> You don't want kids to smoke, scrolling algo feeds is not better.
That's a dogmatic axiom until you can show how TikTok causes lung cancer.
That's a dogmatic axiom until you can show how TikTok causes lung cancer.
The effects of social media are more complex and nuanced than smoking. There are a lot of studies that show that social media has a negative effect on mental well being. When someones dies of loneliness or birth rates collapse and young people have less sex than ever, social media is never the only cause and might not even be the main reason, but it seems to play an important role.
Also, I don't think all social media is bad. I do love these discussions on HN even or especially when we don't agree, but tiktok and similar services have a lot of bad incentives with regards to user well being.
Also, I'm not arguing in favour of Social Media here. I just have seen enough moral panics in my years to have become allergic to them. For instance, I'm still waiting for evidence that computer games increase violence in real life, and how comics rot kids' brains.
Strong arguments demand strong empirical evidence. "Well-being" is not, in fact, a good metric (unless we apply it to other aspects of modern life). In fact, the very idea that wellbeing should be a concern in policy is dystopic: Remember that one of the reasons books are banned in "Fahrenheit 451" is that they made readers unhappy.
They are complaining that young males are not having easy one night stands. They also dont like that girls are empowered to say no. In their minds, the dynamic is all wrong when a young man is not complete pressuring jerk and she can say no.
They dont care about underclass of 16 years old with a life destroyed and a baby.