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Comment by mhx1138 | Hacker News Reader

We could make it illegal for minors to use the internet at all. It is too dangerous. Similar to driving. That would solve so many current problems.

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People at age 12, maybe even age 10, are ready to use the internet.

This might be an unpopular take, but I remember being that age and having to jump through so many hoops to access the sites I wanted to access, and I swore to myself I would defend children's right to exist online. I'm 35 now. My opinion hasn't changed.

The regulations ask websites not to target advertising to children. Websites don't like that because advertising is their main means of profiting or breaking even, so they try to pull their site offline for minors, and limit their ability to communicate with others. COPPA doesn't require that you limit the ability for minors to communicate with others, but websites err on the side of caution because of the very real threat of pedophiles.

Children age 12-ish are bored out of their minds, and a lot of them are really smart and would contribute to the internet in a positive way. See the story of Aaron Swartz. He contributed so much to open software before he was even 16.

I think it's more interesting when you scope it to mass media system. I think kids using the internet to communicate directly with their peers and family makes a lot of sense. Kids consuming an infinite amount of media and trying to broadcast themselves to the whole world is very often unhealthy.

I think this is also true if adults, but I think kids are particularly susceptible to unhealthy habits / addictions around mass media systems.

Are you joking? Peer communication is the most toxic, Lord Of The Flies things there is. Notice how much office politics is high school bullshit? That is what happens when you have norms set by an isolated incestuous prison-mimicking subset of society cut off from experience and wisdom.

Consuming an infinite amount of media is positively wholesome by comparison.

Your high school and work experience sounds completely different from mine. I grew up in a very rural area. My options outside of school and sports (both not accounting for the whole year for me) were to talk to my friends on the internet, talk to strangers on the internet, consume infinite media from the internet, or isolating myself. I spend a very large portion of my free time either talking to my friends, or talking to strangers and my friends at the same time. I don't think you'll be able to convince me that I would have been better off choosing any other options.

As for work, I have had a hard time leaving jobs, because to me that also means leaving the people I work with. I guess my office life is similar to my high school life in the sense that I actually like(d) the people around me.

Respectfully disagree - their peers often make an unhealthy environment on the internet. Kids need in-person communication and interactions, its necessary for healthy development. The internet looks like it provides social interaction, but it actually does not provide what kids need. They should interact with their peers elsewhere, synchronously.

I feel like interacting with a moderate-sized set of real peers is workable - like chat rooms on AIM with the kids you know from school. Kids have always had unsupervised time with their peers.

Where it breaks down, is when you get a whole ecosystem populated entirely by kids and those trying to make money off of them.

I agree that AIM was fine. Not as good as in-person interaction, and no real substitute for it, but as an augmentation it caused no real harm. Chatrooms could be in the same boat, but had more problems.

However, social media ever since feeds and the "like" button are an entirely different beast which is addicting, dehumanizing, and antisocial - preventing kids from developing socially.

No, most of the problem with internet interaction is how the human brain considers the username saying things to you on AIM is NOT the same as the dude you hang out with every day in real life, and more importantly, the usernames you don't know in real life are just vague spirits your brain is much more willing to demonize. This exact same effect is the main cause of roadrage and why everyone is such an asshole when you put them in steel boxes and have them interact on the road.

It is NOT SOCIALIZATION to talk to people on the internet. Your brain simply does not treat it the same way.

Kids are fine interacting in person at school and other public places. They don't need this social media bullshit, and even private messaging systems like AIM or MSN aren't really that great.

In the US, minors can get a driver's license at 16 in most places, and at 15 in a few I've seen.

And a person of any age can drive a car on private property.

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