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Comment by TomK32 | Hacker News Reader

Here in Austria in fourth grade kids take a little test for their bicycling skill. Not that it matters much in a car-centric country, but people forget that cycling, even in company with a parent, give kids the chance to learn the necessary traffic rules. Why not have something similar for social media or as the problem seems to be general conduct in social media, educate the kids and give them better ways to raise the alarm when things to bad. Just banning kids won't help them much.

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Here in Australia we teach kids real bicycling skills like how to socially share bets with their friends on the Sportsbet app for Tour de France 2025.[1][2] Thankfully this bill doesn't restrict Australian kids from learning these important life lessons every few minutes within a 10 hour long loop of Baby Shark.

[1] https://www.sportsbet.com.au/betting/cycling/tour-de-france/...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrTFl1gKEuk

Right. Let's do the same for drugs.

Irony aside, these platforms are addictive and polarizing by design. I doubt a little test will change anything.

You realize HN here is social media, too?

And HN even recognizes it can be addictive to some. See the "noprocrast" setting on your user settings page.

Yes? So ban it all, just like drugs?

I would argue that "social media" requires the social aspect, namely, contacts and direct messaging.

Everyone has a profil and everyone who wants to, leaves contact inside the profil.

We socialize here, just last month I read someone's comment about life in the Canadian country-side and realized he's the brother of a Youtuber I'm watching for years. The same happens on any other social platform be it in the internet or real life.

Yes and I would not demonize it.

The problem I see, are networks that are financed mainly by ads - so they have the incentive to keep engagement artifically high and spy as much as possible.

But "banning social media" does not ask that question.

You're being facetious but I genuinely think it's a good idea to normalise drugs. I believe that part of the problem with drugs is that they're considered forbidden, so if you share my viewpoint then it's not too dissimilar to the problems with social media or other addictive-but-bad-for-you products.

Opioids weren't forbidden for those with prescriptions and we all know how that turned out.

It's a bit difficult to tell from your comment what you meant by "Not that it matters much in a car-centric country". Do you mean that Austria is "car-centric"? Or that it isn't?

I grew up in America, Colorado to be more specific, and rode a bicycle all over my neighborhood (where there wasn't that much traffic) as a 7-12 year-old. Later, I biked to work in Chia-yi, Taiwan, where there was a bit more car traffic and then still later I did so from Mountain View to Palo Alto, when there was still more. In all cases, I found it very useful to be familiar with traffic rules!

> as the problem seems to be general conduct in social media

is that the problem? I'd have thought the problem is more about the ill effects of social media on children, not the children's behavior on said social media.

Hen or egg? To make it worse, for some it's simple in their nature to show some degree of anti-social behaviour. We all have to learn how to interact with others in a social manner, be it on the playground, school or internet.

This sounds like a good idea, at least actively educate them about the psychological game they may choose to play

It’s not trivial to teach someone about a subject we don’t understand ourselves.

So let's not even try?

if we made some basic modules we could improve as time goes on and more research and data comes out.

Early sex education surely wasn't perfect and the science understood when they started teaching it in our schools.

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