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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> With the internet and especially media like TikTok parents are exposing their kids to untold bad influences

Some parents. Elite schools in Manhattan and Palo Alto send home fliers that parents (or at least those I know) read.

Screen time of all types is monitored. And the children have a somewhat hilarious self-protecting pride in their control over digital intake. (Most of them. Thinking of two brothers, one who eats his veggies because he, and I quote, doesn’t like his poop going soft, and self moderates cartoon watching and phone fucking around. The other who steals my phone to watch loud videos.)

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You don't have to be elite to be an involved parent. You just have to be involved. I have 2 so I know how easy it is to break out the digital babysitter, but even with the small amount I give mine I can see the influence it has, and I don't like it. I grew up with unfettered access to the internet before social media and now see how much it damaged me, I can only imagine what it is doing to kids today.

How did it damage you? And what do you think was the most negative influence?

General desensitivity to most terrible things that I once used to have empathy towards. I think it's the cause of a lot of our problems today actually. We can so easily just shrug off the plight of others and keep going on our own way.

A lot of very young people often try to be as cool and detached as possible. How foolish really. I think it is important to save some empathy for later but I believe part of it is just growing up and realizing you cannot change everything and not feeling empathy towards everything is a form of self defense. I believe it is difficult to attribute this to media consumption but there very well could be a part to that. It is intuitive at least.

On the other hand I try to compare it to the empathy of people that were not exposed to anything like the free media on the internet. And often they don't show increased levels of empathy either, often quite to the contrary.

Watching gore videos as a 12 year old probably isn’t good.

Genuine question: how did it "damage" you?

I am essentially still recovering from feeling completely numb to most of the terrible things that happen in the world, or feeling joy when I should be feeling joy when good things happen. Also growing up in an environment where I can get my dopamine rush on demand isn't good for being able to make long term sustained progress towards things. It felt like I was on SSRIs, but without actually being on them.

> don't have to be elite to be an involved parent

100% agree. Just pointing out there are parts of society where this is being messaged and socially enforced. So it isn’t a situation where we don’t know what to do. It’s one where we’re being selective about where we give a shit.

This reminded me of one particularly loathsome casino owner who boasted how his children never come near gambling. So naturally, the "elite" in Palo Alto are smart enough to shelter their children from their own toxic products. Somewhat (mildly) related is how you can visit a ghetto and be certain to find a liquor store in close proximity.

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