Salta al contenuto principale


My thoughts on social media bans everywhere is that if you're taking digital connections away from teens, you better make sure they have third spaces for physical connection, and give them options for transport that is not "parents drive us around" otherwise all you're creating is isolation.
And you may not need a social media ban if you start by preserving and creating those third spaces. #SocialMedia
in reply to juliette

Woops, this seems to have struck a chord. I’ll expand:
In the last decades (probably the last century actually) spaces to just hang out in public have decreased, while roads have become less safe for light road users - pedestrians and cyclists, which teens overwhelmingly are.
Additionally, online spaces have become a refuge that didn’t use to exist for teens looking for communities that are hard to find - anything from very specific nerdy hobbies to LGBTQ+ groups. 2/4

reshared this

in reply to juliette

The main reason there is a push back on teens’ social media use is the impact on bullying primarily, and the difference in what adults see as real socialising. But while this is happening (and I’m not going to pretend it’s not), banning teens from social media as a response is not just throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it’s replacing the bathwater with petrol. 3/4
Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)
in reply to juliette

We need guardrails in social media, for everyone’s well-being:
- stop endless scrolling
- end advertising based on history and social media behaviour
- support parents and teens to put freely chosen boundaries
- GIVE TEENS A VARIETY OF OPTIONS FOR SOCIALISING
- stop thinking we’ll end bullying by banning the medium and work on root causes
- fund real, effective mental health support for those going down unhealthy digital roads.

4/4

in reply to juliette

This is all really difficult though, so best to just put in a ban that’s either unenforceable, or enforceable as a backdoor to spying on everyone. 5/4
in reply to juliette

And while I have you all here: “kids these days are always on their phones” is not the same as “kids these days are always on social media”. stop mixing up the two.
in reply to juliette

"Variety of options for socializing" that doesn't include full access to internet is a non-starter. It does nothing for kids who don't want to socialize in person, who feel unable to, who have nothing in common with other kids in their locality, etc. It just serves neurotypical- and other in-group supremacies.
in reply to Cassandrich

Hot take that shouldn't be: Any effort to ban kids from the internet and force in-person local socialization is a form of conversion therapy and inherently abusive.
in reply to juliette

"If you bell the cat, it will only make the cat a better hunter."

These social media bans are just going to force kids into deceitful underground behavior, further contributing to the schism between teens and adults.

Questa voce è stata modificata (2 settimane fa)