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Comment by jrtageh | Hacker News Reader

For increased happiness it is the ban of addictive websites. Likes, dislikes and most importantly, flagging, censoring and cancelling, externalizes your locus of control and makes you think that you live in a dystopian world.

The Internet wasn't this bad when people were on Usenet and no one would censor your thoughts.

For cognitive abilities it is the phone ban itself.

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I think you make a really great point:

Living with the social (organic) consequences of sharing unpopular opinions is much better than being silenced and digitally imprisoned, because the latter takes away one's dignity to think or build community around ideas which disagree with the status quo.

This is an enormously disingenuous take. When Usenet was the only game in town, children were not stumbling into hyperoptimized addictive experiences tailored to every flick of their eyes. You don’t think that thousands of engineers building TikTok or Instagram to hijack your child’s literal capacity for attention and healthy social development “externalizes your locus of control”?

Reducing the algorithmic targeting of children (by taking away phones or otherwise) is no more censorship than telling someone to stop standing in front of you and shouting in your face.

Naturally, this comment is flagged. Naturally, without explanation, as is the practice of dystopian wankers.

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