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Comment by drivebyhooting | Hacker News Reader

What benefit do kids draw from instagram and facebook?

Socialising. Same benefit I drew from playing video games with my friends when I was in school.

(Though, to be a bit pedantic about it, kids don't use Facebook.)

I did my socializing in real life but I guess that if kids are not allowed to get out anymore, they must do it with screens.

It’s not mutually exclusive. If you interact with kids today you’ll see that they do both, just like I did with video games and in-person meeting. They’re still human beings.

Yeah they use snapchat and TikTok, with a sprinkle of instagram.

The problem with these are: they offer two features 1) a social feature. You can send DM:s or comment your friends picture of an ice cream 2) Brain-rot algorithmic short-form video feeds where even the most aware adult can easily get lost for hours.

I think this is calculated. If the social vs feed thing were two different apps, parents could easily just allow one and block the other. But now in order to stop the brainrot, I also need to block them from the social bit.

I wonder if there is any way to set up a firewall so you block the instagram shorts feeds, tiktok video, snapchat random vids ,etc but still allow snapchat messaging?

If someone can create an extension or some other way to block shorts from youtube, reels from instagram I can imagine people would even pay for it

Should be possible with a physical firewall (rule in router, pi-hole, whatever) right? It's not a sellable solution but still...

I hope that these fines and the rules on "algorithmic content" will perhaps make this possible to control at the iOS family settings level.

I bet a lot of time goes into scrolling reels, instagram, tiktok and youtube shorts. That's leisure, but not social. Of course you can send people messages and comment on things, but I suspect only a small minorty of the time goes there. Like socializing at a casino.

There's a lot of benefit, but its all to META shareholders...

Same benefit you get from HN. And I mean the benefit, not the rationalisation.

Well, Instagram DMs have entirely replaced sms and phone number exchange for an entire generation. This is like saying “what benefit do teenagers draw from having a phone line?”

That’s really sad. Locked in a walled garden of vampiric carnivorous plants. And for what? A modicum of convenience?

Is it really that different from being locked into SMS or Email or Teamspeak or Skype?

I hate using SMS, but I'm forced to due to people I know using it, and it's 'openness' changes nothing for me as the end user.

Well for one thing SMS isn’t bundled with addictive apps that constantly try to lure you into traps against your better judgement.

Yeah but SMS is also a paid product in most places, same with phone calls, and data too, but given most places (Schools, your home, work, libraries) pay for wifi, platform provided messaging is free.

Not that the addictive apps are great, but if we're talking locking, it's deciding between 'paying for' and 'receiving for free' with lock in being constant

So Signal then. It's donation based and works fine.

Weird defense, do they not need a phone line for Instagram DMs to work?

It's sad we view social media so negatively these days when it should be incredible tool for both personal and social growth. I grew up with irc and reddit, and it was incredibly useful for me not only find like-minded people but to learn that there's more to life than my small town, there are a variety of different people, ideas and careers out there.

Sadly the new generation of networks grew in a different direction but all of this still exists, and it's incredibly disingenuous to say that "there are no benefits for kids". There's still a community for any subject on both Facebook and Instagram except it's all buried under spam and bad intentions.

when the main interface steeulters even adults toward the slot machine interface endless brainrot scrolling I think intervention is due. I used to be able to remove the short videos from youtube but that function is gone. For a while it was "hide for 30 days". It's pretty obvious that the addictive quality of the ultra short slop videos that is prioritized these days.

communicating with peers would be the main one.

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