The TikTok documents: Stripping teens and boosting 'attractive' people
npr.org
npr.org
TikTok's response is to claim quotes like this are out of context, but they also seem unable or unwilling to provide the context in which statements like this are OK.
There are many people (myself included) that oppose a tiktok ban but would happily support more stringent rules that outlawed tiktok’s bad behavior and applied equaly to facebook, youtube and musk’s ego project.
The point being, unlike lots of comments here, I haven't seen any evidence of ill effects of young kids have access to electronics. I have no idea what these parents do and what limits they place, only that they didn't need to ban electronics from their kids lives to raise good kids.
Of course it's anecdata. One family, 2 daughters, 5 and 8. Another, son 11. Another son 11, daughter 7. Another, daughter 3.
I have also seen the opposite. Kids who can't function if their screen is taken away and are anti-social. But given the other kids, it doesn't seem to be the screen that's the problem.
I think that's the key part here.
that is not a surprise really. a happy child will prefer real life interaction while an unhappy child will try to hide somewhere.
Even as an adult, I noticed that my (non-productive) screen consumption spikes during periods of high stress and turmoil.
I teach fifth grade at an upscale private school. None of the children in my homeroom have cell phones; one has an apple watch.
I think more parents are becoming aware of the problem, which in turn makes social pressure less of an issue.
No social media or smart phones until 16 y/o.
Also making sure kids have friends in their community is a plus. Involve them in school programs, help guide them as they find their interest.
For love of god, don’t give your kid an unlocked iPad with YT/TT/FB/Twitch/kick.
Social media does some harm. Being socially excluded does far _more_ harm. Which starts to happen in middle school.
So as a parent, you have three choices:
1. Deal with the emotional consequences of your kid being systematically excluded and having few/no friends.
2. Construct an alternative school/community with like-minded parents and kids.
3. Just give them the damn device, with screen time restrictions and the understanding that you'll be monitoring their activity. Follow through and be involved in their social life, with open and honest conversations about what happens online.
It turns out most good parents these days opt for #3.
Outside the classroom there are still plenty of in-person activities from informal gatherings, to sports teams, to clubs and civic events, and in those situations, the few people who are sitting on their phones are the ones more separated from the rest.
I think a lot of us who were early involved in building some of the web that led beyond Web 2.0 into algorithmically-driven media consumption see the massive dangers, and have probably sometimes even overreacted in terms of kids' access to it, but it's certainly better than the alternative.
Phones ARE banned from school and the kids DO socialize in person there.
But then they all get home and stay in touch. Some have phones, some have tablets, some just their school-issued laptops. But they're constantly talking, 1:1, in various overlapping group chats. They organize getting together in the neighborhood or meeting up elsewhere over the weekend. It's where a lot of the drama happens (which isn't great.)
If you prevent your kid from accessing this communication layer, it will 100% affect their social life.
Some degree of device pragmatism is inevitable of course. But I don't think my kids will need a smartwatch until high school, or a phone till very late HS. In other words, I think there is a balance of these options possible.
Jonathan Haidt gives a lot of hope here, as depressing as "Anxious Generation" usually is.
We don't allow our kids to use social media. Some of their friends do, and some of them do not.
Doesn't seem to be a problem in any way.
A lot of them coordinate hangouts via social media, unfortunately. It’s a tough balance.
We actually have banned social media until 16, but fortunately iMessage was the defacto coordination and we accepted that.
No TikTok until adults, for a host of reasons.
I’ve heard the stuff some of his friends with more internet permissive parents parrot from YouTube and stuff and honestly it’s frightening.
As for the good stuff that’s actually out there, I download for consumption offline.
As someone who grew up in the 90s and learned touch type playing StarCraft online, the internet is not for kids.
...I'm sorry, I have to point out, you're posting this on what is basically a social media site.
> (uncountable) Applications or websites allowing users to share content and communicate with one another via the Internet.
and HN:
[x] is a website
[x] allowing users to share content
[x] allowing users communicate
[x] via the internet
Perhaps you should invent a new term for whatever you're talking about? Depending on what you want, I might suggest "algorithmic feeds" (actually that appears to be an extant term, but it might be what you want), or "multimedia social media" (to exclude pure-text sites like this).
Actually, that's a decent point; it should probably add something about being primarily focused on the user interactions. That is, Wikipedia isn't social media, but I'd hesitate to say that the talk pages aren't.
> Basically nobody outside of HN would consider HN social media if they saw it.
And on that point we definitely disagree, though I suppose I could ask around. What do you think makes it not?
Forums have been around longer than the WWW and are more about interacting with topics than with particular members. Some let you follow or PM someone, but that's not the primary function, and HN doesn't even have that. Some social sites have expanded to cover forum-like roles too, like Facebook (Pages).
But most people won't think that far. They'll see HN and say nah, this isn't social media.
Hacker News does not have the feed-driven approach of other social media that is designed to generate addiction/engagement amongst users; we just like to talk about fun stuff. Hacker News is more of an old-school forum, where we talk about topics, rather than being a true 'social media' experience where you can talk about anything/yourself as a topic.
Moreover, the average baseline of discussions here is much higher and more intellectually-driven than discussions on X, IG, FB, and so on. That makes it keenly distinct from other social media designed for more base discussions.
The most amusing thing is that discussions on reddit, tumblr, x, etc include the very same kind of denials that gp comment is eliciting regarding those sites being social media.
Social media includes content sharing, discussions, and echo chambers, all of which are present here in abundance. Certain content gets promoted over others, and each site assumes see itself above others.
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and the like (I don’t know of there’s something else new). The algorithmic crap where you’ll find AI generated videos of a fake Elon Musk taking to visit sense website or wherever the outrage du jour happens.
Adolescent life is coordinated online now, and you will literally be handicapping your kid if you take a hard line.
Being excluded is not setting them up on a positive trajectory.
Also I never said I’ll never let him use the internet, but it’s not for 7 year olds.
She is an avid reader, and reads for hours a day, re-reads the same books, and on YouTube she mostly consumes recipes, book reviews and book related content (like fanfic) so by most standards she's pretty good.
That being said, once she has a phone, she will not be allowed to use it in the house at all.
Our youngest has fewer issues with impulse control, and uses her iPad for things like Duolingo, Toca Life and Finch the self-care pet and messaging friends on iMessage or Facebook Messenger kids. She doesn't have access to YouTube, but does have YT kids. She likes the tiny cakes channel and regularly brings me the videos because I find them very enjoyable also.
They're both very heavily supervised and when they demonstrate there are problems, we take away their devices.
My eldest has had an apple watch SE since year 7 and we use that for communicating, and she can get in touch with friends that way. I also bought a 4g nokia with has the SIM for the same number in it (I had to use my backup iPhone to set up her watch) and if she is going somewhere further or longer than a school day she takes that for safety reasons.
My youngest will follow the same trajectory, we talk about the risks with them often, and they aren't allowed phones at school (by the school) and have had regular online safety sessions provided by the school.
Australia is also seriously considering legislation to criminalise allowing children under 16 from having any social media accounts.
Note that we only got them iPads in 2020 because of home schooling, prior to that we had given them iPhone 5s each to listen to podcasts and music. We always used screentime controls, and had them set up with family sharing and their own iCloud accounts, they have never (even as children) been allowed to use either mine or my wife's phones, we never let them watch or listen to anything during dinner or on car rides under 2 hours (a rule that still stands).
They are fine, do well in school, and are about to be venturing out of our house with much optimism.
I understand every child is unique. But you should understand your children's weaknesses and strengths, and build restrictions around that.
She is NOT going to be touching social media or similar until at LEAST high school.
Says you. Said me (several times). I failed. Got circumvented by three teenagers blessed with the same inquisitiveness that got me into tech.
Curious why parents don't limit their kids screen time.
Not 'fitting in' is not an excuse.
This is a parent problem, not a TiktTok problem.
Case in point, the massive failure of D.A.R.E. drug abuse prevention programs for children and teenagers in the US. Yay propaganda.
Turns out that even when the advice itself is decent, you can easily sabotage it all in the long term by using those types of propaganda methods. All just for a short-term “win”.
These days I game occasionally, but fill most of my time with other things.
I think complete bans on most things as a kid isn't the way to go, and can be harmful, even. Granted, today's social media makes me rethink that...
Is this life or just existence?
I don’t judge or look down on people who enjoy games, wine, golf or hard work, but I would be ashamed of myself if I were to mash CoD, drink excessively, take training for weekend-warrior triathlons too seriously or push myself to burnout and an early grave at a startup to the detriment of my personal relationships and responsibilities as a parent.
Given how widespread all of these behaviours are it’s certainly a risk, and it’s liberating to know that I’m highly unlikely to go down at least one of these paths.
I mean, they all use underhanded tactics and psychological tricks to keep you hooked and scrolling, TikTok is far from being a sole evil here.
Back in 2015 or so I could watch Twitter addicts' personalities and worldviews change in increasingly bizarre ways. It was weird.
TikTok is the same, but distilled: faster, more emotionally charged, and optimized more aggressively. They are not unique, they're just winning right now.
And the idea that Meta has never been considered a villain is just laughable.
"Considered a villain" -- this means nothing unless action is taken. Meta has just gotten, in two whole decades, a few mock interviews in Congress and not more than that, left untouched primarily due to Section 230 and the convenience that a mass social network of 2B+ users worldwide happens to be US-based (not fiscally, of course.) And that is after the various leaks showing how it psychologically manipulates teens, lends itself to electioneering and genocide, etc. TikTok, on the other hand, has made it all the way to Congressional ban level in just a few years.
And while I don’t think TikTok is an angel, i see the whole consolidated effort at “taming” TikTok as being for show and claim of positive reformations. It’s disingenuous. It’s deceptive. It’s conspiratorial.
Seems like the majority opinion every time the subject comes up on HN, and X, and on Facebook, and in discussions with people in real life and so on.
There is no evidence that it has had any negative effects.
The problem is exclusively with social media. And in particular the way it is having young kids being shaped by adult role models e.g. Andrew Tate, Mr Beast who don't have their wellbeing in mind. And being subjected to adult themed content in volumes we've never seen before.
People are going to flip out when they hear how Hollywood does casting. /s
My parents didn't let us have a TV. TV shows were a social object: in the 90s you'd come to school the next day and discuss what you watched. You signaled your in-groups by what shows you liked and what you didn't like.
I had none of that.
I had friends, but only because I got very good at hiding my oddities. I was disconnected from my peers and learned a set of behaviors that have fucked up a lot of relationships longer term.
Addiction to social media is terrible. But to those who ban your kids from social media entirely: how are you addressing the fact they will be isolated from their peers because of that.
Some of those things are easier than others for a family to take on, but in a strange turn of events, the various social media "bubbles" mean one kid and the next aren't exposed to the same trending topics (like some kids don't even know what skibidi toilet is, while others are all into some NBA or NFL players, while others are following chess tournaments or LEGO stuff...).
There's still enough real world events outside influencer bubbles that you can keep social media (mostly) out of a kids life and not cause that kid to be on an island.
There's a balance between media exposure and overprotection, too. Every parent has to find it. It's one of the most difficult aspects of parenting once your kids are old enough to talk!
And not getting to fit in with such groups that base themselves on discussing brainrot sounds like a benefit to me honestly, not a drawback. Remember the "Blue Whale" challenge?
Sorry not meant as a personal attack but it’s not how kids that don’t use social media come across to me at all.
If only there were a community for likeminded families.