I had unfiltered internet access from around the age of ten onwards. I can confidently say that was a horrible idea and I would have been much better off as a person without it.
that being said...still not sure if it's a net-negative. feels positive to me, just not without there being negative aspects.
I cannot begin to tell you how much more respect and care I give to the road and cars after witnessing so many videos of how violently and suddenly car accidents can take a life. Many of the horrors of these videos are burnt into my mind and I am confident this is for the better.
We live in the real world. It is important to see the real world as it is.
There are if course mental health limits to this. I never want to be desensitized. But in moderation I think it can be net-positive.
yeah, agree. i guess there's a balance you gotta reach between 'seeing the real world as it is when you're adult' and 'watching a terrorist behead a captive in 4k as a kid'.
i mean there is some kind of bias at play in our societies, as i remember watching documentaries at school as a 13-14 year old, clearly displaying mass-graves at nazi concentration camps. i appreciate having been educated about this topic in such a direct way, yet is is very gruesome and haunting as well.
I think the real effect on my life is that I was addicted to the internet and video games and didn’t socialize enough. My life turned out good, I’m married and have a decent life, but I think I missed out a lot in my university years because I was playing counter strike instead of going out and socializing and making friends. I look back now at how much time I squandered (tens of thousands of hours) but I guess many people feel this way about their younger self.
If your life turned out good, there's not much to gain from worrying about the past :)
I also lucked out and ended up married to someone I love, but thinking about the number of experiences I missed out on for lack of trying is enough to make my chest feel tight. You have so much time right up until you don't.
The content I'm interested in banning is the content that I know (because I've literally worked for the companies making it and seen the sausage made in real time) is intentionally geared to drive user engagement and foster addiction.
Loot boxes.
Online gambling.
Microtransactions.
Constant app notifications.
Updates from your "friends" that your friends didn't actually make.
Advertising.
Content designed to drive fear of missing out.
Content designed to drive sales.
Content to influence behavior through fear, jealousy, and anger.
Endlessly scrolling feeds of tiktok, facebook, instagram, reddit, etc.
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Content like unfiltered violence exists, but it doesn't have the same reach and hold as content that is relentlessly pushed because it makes someone money.
But the content making people money is fucking insidious, because it's "palatable" to most people at first glance, but it reduces my children to walking wallets. It plays on their brains during formative years in ways that are very close to straight up abuse.
It is like religious indoctrination, but for all the negative aspects of humanity, amped up with a solid understanding of statistics, human behavior, and brain chemistry - All to make my children (and myself and my peers, family, parents, society at large) into money making drones for a corporation.
I think that content is where I find banning appropriate. It's not about the message in that content. Kids should be free to learn material that interests them even if it's dark, depressing, violent, or sexual (ideally with an adult they can discuss it with).
Kids should not be free to be robbed in broad daylight, hooked on addictive drugs, or trained like monkeys in a skinner box to give companies money for dopamine.
I personally learned to program before widespread internet access, so know it’s not at all a requirement.