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Comment by gls2ro | Hacker News Reader

What is your exact proposal?

Kids - specially young ones cannot self regulate against billion dollars corporations that build features to keep people hooked

So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

I will not accept as solutions because is not applicable today by parents: - retricting social media account (the ones over 7-8 years old will find ways to say yes to a screen that asks for age) - saying Facebook or Tiktok should fix it - they will not - saying we should give them restricted phones - does not work practically - family should educate them - that works individually but it does not work society wise

So how do you protect the kids from this as a society?

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> saying we should give them restricted phones - does not work practically

I'm not sure why you dismiss that one. Whitelisting apps works - that's the whole idea behind kiosk devices. There are guides available, but basically you enable only the allowed apps, uninstall webview, lock the account.

Yes, it's not trivial and not everyone will want to do it. (It's available though https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340?hl=en#zip...) That's exactly why I wrote the last paragraph. Full access was one extreme. The ban is another extreme. (And is not exactly easy to implement either)

Once enough places overreact with the complete bans, the lockdown mode will get better documented, more popular, known by schools, finally (hopefully) easily available from the installation screen.

> because is not applicable today by parents

That's ok. This problem will still exist in a couple of years and this will be a bit easier to do each month. It was actually impossible to implement a few years ago, but we made progress.

My nephews were showing me how kids in their school were using Google Docs comments as a social network.

Point being, humans are highly adaptive creatures. You have to cut the source.

I don't see it as an issue. The bad part of social networks is feeding you never ending crap. If kids want to talk to each other... what's the issue with that? We had phone calls and party lines and passing notes before. (Or letters for those who were into that) They were as much a social network as Google doc comments.

It's the feed that allows them access to public posts that is a big problem. Let's start with children accounts where the feed is restricted to friends / followed accounts and only in chronological order.

As I type this, I realize this is exactly what a lot of us have been saying should be done for adults too. And why is it that all social media either moves towards this nebulous endless feed or actively pushes it. Very telling.

> Let's start with children accounts where the feed is restricted to friends / followed accounts and only in chronological order.

That's basically an instant messenger which supports groups.

> kids in their school were using Google Docs

They haven’t bottomed out yet, they still have Teams.

That seems fine. Nothing wrong with social networks with you friends.

Everything wrong with for profit social networks with algorithms designed to suck you in and share the worst of humanity.

That sounds like hacker spirit :)

I am dismissing it because I don't see if feasible to implement this. To keep this practical, please tell me how would you implement this for 10.000 kids.

Concrete plans: - Will you give parents those free phones? - Will you control entering the schools by type of phones? - Will this be a list of 2-3 phones allowed? Is this an intervention in the economy that other companies will do? - What kind of timeline will be needed to implement this?

I do agree we should start implementing long-term solutions. But as a parent, I want a solution now, these years :) for the current generation

Those are not new phones. You can do most of those restrictions on modern phones right now.

I'm not sure why you're putting all those requirements on an idea that can be self enforced in a community. We're commenting on an article where a community implemented a phone ban (not even covering everyone if I understand correctly)

> Is this an intervention in the economy that other companies will do?

Relevant companies already did most of it. Don't wait for the industry to rescue you.

Search for "(your phone type) parental control" and you'll find how to do that right now. Write it down in simple words. Tell other parents. It starts with you.

My kid does not have a phone yet but he is still young.

I talk with parents of kids a bit older like 10 and it is very hard to keep these limits when most of their colleagues don't have these limits.

I agree with you that what we do now is that we are trying to educate other parents about this. But it is hard and the years are passing.

I think access to mobile phones for kids is a big problem and indeed there is no simple solution.

I don't say we should do what the article is describing but I empathise with the parents that want a total ban of mobile phones for kids. It is simpler to enforce and explain this rule than explain everyday why my colleague has access why don't I? And try to explain that without also expressing a judgement on those kids or their families.

So here is a situation: the kids that have access to mobile phones and games at home goes to kindergarten and they play there only with other kids that know those games. They talk about levels and characters from those games. They don't have mobile phones at kindergarten but the fact they use it at home already creates two groups of children: those with access to mobile phones and those without access. And this is kindergarten/pre-school (4-5 years old)

Are you then also not allowing the use of a browser? You don’t need apps for most things.

Just try to allow a browser and block YouTube videos, without dns tricks. Even with block lists, there’s always another site that will show them.

Yes. That's what I'm saying. Alternatively you could play with domain following, but the request here was a simple solution.

> So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

Data allowance. Not just mobile data, Wi-Fi as well.

You can blow through 1GB of TikTok in an evening, but the same 1GB gives you more text than you can consume within a month.

Gradually increase it the same way you would with money.

Please let's make a difference between what a parent can do (and what you propose is doable) and what a community can do.

I allow restricted access to my kid: no mobile phone access, limited time to watch cartoon, no tv, limited access to laptop only for scratch for example, limited access to some educational videos about nature... He can use command line or repl to play for example with math questions... While also getting used with keyboard, mouse... Trying to find a good balance.

But unless I plan to keep him at home he goes to community and socialize and I have to explain why we don't do this or why we don't do that and to explain why others are playing games or have phones. And I do explain.

But I am also concerned about the social groups they are all growing. The majority are not like this. So he will live in a society maybe with people hooked on screens. Maybe he will find a bubble maybe not.

not a bad idea.

thou im not sure that 1GB of <comments on anonymous internet forum> will do less harm than a few hours of vanityfair videos.

True, which is why this will not be the only technique I'll use once my daughter comes of age.

Education and setting an example are two others I have in mind for now - the latter is of course easier said than done but honestly, if we truly believe something is healthy, why not do it ourselves?

There are people here that help build or aspire to build the things that are making kids and people sick. they'd rather do the damage and get the money playing devils advocate. you won't get much for ideas that are actually socially responsible.

Not to mention,this stuff is making adults insane, they're addicted too. Just read these comments. Addict caveates and excuses.

> So please tell me a concrete applicable way that we can apply today to protect them.

Don't allow corporations to build those features, and mandate that they build features that forcibly give children time away from their phones (e.g. caps on usage: no usage between 10PM and 7AM, no usage during school hours for entertainment products, maximum time to play games, mandatory labeling for all websites and products, etc.).

You can even go further (like China today, and the US during the Silver Age of comics) and enforce mandatory outcomes for creatives targeting children. For example the TikTok algorithm in China must output educational resources for children and perhaps children's entertainment could be forced to not glorify certain topics such as school shootings, revenge on bullies, sociopathy, etc.

I believe we can use AI here :-) It is suddenly scalable to help kids develop critical thinking skills live in real time.

I've got 5 year olds, 8, 10 and a 12 year old, and they've been my beta testers for Wonder [0].

It uses AI to help direct kids towards positive content online, and defers to me to help my oldest navigate this tricky online world.

Let me know if you have kids and would like to try it out!

[0] https://gotwonder.com

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