons."

Gosh I hope not, I can't imagine needing to do this!

Really? I can totally picture it. There are already upscale cinemas that ban phones, for grownups who don't want to look at the movie over a sea of glowing screens, and are willing to pay a premium price and surrender the use of their own device for the privilege.

Same goes with restaurants, especially fancy ones, where diners are sick of having everyone around them snapping pics of their food for instagram.

Or standup comedians requiring people to lock their phones in neoprene bags before a show. I was at a Dave Chapelle show last year where he did this, and his surprise guest after the show was Kendrick Lamar. It was actually jarring to be at a concert for the first time in a decade where there were no phones up, and people just focused on the performance.

On a recent tour, Jack White was banning cell phones at the concert - you had to check them at the door. Everyone I know who went to that show raved about the experience, to not feel the need to check in, to not see phones lifted above the audience film things, to just focus on the music.

lol - though I completely disagree with the premise of social media is the new smoking.

I would also assume by the time millenials are grampas nobody is gonna be looking at screens but through some AR glasses/lenses

Wikipedia and YouTube can be huge timesinks as well, but hardly see much commentary as regards to FB and Instagram.

Reddit and hackernews too.

Frankly when I was a kid there were oldschool forums I'd frequent all the time.

I think this isn't a "kid" problem. I see just as many adults glued to their screens.

As adults however, we are old enough to decide for our self if we want to commit to bad habits. Kids are not attributed that judgment. There is a difference between restricting the diet of a child and restricting the diet of an adult.

Wikipedia is informative, at the very least. It's the same reason why you don't see an outcry about people spending time at the library.

Youtube can be informative as well, although the majority of it is not. I consider YouTube to be as much of a problem as FB/Instagram, with the caveat that it can, by design, have useful content (which the other two cannot).

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