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Comment by radq | Hacker News Reader

I started programming when I was 12, mostly writing small scripts to customize PHP forum software. I joined a number of online forums and mailing lists with more experienced folks doing similar things and learned a ton from reading their code and getting feedback on mine. The experience helped me a ton with my career later on, and I formed friendships that last to this day.

I can't think of a way to define "social media" that wouldn't include forums, mailing lists, Stack Overflow etc. It would be a shame to deprive young people today of the opportunities I had growing up.

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Seems like it could be fairly simple to define whether a UGC site can be considered "not social media".

* No recommended content. Chronological feed with basic search functionality is okay. Auto-generated "popular posts" section is social media.

* No targeted ads. Static banners which everybody sees are okay. Decision-making about which ads to show based on user data is social media.

I think those two simple rules would keep a "not social media" company's incentives aligned against invective and towards relevant discussion, even if they were in the business of facilitating discussion amongst like-minded people. And it's not like social media would be banned: just more tightly regulated.

I offer a refinement on the 'targeted ads' aspect.

No USER targeted ads. Ads based on page content should be allowed. I say this as someone fully against ads as a concept entirely. They are not helpful nor a benefit for consumers. Consumer awareness and product fit for purpose tests should be funded and expressed in other ways. Maybe a competition (think 'buy ins' like poker tournaments) as an idea / one example.

Maybe page content and location, or at least location in a broad sense (down to a city or state level) to allow for small niche businesses to buy relevant advertising. I.e. The local model train shop buying ad space for users of a model train forum that are conceivably close enough for them to actually go there

Location data seems like a better fit for maps, which would tie in to searches for X, and maybe include some sort of coupon that when used also gave a small kickback to the route which the customer got it via.

> I say this as someone fully against ads as a concept entirely. They are not helpful nor a benefit for consumers.

I subscribe to hot rod magazines for the express purpose of the ads.

But somehow, the targeting of ads by Amazon, etc., have never turned up anything I wanted to buy.

At this point we're no longer talking about social media we're talking about personalisation. None of what you said touched on either the social aspect or whether something is or is not a medium for such activity.

Which is fine, but probably something to keep in mind when debating definitions.

Most of what you mentioned is more about privacy. Which could indeed do with some additional protections, though attempts at an age restriction tend to run into the paradox that you need to know someone's age to enact the restriction, which means you need their personal info, which is what we're trying to avoid.

I'm not sure preventing targeted ads or recommendations it is enough though. Part of the problem with social media is that they accelerate all types of social interaction, which may be harmful in and of itself (you don't need recommendation algorithms or targeted ads for something to go viral after all, viral memes predate both of those).

> I can't think of a way to define "social media" that wouldn't include forums, mailing lists, Stack Overflow etc.

Yes. Even Wikipedia has a comments section and profile pages.

I'm also deeply grateful for all the things I learned from interacting with other people on the internet. In fact, most interactions I've had were without any party knowing much about who the other person was. We didn't care about age, gender, race or any of the other real-life traits. We only cared about a shared curiosity. Forcing real identities and age verification onto the internet will destroy safe spaces for human interactions.

Unfortunately, decentralized forums like these have virtually gone extinct. At best, you can try find a Discord server where all the lore and discussions are swallowed by the black hole of the past chatlog.

It is not the same experience anymore. The driving forces are algorithmically lead platforms, which will decide what you get to see and are more likely to promote the latest fad with the largest traction.

I started programming at the age of 10, in 1985, when none of those things existed (well, some did, but I didn’t have access to them due to the lack of a modem).

Social media isn’t a requirement for learning a skill.

Access to more experienced people isn't a requirement for learning a skill.

Access to a table saw isn't a requirement for making cabinets.

It makes things a lot faster and easier. At the risk of a little danger.

You probably shouldn't let a 13-year-old use a table saw without supervision either.

Exactly!

> It makes things a lot faster and easier.

Why does it need to be faster and easier? I wrote about this in another reply [1], the difficulty of the trial and error process was what gave me the insight (I believe anyway). Obviously, not everyone's the same, so I don't expect my journey to map perfectly onto everybody else's, but there is definitely something to be said for the joy of finding out yourself.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35828505

Back then you had magazines to get info from. All of this is on the internet now. Often on social media like Reddit.

I don't think I learned anything of significance from a magazine. Typed in a few listings, but didn't gain anything from it other than frustration that I didn't know why it didn't work (type one thing wrong).

I'd say the majority of my learning came from manuals [1] and books I either read in the library or bought [2][3a][3b][ca][3d].

The rest came from brute-force trial & error - which I don't think should be downplayed. As a child I had time and energy to just try stuff out, that repeated process of failing until succeeding probably gave me more insight than any online writings would today.

It's probably not that far from how I learn new things now. I might learn the basics of something online (a few key pointers) and then go and prototype and try until I'm happy it's sunk into my brain.

I see this as similar to the kind of constraints that music producers have. Whether it's an instrument they play, or the limited kit they have in a home studio. Being forced to learn the thing inside out, because of some arbitrary constraint, often leads to more creative use and a deeper understanding. Modern producers have access to thousands of plugins that replicate the old expensive gear. What happens is they drown in a sea of options, never really learning any one of them in any depth.

Back to the point, if a child wanted to learn programming (without social spaces) - then perhaps some online free-courses, good references sources, combined with the trial & error process I describe above, would be just as effective as the social-network approach? Who knows, it may even be more effective. I see a lot of junior engineers struggle with the basics - basics I taught myself in my teens.

I guess we'll never know, there are so many variables in this equation:

* Are there good non-social-space reference resources?

* Are the free courses good enough - and would they inspire a child to do them?

* Is the current landscape of technology so large that this approach wouldn't work?

I believe inspiration is the key to learning. On the first manual I read [1], after the pages for plugging the computer in:

* Page 10 - drawing lines and triangles on the screen

* Page 11 - making sounds

Before long I'm making a rocket fly up the screen. I'm instantly thinking "I can make a game", and that's it, I'm hooked...

[1] BBC Micro User Guide - https://stardot.org.uk/forums/download/file.php?id=91666

[2] BBC Micro Advanced User Guide - https://stardot.org.uk/mirrors/www.bbcdocs.com/filebase/esse...

[3a] RISC OS Programmers Reference Manual [Volume 1] - https://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/RISC%20OS%20Programmer'...

[3b] RISC OS Programmers Reference Manual [Volume 2] - https://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/RISC%20OS%20Programmer'...

[3c] RISC OS Programmers Reference Manual [Volume 3] - https://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/RISC%20OS%20Programmer'...

[3d] RISC OS Programmers Reference Manual [Volume 4] - https://www.4corn.co.uk/archive/docs/RISC%20OS%20Programmer'...

Of course it's not a requirement. The same way a knife isn't required to spread butter - you can use a spoon. If you were to attempt to keep up with say, javascript the way you used to learn you'd be left in the dust.

And as tge other person says, how do you define social media? Forums?

That's a lot easier said than done though. I mean it is quite easy to imagine how letting a 12 year old join a forum with anonymous adults can go wrong.

Then again that is basically the same fear that is preventing children from playing outside unsupervised. And not letting children play unsupervised may end up doing more harm, whether it is playing outside or exploring the internet.

That said I'm not sure if not doing something is an option here, partially because I'm getting the impression it's not simply the (luckily) rare 'bad people' that are a problem on the internet, there's whole industries that profit from children without concern for their wellbeing.

How much harm to children is caused by the advertising industry, across the whole of society? They are not the typical 'predator' but they sure do prey on children, grooming them to buy their products, and displacing other pastimes that the children themselves would have done and loved, if it wasn't for the marketers' influence. All that potential creative activity, by children, lost due to stupid toys being pushed. What an opportunity cost that is.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pester_power

Sadly there's no chance of a moral panic ever happening over this, because the media which stoke the panics, are funded by advertising from the #1 predator of children, the marketing industry. So the media are never going to bite the hand that feeds them.

And of course the traditional media loves focusing on their competitors such as social media and saying that it causes harm. While completely ignoring the advertising towards children that likely causes a different type of harm, but it's still detrimental to children.

However the severity of the harm from social media is much greater, because we have an enormous increase in suicide rates in teenagers since 2012, and the prime culprit is the smartphone.

That's a great point.

Not sure how you could differentiate, but there has to be a way, as forums -feel- different than, say, Instagram.

Maybe something around media? Banning sites that allow or host media(pics/vids/audio) sharing directly?

> Not sure how you could differentiate

Imgur is an example of social media that pulls this off perfectly. Yes it's still a silly place designed for wasting time rather than personal enrichment, but it doesn't -feel- like other social media does.

Here's the trick: No selfies. No profiles. No follows. You post your meme pseudo-anonymously and hope it makes the central stream. Everything else dies in obscurity.

It's a lot like Hacker News in that way, which is also social media but feels different. Because 99% of the time I don't even read the usernames of who I'm talking to. We live and die on the basis of our ideas, not our identities. Even the famous people.

> It's a lot like Hacker News in that way, which is also social media but feels different. Because 99% of the time I don't even read the usernames of who I'm talking to.

That's a great point and interesting because I'd thought of HN as much like fora, but there it was (is?) common to address people by username (or partial) - 'Thanks cheesepuff[86] that worked perfectly' - which is seldom seen and would be a bit jarring, wouldn't it Swizec, on HN.

for my kids i've just thought of introducing them to computers via linux tiling window managers, they can operate from a terminal and learn to code.

i think browsing the internet via terminal like w3m does might take out a lot of the addictive nature of what catches your eye, and you can keep the utility of stack overflow

another equivalent would be teaching them to scrape each individual web-page for text on their own

So did I, but those forums were different. As someone else pointed out, no selfies, no actual names, no real identities.

There's no hard and fast rule the government can apply which would serve the people, for sure.

But from a parent's point of view it's not that hard to evaluate. If a forum is about things, and people rarely enquire about each other's personal life, it's probably safe. If it's about feelings and dividing communities along personal lines, it's probably not. If adults and children commonly come into contact and the community isn't on guard for creeps, it's not okay. If your kid really wants to participate in an unsafe seeming community, do it with them.

What government could do is mandate that social media sites of a certain scale run only from known domains, with clearly separated subdomains by activity, and have other tools to express parental control - and then leave the application of those to parents. Right now it's technically hard or impossible to enforce parenting rules, often by design.

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