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The 2000s-2010s was incredibly rewarding for curious kids, not just because of what was out there, but because of the effort required to get such payoffs was high.

The reward of watching porn on the family computer was sneaking down the stairs at 3am, hoping no one heard the dialup tone, finding the right website, and waiting for the pixels to load.

Later, that moved into bedroom and with faster internet, and the result was slightly less pixelated boobs. And it was just out there, to be watched.

The internet today is not there to be observed. It's to be consumed, and then to stalk you even after you've left. It's not even at your fingertips anymore; it's in your bed, at full resolution, recommending you products that you actively ignore but passively absorb.

At that young impressionable age, the passive inputs are definitely the ones to monitor

You're interpreting this as nannyism with respect to the internet as a whole, while I think the pledge is really just about smartphones. If kids want to go and watch gore and porn on their laptops they should be free to do so.

The smartphone that is always on, always fighting for your attention, and always in your pocket has proven to be harmful to the development of most children.

> What's more harmful is preventing discovering adaptation and self-balancing on their own in the face of endless entertainment wish diminishing value.

I really wish kids would still learn self-balancing on their own. But the odds are stacked against them in the current age. TikTok and Instagram have gotten too good at this, backed by teams of scientists and ML models working with passion to fight their self-control.

I dunno. Growing up, both my parents and the society did moderate (i.e. censor) the content I had access to. As an adult, I'm definitely glad that this was kept away from me as a kid. I was a pretty reasonable kid, but I'm definitely not confident I would have handled it well.

That having access to (some) of those things was overall harmless doesn't seem to be a settled question.

With smartphones, the thing that stands out to me is a survey they did of parents. For those who gave their kids a smartphone before they turned 16, literally every parent regretted the decision (and some of them gave them the phone willingly).

Granted, N was probably not huge in that study, but it's a rare study that has no variance.

Some fears in this genre are well overblown, I agree. I also like the idea of kids learning for themselves, but it depends on whether they can learn before it becomes unmanageable. There is probably middle ground between no phone and phone here, and a less spoken about factor (IME) is that some kids and parents just have different dispositions and outcomes. Whether that is nature or nurture, it's hard to isolate or alter much right now. There is definitely nannyism following a new technology. I think it becomes gradually more true not because technology is inherently dangerous or something, but because we are producing technology that likely is more and more dangerous. Of course I don't consider social media addiction and Bittorrent on the same level.

>What's more harmful is preventing discovering adaptation and self-balancing on their own in the face of endless entertainment wish diminishing value.

Afaik theres pretty strong evidence of the negative effects of short form content on kids, and how addictive it is. We don't let kids eat as much candy as they want because we know they wont self regulate, I dont see how limiting online media consumption is any different.

Agreed its pure nannyism marketing and helicopter parents fueling such things.

Tubgirl, Goatse, LemonParty, Ebaumsworld, Rotten.com, LiveLeak had some of the most fucked up shit 90s teenage me could find and consume. Parental controls on electronics were an afterthought nor just didnt exist much then.

Its on parents to get involved if they want their kids to live in a safety bubble or like, you know, just have a conversation with them.

Honestly the 90s internet was peak internet imo, it was so pure and awesome. AOL, AIM, IRC, all the good times had. Captchas didnt even exist yet.

I see where your coming from (and I'm an indepedent since you mention Trump in your alias, so would like to open to both sides of an argument). But I kind of agree with keeping smartphones from kids. Yeah, like anything that is "really good" to an extreme degree, it's addictive.

And you do mention this that kids should learn to get a sense of moderation, but like other addictive things (hard drugs, alcohol and actually porn is supposed to be restricted), we keep them away from kids until they're at an age when they can handle it better.

also, I personally think spending an entire day watching tiktok is just so wasteful, feel like you've lost a 100k brain cells by the end of it, blah!

But to each their own.

I think this post from another thread is a good answer to this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41930275#41931671

Tldr:Seeing shock content is like eating a spoon of salt. The mind has defence mechanisms for it. You consume it, you are disgusted, and you never want to do it again. Consuming social media is like eating fast food

Then block social media. Don't let the kids install apps, don't let them access the web, control who they can message. Why is the phone itself the problem?

Exactly. All of this screen time is bad for kids and the phone is the devil reincarnate is ludicrous. The type of content they are consuming is what parents should monitor. Allow kids to use the device appropriately. If they do something with the device that you deem as inappropriate, then talk to them and correct the behavior. It is through mistakes that kids (and adults) really learn. Sheltering and avoidance will do nothing to prepare them for the real world once they reach early adulthood.