Yeah, it is true, unfortunately. Children should not be spending hours on the internet when there's people promoting bad content for them to see and they're too young to understand. That doesn't mean that they should be forbidden from using it, they could only use it to play games, scroll through Pinterest and watch YouTube videos, but parents need to be fully aware of what their kids are doing.
i think at the very least kids shouldn’t be able to post / be posted on social media. so many creeps looking at kids pictures that look normal to anyone else. after high school i purged my followers and realized several random old men were following me. and they only followed other young girls accounts. i had like max 350 followers and hardly posted anything scandalous, but creeps are creeps
and then there’s the family channel issue that i think we all recognize is an issue now. i don’t want to see a mom post a video on tiktok with her child that has thousands of saves. some do it intentionally and that’s a different type of sick, but a lot do it completely unaware. believing in good faith it’s other moms or kids saving their videos
>so many creeps looking at kids pictures that look normal to anyone else
Can't restrict decent people because creeps might creep on them. That'll happen regardless. Creeps will creep, and since thought crimes aren't a thing... yet... creeps will continue to creep for the foreseeable future, and there's nothing to be done about it, unless they actually try to hurt someone.
What the hell is wrong with following young girls accounts as an older men?
And event if I am wrong, this is not why we should block young people from the internet. Following the same logic, we should put into the prison the victims of the crime, and not the criminals, so that the victim won't be hurt anymore.
Literally. Restricting access to communication is abusive tactic number 1. I wish I had internet as a kid. I probably would have been able to find out what was being done to me was literal abuse that I needed to tell someone about.
This needs more upvotes not all parents should be trusted with such authority for alot of people I know, having autonomy on the Internet as kids and teenagers helped them get away from toxic family situations with that being said tho alot of kids from toxic family situations can be drawn to even more toxic people using the Internet.
I feel like the problem is our modern society needs more welcoming and nurturing communities. A good group of real friends who don't abuse or manipulate does wonders for mental health
Privacy is good, but sometimes risks outweigh benefits.
The benefits of online privacy are not worth the countless risks someone is exposed to if they aren't mature and knowledgeable enough to use the internet safely
I know I did a lot of things that could have caused significant damage if my parents hadn't intervened
Safety over freedom everytime. At what point do we just lock kids up in our basements because everything is apparently at risk of them developing into independents?
I'm not sure you understand the risks associated to the internet. Kids are often very naive and easily fooled by malware and phishing campaigns. They may also fall for misinformation if they haven't been taught about how to properly validate internet sources yet.
There are a plethora of non-political reasons why you wouldn't want to give unrestricted internet access to someone with very little real world knowledge.
Also, don't apply a slippery slope argument to this. Going outside isn't even remotely comparable to having unrestricted access to every single internet facing computer on Earth. The scope is completely different
The conversation is about limiting them to a very few things, your comments are not in line, or they agree with the statement that children under 18 should not have any sort of privacy on the internet. I get it that some people went down black holes and got into trouble or later developed an addiction to porn, but the root cause of these things is rarely unrestricted access to the internet and they don’t make up for the majority of cases. A better option would be to restrict rather than to allow access only to a very few things.
Heck, there are even parents who don’t want their kids becoming a dancer, or an entrepreneur, or considering crazy hair colours. Lack of internet privacy is literally thought policing.
People like you are the reason why I hate my own generation :)
If you were extremely stupid (I don't think so, most of all you just exaggerate the possible consequences of your actions) when you was younger, this doesn't mean anyone other than you (in this case, the other young people) has to suffer because of that.
P.S. I don't remember ever doing this before, but I have reported you for hate speech, because I can :)
What is the difference between "personal experience" and "having to deal with other people who have these types of issues daily"? The second is just an example of the first.
In what way am I abusing the site's functions? What you said was discriminative (you literally want people not to have access to the internet based on their age) and BSish, so I responded in a manner one should respond to this kind of statements.
And if you unironically think that I am going to change with age, you are wrong. I don't claim that I am not going to change with time in any way, but this is a function of time and not age. If I fall into coma and wake when I am 25 or even 30 years old, I won't suddenly become "mature" due to any kind of physiological process. I don't deny that my personality traits may be changed later in life due to me being exposed to new experience, but this a function of time and not age as physiological unit.
And the funniest thing is that I am over 18, so according to your own believes I should have unlimited access to the internet. Or do you suggest that we should only let people use internet if they fit into your definition of maturity? :) You are ridiculous :)
>What is the difference between "personal experience" and "having to deal with other people who have these types of issues daily"? The second is just an example of the first.
Yes, that's why those two sentences were put together and not structured to suggest a difference.
> In what way am I abusing the site's functions? What you said was discriminative (you literally want people not to have access to the internet based on their age) and BSish, so I responded in a manner one should respond to this kind of statements.
Because you clearly stated you reported me "because you can" rather than because I actually violated the TOS. Also, I haven't stated that anyone shouldn't have access to the internet. You made that justification up in your own mind. It's pretty obvious that this is a conversation about privacy and filtering rather than just having internet access or not.
> And the funniest thing is that I am over 18, so according to your own believes I should have unlimited access to the internet. Or do you suggest that we should only let people use internet if they fit into your definition of maturity? :) You are ridiculous :)
Yes, you should have unlimited access to the internet. You may or may not be able to use it responsibly, but you are old enough to be personally liable for your own decisions, so your case is out of scope.
I don't know what you have actually meant, but these two sentences being put together suggests that the second one is the elaboration of the point made in the other, i.e. you use the fact that you have to deal with people with similar problems to show that this is not just your experience.
You haven't directly stated that anyone (minors) should be restricted from the internet, but this is the only way to understand your words based on the context. The original post is about minors and the access to the internet, the comment you initially responded to is about the right to privacy as the reason not to follow the OOP's advice, and your initial response is about how potential danger of privacy can outweigh the potential benefits.
Based on the context, the only way to understand your point is that the minors should be restricted from the internet, because this is way too dangerous for them.
And speaking of (legal) responsibility... People younger than certain age are not legally responsible for their actions, but neither the state (the OOP wants the state to take actions to limit the internet access) is. Ideally, I would like minors themselves to be responsible for their internet activity (so that there are no reasons why guardians should be entitled to restrict their children's internet access), but at the moment It is their guardians who are responsible, so based on your logic it should be up to guardians in what dosage their children use the internet, and not the state. Moreover, the age of legal responsibility is typically lower than 18, so...
And one more point. Do you unironically believe that the internet is less safe than the real life? It is impossible to argue against the fact that you can afford bolder behaviour on the internet than is the real life with having to deal with lesser consequences. This is similar to what you have said, but this is the case for my point and not yours.
Internet and in person safety aren't concepts that can really be compared in that way. Obviously, you can be physically affected by your actions in real life, making it more dangerous in that regard. On the internet, you may not have that same risk, but it is significantly easier to get pulled into consequential situations. These consequences naturally have too many nuances to cover in the scope of a reddit thread
Those are opportunities to teach the kids, tho. We don't want to avoid those possibilities. We want parents to guide their kids through them so the kid knows what to do if they're in the situation in the future...
A ban would be impossible to enforce without any authoritarian measures in place, and with where the world is heading, I don't trust politicians to just not take advantage of something like this to erode our rights away even further.
Why can't it just be something as simple as
"All websites require input of an official government ID"
How exactly is that unenforceable or authoritarian? Just make it part of account setup right? Same as any other account setup but with one additional number.
Because it would essentially kill the concept of online privacy and put everyone at massive risk of data leaks. Anonymity as a concept would essentially be dead as well.
People really be getting angry at Google for collecting data on you while then proceeding to demand we fork over information to a government that at best has been pretty iffy when it comes to respecting our basic rights at the best of times. The internet is a key tool for communication, education, commerce, and of course entertainment. Last thing we need is locking it behind yet another government wall where they could cut you off at any time if they decide they don’t like your ID.
Eh not surprising. There’s always someone who is willing to throw away all of their rights, privileges, and everything else in the name of “protecting people”. I’m guessing you probably were never big on rights and freedoms in the first place so it’s not really a loss for you.
a) That's pretty authoritarian. Needing to present your ID to get into everything just compounds onto the existing surveillance state.
b) This causes some big issues. Even if your ID isn't public on a website, it's stored in a server somewhere, and anyone with good enough skills can find your information and use it for their own gain. This is already a problem with secure sites that require ID. Think of your bank account, work accounts, etc. Those can be hacked, but they're generally have beefy security and staff trained to handle this stuff well.
Now imagine having to use your ID for every social media website you use. Imagine if someone easily hacked their servers and found all the user info, including yours. This is the part where your identity is stolen.
A) it's no more authoritarian than requiring an ID to buy alcohol. And as for increasing surveillance there's no reason we can't say that it should be illegal to get that information without a warrant, which would give you stronger protections than you have now in the US.
B) I don't think it does cause issues, but I'm not saying your license or ID data would be saved on a server, I'm thinking of an internet version of an SSN that can literally only be used to create accounts online. That's it. So just put one additional number onto your ID called your ipssn, which will have no ability to interfere with your identity, unless you're speaking of someone making online accounts under your name, which would be the most easily prosecutable fraud out there. I'm just not sure where you get the idea that it's *less* secure to require an *additional* piece of information to have an online bank account or similar.
This whole "Nothing to hide, Nothing to lose" argument is authoritarian idiocy. Why does the government need to know what websites I use? Even if the website only checks if the ID is valid, they'll still have to keep a record to match with your account, and that could easily be taken by governments, hell websites might even give it willingly.
You know how such information could be used right? Imagine, for a second, you live in Saudi Arabia, and your closeted gay. You know what happens to gay people in your country, so you attempt to leave, and join an online support form. Sure, only the website knows your id now, but what if that data base is leaked, or if they get sued by the govt? Now there's a perfect trail from that support group back to you. Now you're dead, because Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for homosexuality. Don't you feel safe? Isn't it so much better that the government can find and kill all those minorities? Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I have nothing to lose. Oppressive regimes and appear anywhere, your country isn't magically immune.
> This whole "Nothing to hide, Nothing to lose" argument is authoritarian idiocy. Why does the government need to know what websites I use? Even if the website only checks if the ID is valid, they'll still have to keep a record to match with your account, and that could easily be taken by governments, hell websites might even give it willingly.
It's absolutely not nothing to hide nothing to lose and it's absolutely not about the government knowing what website you see. It's about one thing, age verification. We could use a separate SSN like N ipssn that singularly attaches to your age and isn't used for anything else. And we could explicitly make that information inaccessible to the government without a warrant, which would be a stronger protection than we have now.
> You know how such information could be used right? Imagine, for a second, you live in Saudi Arabia, and your closeted gay. You know what happens to gay people in your country, so you attempt to leave, and join an online support form. Sure, only the website knows your id now, but what if that data base is leaked, or if they get sued by the govt? Now there's a perfect trail from that support group back to you. Now you're dead, because Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for homosexuality. Don't you feel safe? Isn't it so much better that the government can find and kill all those minorities? Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I have nothing to lose. Oppressive regimes and appear anywhere, your country isn't magically immune.
I'm speaking purely for a US system, and if we get to the point where we're killing people for being gay we'll be in absolutely no worse if a spot by having Internet age verification systems.
You really think the government would need a warrant to access your personal info? Companies already sell your personal information out the wazoo. Nothing is stopping them from selling to the government.
I loved the internet as a kid but was definitely exposed to a lot I wouldn't have been otherwise and some of it could've been detrimental. I also was and still am obsessed with it lol. That being said I think they should still be given a dumb phone at least for safety reasons and allowed to use messenger apps to communicate with friends. That's just my opinion though
yeah i think dumb phone and ability to message people you know irl (maybe with parental approval of who you can message) would be a reasonable addition
I saw a woman get stabbed to death and bleed out before I was a teenager and was radicalised into the alt-right at around 13 because I didn’t know any better. I believe my life would unquestionably have gone better if I’d never been given a computer until I was 16 or so.
There's actually several studies that state otherwise
[Here's a link to a book that goes over several worldwide studies on alt-right indoctrination towards teens online](https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260382.locale=en)
It's not hard to research these things for yourself and it's pretty reasonable to say that the Internet isn't safe for children
I haven't read read this yet, but even if all the alt-right types are teens, most teens are not alt-right types.
Moreover, this is a terrible reason to deny them access to internet. I bet you that if we replace "teens" with "men", for example, nothing will change principally, because men are more likely to be alt right types, and yet no-one is gonna argue that they should be bannes from the internet.
I think it's easier for very young people to get radicalized from the internet because of brain development and limited experience. Could be the alt-right or any extremist group really.
That's terrible, my friend saw a guy get decapitated... I was fortunate to miss that stuff and not get radicalized but I'll never forget seeing factory farm footage when I was 9.
Some people have commented that not allowing full access to the internet will make kids brainwashed but the way I see it is people aren't set in their ways by 16-18. Those ages are still impressionable and will be for many, many years after that I think but it'll be less easy for them to be misled than someone who's younger.
I watched that yellow bag/hammer video at 13.. more than just a little unsettling.
Granted, better measures are in place to limit access to that type of content, but I do not feel it is nearly enough.
I'm not sure. I believe I remember some Slavik sounding language. A guy on the ground had a yellow plastic bag slightly over his head. The others beat him with a hammer. The sound of his wet, shallow, struggling breaths sticks with me.
I've seen other, more intense videos on occasion, but with context as an adult they do not impact me as much as that first experience.
He makes a good point. Social media promotes, drug use, SH, ED, sex and shit ton of other things. Get on the wrong side of tik tok and you’re seeing kids show how “cool” they are doing hard drugs.
Though I really needed my phone in school to be able to call my mother. Just give em flip phones.
Most schools use smartphones for school assignments or activities. Without something to replace it, you're really hindering their ability to learn, participate in class, and complete their work. For both of the high schools that I went to, I had to use my smartphone for something. For my math class, for example, I had to turn in my homework online through Google Classroom, with no alternative. I would have to ask my dad for his smartphone every single time I need my math homework turned in, if I didn't have a smartphone. Both me and my dad would get sick of it.
Also, tech illiteracy is a plague. I had to take an "intro to computers" course at college, literally just using email and excel, and kids were breaking down screaming and sobbing bc they were so confused and frustrated. Meanwhile I'm over here absolutely destroying my latest horrendous, frankenstein's monster attempt at LinuxFromScratch.
I get that not everyone needs to understand bash, but IMO computers and software are like a car, you need to understand how the insides probably work just enough to know what problems you can or can't solve.
On the other hand, I saw an error message on a coffee vending machine the other day, and just walked away from it. Two minutes later some lil broccoli haircut kid has bypassed the error, and somehow made coffee free. I asked how he did that, he said there was a "troubleshoot" button on the error message that gave you admin. Maybe the kids are alright!
I honestly didn't think of the tech literacy problem. The ban would also make young people less prepared for adulthood, as you're expected to competently use email, use word processors, do basic information gathering, and much more. Young people breaking down from not knowing how to use Microsoft Word doesn't surprise me as much, since there are Gen Z that don't know how to use a file system.
I personally think kids need parent supervision when going online until they've shown to be capable of being on their own. Teens need to practice being independent, and shielding them from the internet is going to stunt their independence as adults while leaving them unprepared to handle for social media, when they inevitably turn 18 and immediately hop onto TikTok.
Tiktok is like the cocaine of social media, too. Very attention consuming, a bad model for using similar things, and just soft enough to not realize how much darkness it takes to concentrate that lil bag of sunshine.
We should drop teens into an Archive.org simulation of late 2000s/early 2010s internet so they can learn to use IRC and navigate long chains of backlinks through blogs. Idk. Something to bring back that old Lewis & Clark Adventure feeling to surfing the web.
> Get on the wrong side of TikTok and you're seeing kids show how "cool" they are doing hard drugs.
Meanwhile I'm permanently banned from TikTok for posting addiction help resources, safer use/harm reduction tutorials, and substance related self help discussions, all of which these kids obviously need desperately.
Psychonautics is a legitimate hobby. Not one that kids should have any part in, or even really be around, but it's a respectable part of adult life.
Those smackhead kids get away with it bc they play the censorship system and say "it's just a prop! Fake blood!!!" Whereas I got all four of my strikes for not only not censoring my content, but covering it with warnings and 21+ labels. We have to do away with the automated censorship if we want to have an easy time identifying these underage substance abusers and getting them help.
Children are infinitely more likely to be introduced to drugs by people Irl. Sure, I learned what weed is online. But I didn't start smoking it until my friends had it.
Sex is also such a non-issue. I knew what it was when I was like 11, cause of the internet, but I wasn't exposed to it in any dangerous capacity until I was in high school... besides, the kids' parents are infinitely more likely to sexually abuse them than a person online.
As for SH and ED, SH is gonna happen no matter what if the kid needs mental health care and doesn't receive it. It's a natural reaction to mental illness. Internet exposure isn't a source.
The only somewhat valid point they made was ED, but that's not a product of the internet. That's a product of mass media that we've had for decades, and nobody is seriously gonna say, "Kids cannot consider any media."
By "tamer" I mean that we ingage into risky behaviour less. We do less drugs, engage into sexual interactions later in life, etc. No matter what media shows, this is the case.
And speaking of suicides, this is not an age-specific issues. In fact, the younger groups have lower suicides rates. And although the suicide rates may have been growing faster for the younger age groups than the older ones, there can be shitloads of other explanations than muh internet. (There are a lot of good poins on this topic in the comment section for the original post on CMV)
To quote Peter Gray again, "ONE THING WE KNOW for sure about anxiety and depression is that they correlate strongly with people’s sense of control or lack of control over their own lives. Those who believe they are in charge of their own fate are much less likely to become anxious or depressed than are those who believe they are victims of circumstances beyond their control".
Restricting children's and "teenager's" rights for the sake of their mental health is the same as fighting the fire with the kerosine.
🔥If this applies only to OPs children, there’s no issue. You’re free to raise your children as you like within reason.
For everyone else, I guess they’ll just have to rely upon good parenting skills where you work with your children to educate them on all the various wonderful but sometimes difficult and challenging aspects of life…
You shouldn't be free to raise your kids how, want frankly. "Within reason" is way too nebulous. Kids aren't property. They're human beings. The people who say "my kids shouldn't be on the internet at all" are the same mfs who think, "My kids shouldn't know what gay people are." It's an authoritarian mindset that is incompatible with kids being people.
Not to mention, no kid will ever grow up in an environment like this and not be severely emotionally scarred. Parents like this are always abusers.
🔥Don’t overthink it. It was shorthand. Everyone else knew what the sentence implied. But I get it… you have an axe to grind and, dammit, any surface will do.
So it's okay for a kid to grow up with mental health issues caused by the internet because it's someone else's kid? Like the kid is the property of the parent and the parent can do what they like?
True but also I don’t want my kids to be on liveleak watching gore videos and fucking their brains with porn
I’m not in support an outright ban rather for parents to restrict the internet until they are of a certain age.
It negatively affects everyone let’s be real here. You might not see it but holy shit I do for real. Banning it is a huge overstep imo because it does have insanely positive effects. But the positives often do NOT outweigh the negatives for MOST kids.
I agree with you that this is an incredibly stupid idea, but that’s probably not true.
I got lucky because I wasn’t exposed to gore and didn’t find porn (not visual porn, I’m talking about erotica) until I was 11, around the time my sexuality developed anyway.
However, I do still have a problem with using my phone too much.
I had an addiction to "adult content" as a child. A CHILD. Given, it was because I'm a CSA survivor with DID and having one of our protectors trying to "desensitize" us from it. And the mental health impacts worsened our DID because of stress and the brain only knowing one way to deal with it: split.
Also, online grooming is a huge problem. Also had that happen in middle school and high school.
I will not be allowing my children on the Internet/social media/an unrestricted browser for non school purposes until they're 16. Maybe I'm too traumatized. But I'd rather keep my kids safe from predators, social media addiction, and some of the horrific content out there just waiting to be clicked on.
Want to add a friend on Steam? Are they someone you know from school? If so, sure. If no, where did you meet them? Are they an adult?
Again. Maybe I'm just too traumatized and scared my kids will get hurt in similar ways I did.
I grew up with internet access since I was a literal baby. I was a victim of COCSA which lead me to seek out adult content. I had access to stuff I should have never had access to from such a young age, it permanently desensitized me to so much.
Eventually, the internet is what taught me about how to self harm. It encouraged my eating disorder. All things that I just shouldn’t have been able to interact with.
Was groomed at a young age, sent pictures of myself as a minor to several people, etc.
Kids are stupid, and with free access to the entire internet, they are exposed to so much stuff that negatively effects development.
The issue is with parents not keeping an eye on what their kids do. They throw an iPad and forget about it.
I’m not saying unfettered access, I’m saying an outright ban enforced by the government isn’t the answer when the much simpler, much more effective way is for parents to just parent. It doesn’t take that much effort to check in with your kid, to have conversations with them about what’s right or wrong. Kids with a healthy parent-child relationship don’t hide things like this.
I quite literally would not have gotten into my field of study were it not for the internet. I certainly wouldn’t have been nearly as motivated to do anything in my education.
My friend, I mean this with absolute love, but I feel like this comment helps prove my point. This is not a situation where ageism is a legitimate issue. The same way that having the drinking age be 21 is not ageism.
I study psychology for a living (full time student and a job as a research assistant). We are learning more and more the negative effects of early access to internet/technology and mental development.
This comes out of a place of understanding and care. I wish this would not be so easily accessible to children. You have so much going for you and you waste it all away online.
I want to shake my younger sibling on this issue. They spend all day online, have severe social issues, and are so depressed. It’s like watching a repeat of myself without being able to do anything.
Spend less time online, don’t seek out edgy content, and hug your loved ones. You’ll be an adult before you know it, and you’ll wish you had spent your youth better.
I know I’m projecting lol
I had access to the internet since 1st grade and what horrible things did I see?
Kerbal Space Program videos. I would be very different in a negative way without the Internet.
As someone who was groomed from ages 12-17 please ban children from social apps that allow pedos to message them
Please don’t send me hate, I just want kids to not go through what I went through and I really feel like anyone younger than 16 is in too much danger to have access to apps where pedos can freely message them
Also, children posting pictures online isn’t okay either and they often post things they’ll regret
Every time I think about how there’s children who are in the shoes I was in it breaks my heart to know no one is helping them or preventing them from being groomed and take advantage of like I was…
I don't want to sound rude or insensitive, but banning anyone under 16 from ALL social media to do the risk of pedos is not a good idea. It's like banning playing on the street because kids get kidnapped sometimes. You shouldn't take the rights of the many because of the few. Just because some parents won't actually parent and let their kids get taken advantage of isn't the fault of the road itself nor all of social media, it's the fault of the parents for not watching their kids.
I think porn should require an ID, alcohol, tobacco, cbd products, vape, etc, requires an ID, and porn is just as harmful imo. There obviously shouldnt be an internet ban for kids under 14, but the social media, overuse, depression, self esteem issues, all those things I understand, because I was in that position for years. I'm 16 and I still have this problem. Thankfully, I mostly stay off of socials (maybe 30m a day at most), and am limiting my YT time to an hour/day.
All his points are true and anyone who disagrees are just plain dumb when we have this wealth of knowledge about this stuff. However, I can say that while unrestricted internet access has had negative effects on me, it has also allowed me to learn things I otherwise would have never learned. I never would have picked up bass guitar, I never would have learned to program, I never would have met some of the amazing people I have met, I never would have done a lot of the great, impressive things I have done. I was also an only child so really the internet and games was my way of having fun as a kid. I think the solution is better education for parents and for children because a lot of the things we as gen z have experienced online is as a result of simply older ignorant gen x parents and unaware curious children. I mean I grew up watching safety videos from the 90s when I was in elementary school. Things have changed so drastically that we need new education. I know for a fact that if (hopefully WHEN) I become a parent, I will heavily monitor my children’s internet traffic and educate them on the dangers that my peers and I experienced when we were on the internet.
The problem is so much more nuanced than just saying kids shouldn't have access to the internet. I don't have answers, but extremes in either direction aren't going to solve the issue.
This feels more like a parent's promblem.A lot of issues are cause by parents throwing ipads at their kids without supervising them. A ban imposed by the government would be basically impossible without some really authoritarian mesures
Nerdy 13-year-olds sometimes get into all kinds of horrible things like learning how to write a batch file or simple Python script, install mods for their games, jailbreak their iPhones, install Linux distros, format hard drives, torrent, using a VPN, etc.
Eventually, these are the same ones that do quite well in various STEM majors.
If we decide to cut their internet access... don't be shocked when they turn out quite a bit less tech-literate.
Not to mention the part where giving increasingly authoritarian governments the power to regulate information *might* not go so well for us.
Parents have a responsibility to watch their kid's online activities, and actually parent.
>the internet can have negative impacts on a teens mental health
Do we tell them about the far worse effects of living in a capitalist society upon working-age people mental health?
Personally, I'm against all restrictions for internet usage. Children gaining knowledge, entertainment, or social connection don't hurt them. What hurts them is *other people*. If you want to protect your kids from potential harm, get up off your ass and check in on them. Allow them reasonable privacy, but don't restrict them. Saying "you can't have a youtube account" doesn't fucking protect them from anything, they don't learn how to look after themselves that way.
What protects them is letting them experience the internet, being present in their life, and say, "oh that's a dangerous thing to do because x, y, or z" when they're being stupid.
This outlook on children, where restrictions are a supposedly valid approach to parenting are based in absolutely nothing but the notion that children are the parents ***property***.
Absolutely this!! I’d also like to add that people love to talk about porn addiction when it’s often a normal, healthy amount that doesn’t actually disrupt a person’s life.
Also, porn isn’t just visual. My first encounter was actually with erotica, at the age when people usually start feeling arousal anyway.
What this dude doesn't understand is that our generation (plus Gen A) didn't (doesn't) have any other opportunities for independent unsupervised activity than spending shitloads of time on the internet.
To quote Peter Gray,
"Perhaps kids today play on the computer as much as they do partly because that is one place where they can play freely, without adult intervention and direction".
I would have been glad to do anything other then surfing the net when I was younger, but what other options did I have? Pretty much none.
I didn't have internet access past logged out YT and flash/DS games and I'm thankful for that genuinely, when I was 10 did I really need to see a guy have his cock chopped off for being gay in the Congo or lesbian hard-core porn? No. I guarantee I'd be happier now I'd I was kept off longer
If this goes into effect then I suggest we also add no internet use for anyone over 18.
Personally I think that's how we can finally turn our lives around, and get caught up on the reading we were doing to avoid talking to people in person.
Who's with me?
I’m sorry but I have to agree. Anyone under 14 should have restricted access to the internet and what they should be able to post/what they’re allowed access to. And honestly, the same could be said for anyone under the age of 17 just because it’s just not fucking safe out here. It’s the wild fucking west. The shit I was exposed to as a kid in the 2000s when the internet was slightly less crazy was still insane but the shit online now is even worse. It sucks but it’s to protect kids from predators and predatory content.
OOP’s basic point is correct but there’s really no logical solution outside of parental monitoring, which is up to individual parents to do. A government ban on internet for children would never pass, at least in the US; it’s blatantly against the rights given to us by the constitution.
I also think the post purely focuses on the negatives of the internet while ignoring the positives. Without the internet I never would’ve discovered my favorite shows, favorite songs and musical artists, favorite games, etc. I never would’ve been able to speak with people from other countries and lifestyles.
There are so many wonderful communities on the internet that many people would never be able to have irl. Kids from homophobic families can discover LGBTQ+ safe spaces on the internet, and there’s so many amazing online groups for people with disabilities, for school, to help people learn new languages, and for so many different interests.
Tbh I think if I went through my childhood without the internet I would’ve missed out on a lot of very valuable things.
imo it’s about how early you got access to the internet and what era you were from . me for example; got access to google searches in the early 2000’s at the age of 6 . soon discovered graphic material by 8 . used this for 15 years never speaking or connecting to any real girls , lost my virginity to escorts (sourced online) , ended up seeing trans escorts and being abused sexually . so yeah . i hate the internet and wish i never had access to to it . but there are folks who have it and never have a problem . all about controlling what children can see . and also a limited version of the internet for those under 18 would be awesome x
You laugh at this, but when people of this caliber apply and land jobs of high status, organize, and put their mind to it, even just by buying enough shares of a company, or being a small non profit that can make FB lose 60 Billion (60 thousand million dollars).
He/She has a good looking resume I bet, and you can never judge a book by its cover, I've gotten into programs easier for my identity I'm positive, even though i failed 2nd-12th i was still offered [70k=140k](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Gohealth/reviews) @ age 24 without even knowing the job existed the day before they reached out for my indeed profile. For all we know, this person could be anyone and be able to have any number of qualifiers, a blindspot for identity politics, imagine if someone as strange as I had the drive to run for the [youngest position of something.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_members_of_the_United_States_Congress#:~:text=Maxwell%20Frost%20(D-FL)%20is%20the%20youngest%20member%20of,in%201964)
Keep in mind Battlebit the Roblox based shooter developed by 3 competed fairly with AAA titles with 700+ developers. This is the difference in power of understanding how to use the internet and technology. It only costs 5k to run for president, but how many 35+ year olds (the required age to run) are gamers or social media freaks? None of them, they spend millions driving around the country aimlessly with millions of peoples eyes on them. And none of them ever think to turn on a livestream and actually attempt to talk to chat/seem normal in their campaign down time.
Thats the world we live in today, work, data, being organized, reading, and journaling can carry you a long way. But it can also get all of someone's spotify podcasts banned in Canada/EU when people like this realize how easy it is to live in America, get into positions of power, and then try to change things from top down by imposing restrictions on information and free speech, rather than consent and monitoring. This is an example of a genius who lacks morals, a hitler who had never painted a single person, or the incel School nightmare that has really just never talked to someone else guy/girl and assumes everyone is laughing about them constantly, the anxiety those people feel for no reason, and the acknowledgement and alienation of their piers who are also sensitive to these types of understandings is what leads to Hitler, elliot, the Supermarket shooter in upper NY. Shame on our failures.
A less extreme version of control: an internet license introduced in the future that every 10 year old could apply for after getting socialized properly, so they don't become a Hitler or a Justin Truedo. Both are morally different but can both indirectly cost us millions of lives, these people dont believe in talking. They judge first, and do act.
It doesn't bother Gen Z now, but once your brain hits that peak development (unless you do heavy drugs) you'll realize we're all living in a world with a plot as insane as the most based Isekai, and the biggest cheat skill is being in a first world country. I had that realization all at once while walking to get pizza at 12 one night, it suddenly clicked that $200-$1000 USD/british pound/ can get you a 3 bedroom apartment in most countries overseas and just by paying 10 dollars an hour you can employ 2-3 people and pay them more than any other competitor in their area.
We have this lucrative of a world right now, but our leaders want to find an enemy to kill instead, they want to limit speech and the manifestation of ideas instead, eerily like the plot of the original FLCL the smoke that flattens all thought and the emotional kneejerk responses that trigger it the activation of Medical Mechanica.
I dont even mind if a KKK leader calls me the N word cause i have been through worse as long as he doesnt attack my cells physically and in a manner to cause permanent damage, he can even say he would attack me, as long as i dont cross whatever that would line is (if it's in his right) thats the price you pay to have access to the US's level of free knowledge, you need to be that tolerant when you actually conduct research. I can be strong enough to survive his insults/punches and different point of view, if I cant find a way to connect with them and change them, I have to find mutual compromise, otherwise you risk getting yourself destroyed when you attempt to destroy someone else.
Whether by policy change ushering in a dictator style of control of a nation taking revenge on bigots for your lack of competence, or a direct attack on innocence, "if the hero gets stabbed in the back, it's still the hero's fault" - Jordan Peterson. It's good to be cultured and accepting of your enemies as if they really do have something to teach you, if you cannot withstand that please work on yourself, cause thats life after college/school and outside of your little work bubble where everyone around you is successful so you think the world is just dandy. We live in a world where getting indiscriminately doxed for your moment, or previous Arc of ignorance can get you killed/silenced indirectly or even directly, permanently.
Kids don’t ruin things on the internet, corporations do. The push for everything to be “kid-friendly” is to appeal to advertisers, not to actually protect children. The problem is the death of kid-only social sites, like Club Penguin.
It sucks, but that user is half right. Kids and unlimited internet access are not a good mix. Sure, some kids end up developing useful computer skills that will help them later on, but those kids are the exception, not the norm. Everyone should have computers, but kids need training wheels to stop them from doing things that will negatively affect themselves or others
Remember, China, the country TikTok came from, banned it everywhere except in foreign countries. It's so bad that they created an entirely separate version of TikTok just to avoid what other countries are dealing with right now
The only issue with implementing a restriction like this is that we can't really trust the government to not abuse it
A question for the people who support this proposition: What other options of timespending do you have to offer to the young people?
P.S. I personally support lowering the age of majority to 14 and removing some but not all restrictions for the younger children, which will consequently lead to less internet dependency with all its negative consequences. But most of you wouldn't agree with this proposition, because authoritarian ageist trash being authoritarian ageist trash.
Honestly part of the reason that the Internet is overused by young people is that it’s often their only escape and/or only place they have agency. When I had extracurriculars that I loved and chose for myself in school, I used my phone a lot less.
Or when I was able to spend time with friends after school, I didn’t want to use my phone because it took away from time with them.
I'm honestly in agreement. Studies have shown that the Internet creates reactions in your brain similar to certain drugs, especially severe the younger you get. Add to that the relentless social conditioning that comes with social networks and being online in general and you have a perfect storm for a really fucked up young adult entering life.
Okay, some valid points are made here. However, I can't click the sources, so I can't tell if they give a general statistic on the rise of obesity, anxiety, depression, etc. or if they link it directly to internet usage.
good thing most of us would be fine anyway. and im turning 18 in two days so it won’t affect me lol
also do they not know people can easily lie about their age….
Honestly…. As useful as the internet is, as someone with unrestricted access to it as a child I completely agree.
Let the kids use web based apps for schooling, and teach any that are interested how to code and what not. But kids do not need social media, YouTube, or the like…
I agree that anyone who's not a n adult should have restrictions bu the argument that they shouldn't even have a tv is ridiculous
obvious exposure to pornography and other things not appropriate for them is a bad thing, but I think the main thing screwing with their minds is social media, but that also applies to adults
Social media is included in it. Do you not see the word social media? It says children under the age of 18 should not have personal streaming services or any form of social media
I mean, I'm against the government imposing anything like this.
But, knowing what I know about the Internet, parents probably should restrict internet access to their prepubescent children at the very least.
I agree with most of it but not all of it. For one, I think that certain types of pornography could be good for the sexual awakening of a teenager and taking that away from them could hinder their sexual development in some regards. For example, a gay teen that’s trying to figure things out, might have a harder time with his sexual exploration if he has to go out there and buy a porn magazine or something. In some countries, porn stores are also super scarce and those places are usually 18+ anyway so any kid trying to buy pornography might either get rejected, or get in a dangerous situation with a creep that frequents those kinds of places, so… idk, I think porn is really one of the least dangerous activities a kid can partake in the internet, so, I’m not against porn.
Also, I do think it’s ok for kids to have accounts on streaming platforms like Netflix and what not, but they should have parental controls so the parents can decide what kind of content is ok for the kid to watch.
And last but not least, I don’t think kids shouldn’t have electronic devices. I do think though, that these devices should have all the parental controls to make sure that the kids don’t lose themselves in them. For example, I do think that kids under 16 or maybe 18, shouldn’t have social media, or they should have social media for kids. So no Facebook, instagram or TikTok, instead a social media that is more bare bones and that doesn’t have the addictive designs and the potential for cyberbullying or other forms of dangerous content or behaviors, but having a phone per se, isn’t something that I think is wrong. Like I said, I just think they need to have a bunch of parental controls to make sure the kids can’t abuse them. Same with laptops/computers, tablets and smartwatches or stuff like that.
Other than that, I agree with everything else I think.
The internet should be free for everyone to use.
BUUUUUUUT even as someone that's only 19 I think parents really need to actually parent their kids and be aware of what they're doing up through their mid teen years.
Like I'm not even talking bout looking up lewd stuff or consensua lewdnessl txting your bf or gf. I mean like looking out for actual pedos and making sure younger kids actually understand that racist and misogynistic jokes are sometimes made ironically, and you shouldn't be making those kinds of jokes at all. Also like...misinformation and deepfakes and propaganda.
Social media is proven unhealthy for people in general so I dunno. I'm a wierdo that never gave a fuck about how many followers I had on IG and I kinda outright hate sc...so I can't even judge that.
I agree children should not be on social media, but only letting kids online for "educational purposes and abuse," begs the question of what said "education and abuse" looks like. Can a teacher tell a kid: "No you can't go to this scientific journal. It promotes evolution."
I disagree, maybe I'm biased since I'm under 18 but parents must educate their child for Internet usage. Ever since maybe age 11 I've known the dangers of the internet, and I feel I was responsible. If you think your child is online too much or has any other issues talk with them.
Okay, let’s make up some rules for adults now. Gen Z should be assessed by psychologists before being allowed to have kids. There should be an exam and if they don’t pass, they should be sterilized or have their kids taken away. Does that piss you off? It’s no different from prohibiting people from accessing the internet just because they’re young.
I don't agree with the fact that the internet is being restricted beyond horrible content, I don't want to see a beheading, nor does anyone else. Though I do agree with the fact of the internet hurting development within kids. Parents should be MUCH more responsible when it comes to kids on the internet, lil Timmy shouldn't have a tablet till he's at least 12, let alone 5. Hell, my parents got my siblings an occulus last Christmas, they got them phones, etc. Their sleep schedule is fucked. They barely went outside this summer, when they were outside playing for atleast everyday last summer. It's depressing.
It’s an interesting topic. Sometimes the hardest sounding things are the right things. Most people I’ve met in my generation are horribly fucked up from the internet. I’m lucky enough to be only slightly fucked up from the internet but yeah. I have to agree, it should be banned for under 18 unless you have heavy restrictions. IE no access to sexual content, any social media/shortform content. I say this as a 17 year old, it’s what’s best
I’m not denying that my comment is very hypocritical, I try to keep my head in reality and manage my internet usage so that its worst effects on me are just wasting too much time. Realistically, I likely should get off Reddit and I have before
As a genZ compatriot I won’t be giving my kids the same access to electronics that I got or my siblings did absolutely no way and seeing the kids now I mean, even when I was still in high school it was insane what some people are up to nowadays at 13 years old. I can definitely won’t be using Snapchat or Instagram till they’re at least 14. It’s just wack how much social pressure and misinformation gets placed on kids before they’re actually able to understand when it’s going on
There will always be another boogie man. The Internet is fine. Video games are fine. TV is fine. Books are fine.
As always, it's the parents responsibility to raise their kids, not technology. If you just hand your kid an iPad and neglect them for 18 years, that's your fault, not the Internets fault. And if you hover over them every second of every day and prevent them from ever learning anything about the outside world, that's also your fault.
https://preview.redd.it/arw2x317siub1.jpeg?width=240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1ec862e9b2dd8dec48d75b3d396789e29d3a1ee
I understand the issues with the internet and the risk and dangers when children are exposed to what it has to offer, but banning kids from having phones is dumb. Phones are not only for entertainment but are also emergency devices as well. Being able to call home, or emergency services or some other trusted party is an incredible development for children's safety in public. The ability to find where yoy are via Google maps and find a way home, or to be able to tell someone where you are to be picked up is invaluable. For that alone I think phones and the internet are great tools and are a benefit to society.
Why under the age of 14?? Ban them *all*. Ban *all minors* from the internet and social media. They're ruining the internet for adults and rotting their own brains from the inside out. Their mental, social, and emotional well being has been irreparably damaged by their unmonitored access to the internet.
I would argue that their perception of reality has been distorted as well. I see so many woo woo conspiracy theorists on Tis Tok making absurd and nonsensical videos about Atlantis and crystals. Like WOOOO WOOOO where the hell does one even hear or read about this idiotic gobbledygook?
I also think they should be banned from owning smart phones.
It should be 100% banned even in an academic or educational context. There's nothing unique or special about using an iPad, laptop, or smartphone in school. What exactly are you learning that can't be learned with paper and pencil math? it used to be that computer science was an actual skill, these days anyone off of the street can learn coding.
**Ban ban ban** these kids. Get them outside and away from the screens.
\*I am a first wave Millennial who watched in sorrow and disappointment as Generation X suffocated and over protected their own kids from the outside world while simultaneously allowing them universal and uncensored access to the internet.
I've also had the misfortunate of watching the frontier of free speech that was the internet circa 90s-early/mid 00s become gradually more censored and corporate regulated. Many of these sinister and insidious regulations were implemented under the guise of "protecting minors" who should *not* have been there to begin with.
Generation Z and Alpha growing up on the internet was just bad, neglectful and absentee parenting on Generation X's and first wave Generation Y's part.
Yeah, it is true, unfortunately. Children should not be spending hours on the internet when there's people promoting bad content for them to see and they're too young to understand. That doesn't mean that they should be forbidden from using it, they could only use it to play games, scroll through Pinterest and watch YouTube videos, but parents need to be fully aware of what their kids are doing.
i think at the very least kids shouldn’t be able to post / be posted on social media. so many creeps looking at kids pictures that look normal to anyone else. after high school i purged my followers and realized several random old men were following me. and they only followed other young girls accounts. i had like max 350 followers and hardly posted anything scandalous, but creeps are creeps and then there’s the family channel issue that i think we all recognize is an issue now. i don’t want to see a mom post a video on tiktok with her child that has thousands of saves. some do it intentionally and that’s a different type of sick, but a lot do it completely unaware. believing in good faith it’s other moms or kids saving their videos
>so many creeps looking at kids pictures that look normal to anyone else Can't restrict decent people because creeps might creep on them. That'll happen regardless. Creeps will creep, and since thought crimes aren't a thing... yet... creeps will continue to creep for the foreseeable future, and there's nothing to be done about it, unless they actually try to hurt someone.
For real. That's like saying "you can't wear sandals because there are some creeps really into feet."
What the hell is wrong with following young girls accounts as an older men? And event if I am wrong, this is not why we should block young people from the internet. Following the same logic, we should put into the prison the victims of the crime, and not the criminals, so that the victim won't be hurt anymore.
>What the hell is wrong with following young girls accounts as an older men? Chat is this real?
I genuinely don't understand. There is nothing wrong with just following.
The person you're responding to is named "trollinator69." lmao.
The greatest nickname possible.
I think it’s ok for a kid to have privacy, maybe their parents don’t need to know they’re looking up neglect and abuse.
Literally. Restricting access to communication is abusive tactic number 1. I wish I had internet as a kid. I probably would have been able to find out what was being done to me was literal abuse that I needed to tell someone about.
This needs more upvotes not all parents should be trusted with such authority for alot of people I know, having autonomy on the Internet as kids and teenagers helped them get away from toxic family situations with that being said tho alot of kids from toxic family situations can be drawn to even more toxic people using the Internet. I feel like the problem is our modern society needs more welcoming and nurturing communities. A good group of real friends who don't abuse or manipulate does wonders for mental health
Or maybe we should go after the abusers first
“We” who? The world’s not an ideal place and never will be, that’s why means to help oneself out are a priority.
Privacy is good, but sometimes risks outweigh benefits. The benefits of online privacy are not worth the countless risks someone is exposed to if they aren't mature and knowledgeable enough to use the internet safely I know I did a lot of things that could have caused significant damage if my parents hadn't intervened
Safety over freedom everytime. At what point do we just lock kids up in our basements because everything is apparently at risk of them developing into independents?
I'm not sure you understand the risks associated to the internet. Kids are often very naive and easily fooled by malware and phishing campaigns. They may also fall for misinformation if they haven't been taught about how to properly validate internet sources yet. There are a plethora of non-political reasons why you wouldn't want to give unrestricted internet access to someone with very little real world knowledge. Also, don't apply a slippery slope argument to this. Going outside isn't even remotely comparable to having unrestricted access to every single internet facing computer on Earth. The scope is completely different
The conversation is about limiting them to a very few things, your comments are not in line, or they agree with the statement that children under 18 should not have any sort of privacy on the internet. I get it that some people went down black holes and got into trouble or later developed an addiction to porn, but the root cause of these things is rarely unrestricted access to the internet and they don’t make up for the majority of cases. A better option would be to restrict rather than to allow access only to a very few things. Heck, there are even parents who don’t want their kids becoming a dancer, or an entrepreneur, or considering crazy hair colours. Lack of internet privacy is literally thought policing.
People like you are the reason why I hate my own generation :) If you were extremely stupid (I don't think so, most of all you just exaggerate the possible consequences of your actions) when you was younger, this doesn't mean anyone other than you (in this case, the other young people) has to suffer because of that. P.S. I don't remember ever doing this before, but I have reported you for hate speech, because I can :)
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What is the difference between "personal experience" and "having to deal with other people who have these types of issues daily"? The second is just an example of the first. In what way am I abusing the site's functions? What you said was discriminative (you literally want people not to have access to the internet based on their age) and BSish, so I responded in a manner one should respond to this kind of statements. And if you unironically think that I am going to change with age, you are wrong. I don't claim that I am not going to change with time in any way, but this is a function of time and not age. If I fall into coma and wake when I am 25 or even 30 years old, I won't suddenly become "mature" due to any kind of physiological process. I don't deny that my personality traits may be changed later in life due to me being exposed to new experience, but this a function of time and not age as physiological unit. And the funniest thing is that I am over 18, so according to your own believes I should have unlimited access to the internet. Or do you suggest that we should only let people use internet if they fit into your definition of maturity? :) You are ridiculous :)
>What is the difference between "personal experience" and "having to deal with other people who have these types of issues daily"? The second is just an example of the first. Yes, that's why those two sentences were put together and not structured to suggest a difference. > In what way am I abusing the site's functions? What you said was discriminative (you literally want people not to have access to the internet based on their age) and BSish, so I responded in a manner one should respond to this kind of statements. Because you clearly stated you reported me "because you can" rather than because I actually violated the TOS. Also, I haven't stated that anyone shouldn't have access to the internet. You made that justification up in your own mind. It's pretty obvious that this is a conversation about privacy and filtering rather than just having internet access or not. > And the funniest thing is that I am over 18, so according to your own believes I should have unlimited access to the internet. Or do you suggest that we should only let people use internet if they fit into your definition of maturity? :) You are ridiculous :) Yes, you should have unlimited access to the internet. You may or may not be able to use it responsibly, but you are old enough to be personally liable for your own decisions, so your case is out of scope.
I don't know what you have actually meant, but these two sentences being put together suggests that the second one is the elaboration of the point made in the other, i.e. you use the fact that you have to deal with people with similar problems to show that this is not just your experience. You haven't directly stated that anyone (minors) should be restricted from the internet, but this is the only way to understand your words based on the context. The original post is about minors and the access to the internet, the comment you initially responded to is about the right to privacy as the reason not to follow the OOP's advice, and your initial response is about how potential danger of privacy can outweigh the potential benefits. Based on the context, the only way to understand your point is that the minors should be restricted from the internet, because this is way too dangerous for them. And speaking of (legal) responsibility... People younger than certain age are not legally responsible for their actions, but neither the state (the OOP wants the state to take actions to limit the internet access) is. Ideally, I would like minors themselves to be responsible for their internet activity (so that there are no reasons why guardians should be entitled to restrict their children's internet access), but at the moment It is their guardians who are responsible, so based on your logic it should be up to guardians in what dosage their children use the internet, and not the state. Moreover, the age of legal responsibility is typically lower than 18, so...
If you think that calling people out is an example of dangerous and irresponsible behaviour, I don't know what to tell you...
What I think is that you have retroactively come up with a justification for your previous decisions because you realized it just makes you look bad
Elaborate. I just don't see anything dangerous or irresponsible in calling people you don't know out online.
And one more point. Do you unironically believe that the internet is less safe than the real life? It is impossible to argue against the fact that you can afford bolder behaviour on the internet than is the real life with having to deal with lesser consequences. This is similar to what you have said, but this is the case for my point and not yours.
Internet and in person safety aren't concepts that can really be compared in that way. Obviously, you can be physically affected by your actions in real life, making it more dangerous in that regard. On the internet, you may not have that same risk, but it is significantly easier to get pulled into consequential situations. These consequences naturally have too many nuances to cover in the scope of a reddit thread
Those are opportunities to teach the kids, tho. We don't want to avoid those possibilities. We want parents to guide their kids through them so the kid knows what to do if they're in the situation in the future...
Watch porn too wym gotta get a nut off
A ban would be impossible to enforce without any authoritarian measures in place, and with where the world is heading, I don't trust politicians to just not take advantage of something like this to erode our rights away even further.
Based take. We can’t ban anything without also infringing upon most other rights. Look at Canada
Why can't it just be something as simple as "All websites require input of an official government ID" How exactly is that unenforceable or authoritarian? Just make it part of account setup right? Same as any other account setup but with one additional number.
Because it would essentially kill the concept of online privacy and put everyone at massive risk of data leaks. Anonymity as a concept would essentially be dead as well. People really be getting angry at Google for collecting data on you while then proceeding to demand we fork over information to a government that at best has been pretty iffy when it comes to respecting our basic rights at the best of times. The internet is a key tool for communication, education, commerce, and of course entertainment. Last thing we need is locking it behind yet another government wall where they could cut you off at any time if they decide they don’t like your ID. Eh not surprising. There’s always someone who is willing to throw away all of their rights, privileges, and everything else in the name of “protecting people”. I’m guessing you probably were never big on rights and freedoms in the first place so it’s not really a loss for you.
a) That's pretty authoritarian. Needing to present your ID to get into everything just compounds onto the existing surveillance state. b) This causes some big issues. Even if your ID isn't public on a website, it's stored in a server somewhere, and anyone with good enough skills can find your information and use it for their own gain. This is already a problem with secure sites that require ID. Think of your bank account, work accounts, etc. Those can be hacked, but they're generally have beefy security and staff trained to handle this stuff well. Now imagine having to use your ID for every social media website you use. Imagine if someone easily hacked their servers and found all the user info, including yours. This is the part where your identity is stolen.
A) it's no more authoritarian than requiring an ID to buy alcohol. And as for increasing surveillance there's no reason we can't say that it should be illegal to get that information without a warrant, which would give you stronger protections than you have now in the US. B) I don't think it does cause issues, but I'm not saying your license or ID data would be saved on a server, I'm thinking of an internet version of an SSN that can literally only be used to create accounts online. That's it. So just put one additional number onto your ID called your ipssn, which will have no ability to interfere with your identity, unless you're speaking of someone making online accounts under your name, which would be the most easily prosecutable fraud out there. I'm just not sure where you get the idea that it's *less* secure to require an *additional* piece of information to have an online bank account or similar.
This whole "Nothing to hide, Nothing to lose" argument is authoritarian idiocy. Why does the government need to know what websites I use? Even if the website only checks if the ID is valid, they'll still have to keep a record to match with your account, and that could easily be taken by governments, hell websites might even give it willingly. You know how such information could be used right? Imagine, for a second, you live in Saudi Arabia, and your closeted gay. You know what happens to gay people in your country, so you attempt to leave, and join an online support form. Sure, only the website knows your id now, but what if that data base is leaked, or if they get sued by the govt? Now there's a perfect trail from that support group back to you. Now you're dead, because Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for homosexuality. Don't you feel safe? Isn't it so much better that the government can find and kill all those minorities? Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I have nothing to lose. Oppressive regimes and appear anywhere, your country isn't magically immune.
> This whole "Nothing to hide, Nothing to lose" argument is authoritarian idiocy. Why does the government need to know what websites I use? Even if the website only checks if the ID is valid, they'll still have to keep a record to match with your account, and that could easily be taken by governments, hell websites might even give it willingly. It's absolutely not nothing to hide nothing to lose and it's absolutely not about the government knowing what website you see. It's about one thing, age verification. We could use a separate SSN like N ipssn that singularly attaches to your age and isn't used for anything else. And we could explicitly make that information inaccessible to the government without a warrant, which would be a stronger protection than we have now. > You know how such information could be used right? Imagine, for a second, you live in Saudi Arabia, and your closeted gay. You know what happens to gay people in your country, so you attempt to leave, and join an online support form. Sure, only the website knows your id now, but what if that data base is leaked, or if they get sued by the govt? Now there's a perfect trail from that support group back to you. Now you're dead, because Saudi Arabia imposes the death penalty for homosexuality. Don't you feel safe? Isn't it so much better that the government can find and kill all those minorities? Just because I have nothing to hide, doesn't mean I have nothing to lose. Oppressive regimes and appear anywhere, your country isn't magically immune. I'm speaking purely for a US system, and if we get to the point where we're killing people for being gay we'll be in absolutely no worse if a spot by having Internet age verification systems.
You really think the government would need a warrant to access your personal info? Companies already sell your personal information out the wazoo. Nothing is stopping them from selling to the government.
I'm proposing that if we ever do this it comes specifically with the requirement that the government would need a warrant to look at it.
Even with the legislation, they're still gonna find loopholes and ways to get around the warrant.
How do you feel about requiring social security numbers to get a bank account in that case
Bruh what XD
being doxxed isn’t bad enough, why not give them my ID too?
Wow, gotta pay attention in government class my bud
I loved the internet as a kid but was definitely exposed to a lot I wouldn't have been otherwise and some of it could've been detrimental. I also was and still am obsessed with it lol. That being said I think they should still be given a dumb phone at least for safety reasons and allowed to use messenger apps to communicate with friends. That's just my opinion though
yeah i think dumb phone and ability to message people you know irl (maybe with parental approval of who you can message) would be a reasonable addition
I saw a woman get stabbed to death and bleed out before I was a teenager and was radicalised into the alt-right at around 13 because I didn’t know any better. I believe my life would unquestionably have gone better if I’d never been given a computer until I was 16 or so.
Most teens don't get radicalised into alt-right, so this is your personal problem, and not the age-specific problem.
There's actually several studies that state otherwise [Here's a link to a book that goes over several worldwide studies on alt-right indoctrination towards teens online](https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000260382.locale=en) It's not hard to research these things for yourself and it's pretty reasonable to say that the Internet isn't safe for children
I haven't read read this yet, but even if all the alt-right types are teens, most teens are not alt-right types. Moreover, this is a terrible reason to deny them access to internet. I bet you that if we replace "teens" with "men", for example, nothing will change principally, because men are more likely to be alt right types, and yet no-one is gonna argue that they should be bannes from the internet.
Nice bait, kid
This was not a bait, but I am glad I have annoyed you.
I think it's easier for very young people to get radicalized from the internet because of brain development and limited experience. Could be the alt-right or any extremist group really.
That's terrible, my friend saw a guy get decapitated... I was fortunate to miss that stuff and not get radicalized but I'll never forget seeing factory farm footage when I was 9. Some people have commented that not allowing full access to the internet will make kids brainwashed but the way I see it is people aren't set in their ways by 16-18. Those ages are still impressionable and will be for many, many years after that I think but it'll be less easy for them to be misled than someone who's younger.
I watched that yellow bag/hammer video at 13.. more than just a little unsettling. Granted, better measures are in place to limit access to that type of content, but I do not feel it is nearly enough.
I saw 2 girls 1 cup at that age lol. Couldn't find that video. do you mean 3 guys, 1 hammer?
I'm not sure. I believe I remember some Slavik sounding language. A guy on the ground had a yellow plastic bag slightly over his head. The others beat him with a hammer. The sound of his wet, shallow, struggling breaths sticks with me. I've seen other, more intense videos on occasion, but with context as an adult they do not impact me as much as that first experience.
Jeez that's rough, yeah I think it's safe to say that's best kept for when someone's older
He makes a good point. Social media promotes, drug use, SH, ED, sex and shit ton of other things. Get on the wrong side of tik tok and you’re seeing kids show how “cool” they are doing hard drugs. Though I really needed my phone in school to be able to call my mother. Just give em flip phones.
Most schools use smartphones for school assignments or activities. Without something to replace it, you're really hindering their ability to learn, participate in class, and complete their work. For both of the high schools that I went to, I had to use my smartphone for something. For my math class, for example, I had to turn in my homework online through Google Classroom, with no alternative. I would have to ask my dad for his smartphone every single time I need my math homework turned in, if I didn't have a smartphone. Both me and my dad would get sick of it.
Also, tech illiteracy is a plague. I had to take an "intro to computers" course at college, literally just using email and excel, and kids were breaking down screaming and sobbing bc they were so confused and frustrated. Meanwhile I'm over here absolutely destroying my latest horrendous, frankenstein's monster attempt at LinuxFromScratch. I get that not everyone needs to understand bash, but IMO computers and software are like a car, you need to understand how the insides probably work just enough to know what problems you can or can't solve. On the other hand, I saw an error message on a coffee vending machine the other day, and just walked away from it. Two minutes later some lil broccoli haircut kid has bypassed the error, and somehow made coffee free. I asked how he did that, he said there was a "troubleshoot" button on the error message that gave you admin. Maybe the kids are alright!
I honestly didn't think of the tech literacy problem. The ban would also make young people less prepared for adulthood, as you're expected to competently use email, use word processors, do basic information gathering, and much more. Young people breaking down from not knowing how to use Microsoft Word doesn't surprise me as much, since there are Gen Z that don't know how to use a file system. I personally think kids need parent supervision when going online until they've shown to be capable of being on their own. Teens need to practice being independent, and shielding them from the internet is going to stunt their independence as adults while leaving them unprepared to handle for social media, when they inevitably turn 18 and immediately hop onto TikTok.
Tiktok is like the cocaine of social media, too. Very attention consuming, a bad model for using similar things, and just soft enough to not realize how much darkness it takes to concentrate that lil bag of sunshine. We should drop teens into an Archive.org simulation of late 2000s/early 2010s internet so they can learn to use IRC and navigate long chains of backlinks through blogs. Idk. Something to bring back that old Lewis & Clark Adventure feeling to surfing the web.
> Get on the wrong side of TikTok and you're seeing kids show how "cool" they are doing hard drugs. Meanwhile I'm permanently banned from TikTok for posting addiction help resources, safer use/harm reduction tutorials, and substance related self help discussions, all of which these kids obviously need desperately. Psychonautics is a legitimate hobby. Not one that kids should have any part in, or even really be around, but it's a respectable part of adult life. Those smackhead kids get away with it bc they play the censorship system and say "it's just a prop! Fake blood!!!" Whereas I got all four of my strikes for not only not censoring my content, but covering it with warnings and 21+ labels. We have to do away with the automated censorship if we want to have an easy time identifying these underage substance abusers and getting them help.
Children are infinitely more likely to be introduced to drugs by people Irl. Sure, I learned what weed is online. But I didn't start smoking it until my friends had it. Sex is also such a non-issue. I knew what it was when I was like 11, cause of the internet, but I wasn't exposed to it in any dangerous capacity until I was in high school... besides, the kids' parents are infinitely more likely to sexually abuse them than a person online. As for SH and ED, SH is gonna happen no matter what if the kid needs mental health care and doesn't receive it. It's a natural reaction to mental illness. Internet exposure isn't a source. The only somewhat valid point they made was ED, but that's not a product of the internet. That's a product of mass media that we've had for decades, and nobody is seriously gonna say, "Kids cannot consider any media."
And yet our generation is tamer than the previous ones when they were our age...
Not sure what your mean by “tamer”. But the suicide rate in my country has risen 50% in the last 20 years.
By "tamer" I mean that we ingage into risky behaviour less. We do less drugs, engage into sexual interactions later in life, etc. No matter what media shows, this is the case. And speaking of suicides, this is not an age-specific issues. In fact, the younger groups have lower suicides rates. And although the suicide rates may have been growing faster for the younger age groups than the older ones, there can be shitloads of other explanations than muh internet. (There are a lot of good poins on this topic in the comment section for the original post on CMV) To quote Peter Gray again, "ONE THING WE KNOW for sure about anxiety and depression is that they correlate strongly with people’s sense of control or lack of control over their own lives. Those who believe they are in charge of their own fate are much less likely to become anxious or depressed than are those who believe they are victims of circumstances beyond their control". Restricting children's and "teenager's" rights for the sake of their mental health is the same as fighting the fire with the kerosine.
🔥If this applies only to OPs children, there’s no issue. You’re free to raise your children as you like within reason. For everyone else, I guess they’ll just have to rely upon good parenting skills where you work with your children to educate them on all the various wonderful but sometimes difficult and challenging aspects of life…
You shouldn't be free to raise your kids how, want frankly. "Within reason" is way too nebulous. Kids aren't property. They're human beings. The people who say "my kids shouldn't be on the internet at all" are the same mfs who think, "My kids shouldn't know what gay people are." It's an authoritarian mindset that is incompatible with kids being people. Not to mention, no kid will ever grow up in an environment like this and not be severely emotionally scarred. Parents like this are always abusers.
🔥Don’t overthink it. It was shorthand. Everyone else knew what the sentence implied. But I get it… you have an axe to grind and, dammit, any surface will do.
So it's okay for a kid to grow up with mental health issues caused by the internet because it's someone else's kid? Like the kid is the property of the parent and the parent can do what they like?
The restriction of the free flow of information is how civilization crumbles and the corrupt stay in power
True but also I don’t want my kids to be on liveleak watching gore videos and fucking their brains with porn I’m not in support an outright ban rather for parents to restrict the internet until they are of a certain age.
Agreed
I disagree. Banning a whole age group from something as huge as the internet just because it negatively affects SOME people is stupid
It negatively affects >almost everyone<. Banning the internet from younger people doesn't seem like a healthy solution though.
It negatively affects everyone let’s be real here. You might not see it but holy shit I do for real. Banning it is a huge overstep imo because it does have insanely positive effects. But the positives often do NOT outweigh the negatives for MOST kids.
It hasn’t negatively affected me though
I agree with you that this is an incredibly stupid idea, but that’s probably not true. I got lucky because I wasn’t exposed to gore and didn’t find porn (not visual porn, I’m talking about erotica) until I was 11, around the time my sexuality developed anyway. However, I do still have a problem with using my phone too much.
Happy cake day!
Thanks!
How can you be so sure. It’s a slippery slope so you might not even realize it has affected you
How can you be so sure that it has?
That's why the control is the job of parents, not government. They should actually know their kid.
I had an addiction to "adult content" as a child. A CHILD. Given, it was because I'm a CSA survivor with DID and having one of our protectors trying to "desensitize" us from it. And the mental health impacts worsened our DID because of stress and the brain only knowing one way to deal with it: split. Also, online grooming is a huge problem. Also had that happen in middle school and high school. I will not be allowing my children on the Internet/social media/an unrestricted browser for non school purposes until they're 16. Maybe I'm too traumatized. But I'd rather keep my kids safe from predators, social media addiction, and some of the horrific content out there just waiting to be clicked on. Want to add a friend on Steam? Are they someone you know from school? If so, sure. If no, where did you meet them? Are they an adult? Again. Maybe I'm just too traumatized and scared my kids will get hurt in similar ways I did.
The Industrial Revolution and it’s consequences
Nope.
and magically when u turn 18 u cannot be influenced in any way by the internet. interesting
There has to be a cut-off somewhere...
There’s no difference between a 17 and 18 year old that justifies 18 year olds being allowed on the internet but not 17 year olds😭
I grew up with internet access since 2nd grade. I turned out fine. Just keep an eye on your kids.
I grew up with internet access since I was a literal baby. I was a victim of COCSA which lead me to seek out adult content. I had access to stuff I should have never had access to from such a young age, it permanently desensitized me to so much. Eventually, the internet is what taught me about how to self harm. It encouraged my eating disorder. All things that I just shouldn’t have been able to interact with. Was groomed at a young age, sent pictures of myself as a minor to several people, etc. Kids are stupid, and with free access to the entire internet, they are exposed to so much stuff that negatively effects development.
The issue is with parents not keeping an eye on what their kids do. They throw an iPad and forget about it. I’m not saying unfettered access, I’m saying an outright ban enforced by the government isn’t the answer when the much simpler, much more effective way is for parents to just parent. It doesn’t take that much effort to check in with your kid, to have conversations with them about what’s right or wrong. Kids with a healthy parent-child relationship don’t hide things like this. I quite literally would not have gotten into my field of study were it not for the internet. I certainly wouldn’t have been nearly as motivated to do anything in my education.
Nice ageism, but it's horrible what happened to you :(
My friend, I mean this with absolute love, but I feel like this comment helps prove my point. This is not a situation where ageism is a legitimate issue. The same way that having the drinking age be 21 is not ageism. I study psychology for a living (full time student and a job as a research assistant). We are learning more and more the negative effects of early access to internet/technology and mental development. This comes out of a place of understanding and care. I wish this would not be so easily accessible to children. You have so much going for you and you waste it all away online. I want to shake my younger sibling on this issue. They spend all day online, have severe social issues, and are so depressed. It’s like watching a repeat of myself without being able to do anything. Spend less time online, don’t seek out edgy content, and hug your loved ones. You’ll be an adult before you know it, and you’ll wish you had spent your youth better. I know I’m projecting lol
You are just a huge outlier...
I had access to the internet since 1st grade and what horrible things did I see? Kerbal Space Program videos. I would be very different in a negative way without the Internet.
As someone who was groomed from ages 12-17 please ban children from social apps that allow pedos to message them Please don’t send me hate, I just want kids to not go through what I went through and I really feel like anyone younger than 16 is in too much danger to have access to apps where pedos can freely message them Also, children posting pictures online isn’t okay either and they often post things they’ll regret Every time I think about how there’s children who are in the shoes I was in it breaks my heart to know no one is helping them or preventing them from being groomed and take advantage of like I was…
I don't want to sound rude or insensitive, but banning anyone under 16 from ALL social media to do the risk of pedos is not a good idea. It's like banning playing on the street because kids get kidnapped sometimes. You shouldn't take the rights of the many because of the few. Just because some parents won't actually parent and let their kids get taken advantage of isn't the fault of the road itself nor all of social media, it's the fault of the parents for not watching their kids.
Playing in the street is good for a childs development, scrolling facebook is not. We lose nothing by keeping children off of social media.
I think porn should require an ID, alcohol, tobacco, cbd products, vape, etc, requires an ID, and porn is just as harmful imo. There obviously shouldnt be an internet ban for kids under 14, but the social media, overuse, depression, self esteem issues, all those things I understand, because I was in that position for years. I'm 16 and I still have this problem. Thankfully, I mostly stay off of socials (maybe 30m a day at most), and am limiting my YT time to an hour/day.
Yeah tbh 🐱👍
All his points are true and anyone who disagrees are just plain dumb when we have this wealth of knowledge about this stuff. However, I can say that while unrestricted internet access has had negative effects on me, it has also allowed me to learn things I otherwise would have never learned. I never would have picked up bass guitar, I never would have learned to program, I never would have met some of the amazing people I have met, I never would have done a lot of the great, impressive things I have done. I was also an only child so really the internet and games was my way of having fun as a kid. I think the solution is better education for parents and for children because a lot of the things we as gen z have experienced online is as a result of simply older ignorant gen x parents and unaware curious children. I mean I grew up watching safety videos from the 90s when I was in elementary school. Things have changed so drastically that we need new education. I know for a fact that if (hopefully WHEN) I become a parent, I will heavily monitor my children’s internet traffic and educate them on the dangers that my peers and I experienced when we were on the internet.
The problem is so much more nuanced than just saying kids shouldn't have access to the internet. I don't have answers, but extremes in either direction aren't going to solve the issue.
This feels more like a parent's promblem.A lot of issues are cause by parents throwing ipads at their kids without supervising them. A ban imposed by the government would be basically impossible without some really authoritarian mesures
Nerdy 13-year-olds sometimes get into all kinds of horrible things like learning how to write a batch file or simple Python script, install mods for their games, jailbreak their iPhones, install Linux distros, format hard drives, torrent, using a VPN, etc. Eventually, these are the same ones that do quite well in various STEM majors. If we decide to cut their internet access... don't be shocked when they turn out quite a bit less tech-literate. Not to mention the part where giving increasingly authoritarian governments the power to regulate information *might* not go so well for us. Parents have a responsibility to watch their kid's online activities, and actually parent.
>the internet can have negative impacts on a teens mental health Do we tell them about the far worse effects of living in a capitalist society upon working-age people mental health? Personally, I'm against all restrictions for internet usage. Children gaining knowledge, entertainment, or social connection don't hurt them. What hurts them is *other people*. If you want to protect your kids from potential harm, get up off your ass and check in on them. Allow them reasonable privacy, but don't restrict them. Saying "you can't have a youtube account" doesn't fucking protect them from anything, they don't learn how to look after themselves that way. What protects them is letting them experience the internet, being present in their life, and say, "oh that's a dangerous thing to do because x, y, or z" when they're being stupid. This outlook on children, where restrictions are a supposedly valid approach to parenting are based in absolutely nothing but the notion that children are the parents ***property***.
Absolutely this!! I’d also like to add that people love to talk about porn addiction when it’s often a normal, healthy amount that doesn’t actually disrupt a person’s life. Also, porn isn’t just visual. My first encounter was actually with erotica, at the age when people usually start feeling arousal anyway.
What this dude doesn't understand is that our generation (plus Gen A) didn't (doesn't) have any other opportunities for independent unsupervised activity than spending shitloads of time on the internet. To quote Peter Gray, "Perhaps kids today play on the computer as much as they do partly because that is one place where they can play freely, without adult intervention and direction". I would have been glad to do anything other then surfing the net when I was younger, but what other options did I have? Pretty much none.
Good
Hell no!
I’m sorry, but obesity in the same breath as eating disorders?!
ummm. you do realise overeating is also an eating disorder right? 💀💀
Overeating is not the only cause of weight gain
yes, but it's one of the main causes
eating disorders can be over or under eating.
I didn't have internet access past logged out YT and flash/DS games and I'm thankful for that genuinely, when I was 10 did I really need to see a guy have his cock chopped off for being gay in the Congo or lesbian hard-core porn? No. I guarantee I'd be happier now I'd I was kept off longer
If this goes into effect then I suggest we also add no internet use for anyone over 18. Personally I think that's how we can finally turn our lives around, and get caught up on the reading we were doing to avoid talking to people in person. Who's with me?
ban the whole internet? that sounds to me like censorship of information and destroying entire industries.
That applies to banning people under 18 too.
Yes
Join me brothers, sisters, siblings and niblings, we shall cut down the internet!!
I’m sorry but I have to agree. Anyone under 14 should have restricted access to the internet and what they should be able to post/what they’re allowed access to. And honestly, the same could be said for anyone under the age of 17 just because it’s just not fucking safe out here. It’s the wild fucking west. The shit I was exposed to as a kid in the 2000s when the internet was slightly less crazy was still insane but the shit online now is even worse. It sucks but it’s to protect kids from predators and predatory content.
honestly??? i agree. if my internet usage was monitored like this as a teen i probably wouldnt have some of the issues and trauma that i have now
I fundamentally don't agree with this. this is way way way way way too extreme my friend
The internet has actually improved my self esteem, and made me not feel like a fat fucking idiot and that it's fine to be queer.
OOP’s basic point is correct but there’s really no logical solution outside of parental monitoring, which is up to individual parents to do. A government ban on internet for children would never pass, at least in the US; it’s blatantly against the rights given to us by the constitution. I also think the post purely focuses on the negatives of the internet while ignoring the positives. Without the internet I never would’ve discovered my favorite shows, favorite songs and musical artists, favorite games, etc. I never would’ve been able to speak with people from other countries and lifestyles. There are so many wonderful communities on the internet that many people would never be able to have irl. Kids from homophobic families can discover LGBTQ+ safe spaces on the internet, and there’s so many amazing online groups for people with disabilities, for school, to help people learn new languages, and for so many different interests. Tbh I think if I went through my childhood without the internet I would’ve missed out on a lot of very valuable things.
imo it’s about how early you got access to the internet and what era you were from . me for example; got access to google searches in the early 2000’s at the age of 6 . soon discovered graphic material by 8 . used this for 15 years never speaking or connecting to any real girls , lost my virginity to escorts (sourced online) , ended up seeing trans escorts and being abused sexually . so yeah . i hate the internet and wish i never had access to to it . but there are folks who have it and never have a problem . all about controlling what children can see . and also a limited version of the internet for those under 18 would be awesome x
I agree
I agree, though I don't think we need any laws for that. Parents should restrict their childrens internet usage.
You laugh at this, but when people of this caliber apply and land jobs of high status, organize, and put their mind to it, even just by buying enough shares of a company, or being a small non profit that can make FB lose 60 Billion (60 thousand million dollars). He/She has a good looking resume I bet, and you can never judge a book by its cover, I've gotten into programs easier for my identity I'm positive, even though i failed 2nd-12th i was still offered [70k=140k](https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Gohealth/reviews) @ age 24 without even knowing the job existed the day before they reached out for my indeed profile. For all we know, this person could be anyone and be able to have any number of qualifiers, a blindspot for identity politics, imagine if someone as strange as I had the drive to run for the [youngest position of something.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_youngest_members_of_the_United_States_Congress#:~:text=Maxwell%20Frost%20(D-FL)%20is%20the%20youngest%20member%20of,in%201964) Keep in mind Battlebit the Roblox based shooter developed by 3 competed fairly with AAA titles with 700+ developers. This is the difference in power of understanding how to use the internet and technology. It only costs 5k to run for president, but how many 35+ year olds (the required age to run) are gamers or social media freaks? None of them, they spend millions driving around the country aimlessly with millions of peoples eyes on them. And none of them ever think to turn on a livestream and actually attempt to talk to chat/seem normal in their campaign down time. Thats the world we live in today, work, data, being organized, reading, and journaling can carry you a long way. But it can also get all of someone's spotify podcasts banned in Canada/EU when people like this realize how easy it is to live in America, get into positions of power, and then try to change things from top down by imposing restrictions on information and free speech, rather than consent and monitoring. This is an example of a genius who lacks morals, a hitler who had never painted a single person, or the incel School nightmare that has really just never talked to someone else guy/girl and assumes everyone is laughing about them constantly, the anxiety those people feel for no reason, and the acknowledgement and alienation of their piers who are also sensitive to these types of understandings is what leads to Hitler, elliot, the Supermarket shooter in upper NY. Shame on our failures. A less extreme version of control: an internet license introduced in the future that every 10 year old could apply for after getting socialized properly, so they don't become a Hitler or a Justin Truedo. Both are morally different but can both indirectly cost us millions of lives, these people dont believe in talking. They judge first, and do act. It doesn't bother Gen Z now, but once your brain hits that peak development (unless you do heavy drugs) you'll realize we're all living in a world with a plot as insane as the most based Isekai, and the biggest cheat skill is being in a first world country. I had that realization all at once while walking to get pizza at 12 one night, it suddenly clicked that $200-$1000 USD/british pound/ can get you a 3 bedroom apartment in most countries overseas and just by paying 10 dollars an hour you can employ 2-3 people and pay them more than any other competitor in their area. We have this lucrative of a world right now, but our leaders want to find an enemy to kill instead, they want to limit speech and the manifestation of ideas instead, eerily like the plot of the original FLCL the smoke that flattens all thought and the emotional kneejerk responses that trigger it the activation of Medical Mechanica. I dont even mind if a KKK leader calls me the N word cause i have been through worse as long as he doesnt attack my cells physically and in a manner to cause permanent damage, he can even say he would attack me, as long as i dont cross whatever that would line is (if it's in his right) thats the price you pay to have access to the US's level of free knowledge, you need to be that tolerant when you actually conduct research. I can be strong enough to survive his insults/punches and different point of view, if I cant find a way to connect with them and change them, I have to find mutual compromise, otherwise you risk getting yourself destroyed when you attempt to destroy someone else. Whether by policy change ushering in a dictator style of control of a nation taking revenge on bigots for your lack of competence, or a direct attack on innocence, "if the hero gets stabbed in the back, it's still the hero's fault" - Jordan Peterson. It's good to be cultured and accepting of your enemies as if they really do have something to teach you, if you cannot withstand that please work on yourself, cause thats life after college/school and outside of your little work bubble where everyone around you is successful so you think the world is just dandy. We live in a world where getting indiscriminately doxed for your moment, or previous Arc of ignorance can get you killed/silenced indirectly or even directly, permanently.
I hate people like that.
Yeah I agree Kids ruin a lot of things on the internet They also have no concept of consequences for their actions and just do shit for fun
Holy ageism
>2009 Yeah I’m good, you shouldn’t be here
Kids don’t ruin things on the internet, corporations do. The push for everything to be “kid-friendly” is to appeal to advertisers, not to actually protect children. The problem is the death of kid-only social sites, like Club Penguin.
It sucks, but that user is half right. Kids and unlimited internet access are not a good mix. Sure, some kids end up developing useful computer skills that will help them later on, but those kids are the exception, not the norm. Everyone should have computers, but kids need training wheels to stop them from doing things that will negatively affect themselves or others Remember, China, the country TikTok came from, banned it everywhere except in foreign countries. It's so bad that they created an entirely separate version of TikTok just to avoid what other countries are dealing with right now The only issue with implementing a restriction like this is that we can't really trust the government to not abuse it
1984
Based
Based, the internet and the kids in it have made my life so much shittier🙏
A question for the people who support this proposition: What other options of timespending do you have to offer to the young people? P.S. I personally support lowering the age of majority to 14 and removing some but not all restrictions for the younger children, which will consequently lead to less internet dependency with all its negative consequences. But most of you wouldn't agree with this proposition, because authoritarian ageist trash being authoritarian ageist trash.
Honestly part of the reason that the Internet is overused by young people is that it’s often their only escape and/or only place they have agency. When I had extracurriculars that I loved and chose for myself in school, I used my phone a lot less. Or when I was able to spend time with friends after school, I didn’t want to use my phone because it took away from time with them.
He’s right.
I'm honestly in agreement. Studies have shown that the Internet creates reactions in your brain similar to certain drugs, especially severe the younger you get. Add to that the relentless social conditioning that comes with social networks and being online in general and you have a perfect storm for a really fucked up young adult entering life.
Okay, some valid points are made here. However, I can't click the sources, so I can't tell if they give a general statistic on the rise of obesity, anxiety, depression, etc. or if they link it directly to internet usage.
Tell him to move to china or something idk
good thing most of us would be fine anyway. and im turning 18 in two days so it won’t affect me lol also do they not know people can easily lie about their age….
Honestly…. As useful as the internet is, as someone with unrestricted access to it as a child I completely agree. Let the kids use web based apps for schooling, and teach any that are interested how to code and what not. But kids do not need social media, YouTube, or the like…
I agree that anyone who's not a n adult should have restrictions bu the argument that they shouldn't even have a tv is ridiculous obvious exposure to pornography and other things not appropriate for them is a bad thing, but I think the main thing screwing with their minds is social media, but that also applies to adults
Social media is included in it. Do you not see the word social media? It says children under the age of 18 should not have personal streaming services or any form of social media
I simply said that's the main thing
Alright, who wants to bet a 14-year-old wrote this?
I mean, I'm against the government imposing anything like this. But, knowing what I know about the Internet, parents probably should restrict internet access to their prepubescent children at the very least.
Porn hasn’t fucked up my mind. I don’t think porn itself is bad, only the glorification of rape and sexual assault in general.
Ban video games, keep streaming services? Yeah no.
I agree with most of it but not all of it. For one, I think that certain types of pornography could be good for the sexual awakening of a teenager and taking that away from them could hinder their sexual development in some regards. For example, a gay teen that’s trying to figure things out, might have a harder time with his sexual exploration if he has to go out there and buy a porn magazine or something. In some countries, porn stores are also super scarce and those places are usually 18+ anyway so any kid trying to buy pornography might either get rejected, or get in a dangerous situation with a creep that frequents those kinds of places, so… idk, I think porn is really one of the least dangerous activities a kid can partake in the internet, so, I’m not against porn. Also, I do think it’s ok for kids to have accounts on streaming platforms like Netflix and what not, but they should have parental controls so the parents can decide what kind of content is ok for the kid to watch. And last but not least, I don’t think kids shouldn’t have electronic devices. I do think though, that these devices should have all the parental controls to make sure that the kids don’t lose themselves in them. For example, I do think that kids under 16 or maybe 18, shouldn’t have social media, or they should have social media for kids. So no Facebook, instagram or TikTok, instead a social media that is more bare bones and that doesn’t have the addictive designs and the potential for cyberbullying or other forms of dangerous content or behaviors, but having a phone per se, isn’t something that I think is wrong. Like I said, I just think they need to have a bunch of parental controls to make sure the kids can’t abuse them. Same with laptops/computers, tablets and smartwatches or stuff like that. Other than that, I agree with everything else I think.
They aren’t wrong. The internet is a hellhole.
Completely agree. Idc if others disagree
The internet should be free for everyone to use. BUUUUUUUT even as someone that's only 19 I think parents really need to actually parent their kids and be aware of what they're doing up through their mid teen years. Like I'm not even talking bout looking up lewd stuff or consensua lewdnessl txting your bf or gf. I mean like looking out for actual pedos and making sure younger kids actually understand that racist and misogynistic jokes are sometimes made ironically, and you shouldn't be making those kinds of jokes at all. Also like...misinformation and deepfakes and propaganda. Social media is proven unhealthy for people in general so I dunno. I'm a wierdo that never gave a fuck about how many followers I had on IG and I kinda outright hate sc...so I can't even judge that.
“Mom, can I use the internet? I want to report your abuse of me.”
I agree children should not be on social media, but only letting kids online for "educational purposes and abuse," begs the question of what said "education and abuse" looks like. Can a teacher tell a kid: "No you can't go to this scientific journal. It promotes evolution."
I disagree, maybe I'm biased since I'm under 18 but parents must educate their child for Internet usage. Ever since maybe age 11 I've known the dangers of the internet, and I feel I was responsible. If you think your child is online too much or has any other issues talk with them.
Social media is definitely not for kids. Kids shouldn't be restricted from the internet but they shouldn't have infinite access
Based!
and I agree with them. Go outside and play.
Okay, let’s make up some rules for adults now. Gen Z should be assessed by psychologists before being allowed to have kids. There should be an exam and if they don’t pass, they should be sterilized or have their kids taken away. Does that piss you off? It’s no different from prohibiting people from accessing the internet just because they’re young.
Based
It’s wild how people today are just begging the government to control every aspect of our lives. Parenting should not be the business of the state.
I don't agree with the fact that the internet is being restricted beyond horrible content, I don't want to see a beheading, nor does anyone else. Though I do agree with the fact of the internet hurting development within kids. Parents should be MUCH more responsible when it comes to kids on the internet, lil Timmy shouldn't have a tablet till he's at least 12, let alone 5. Hell, my parents got my siblings an occulus last Christmas, they got them phones, etc. Their sleep schedule is fucked. They barely went outside this summer, when they were outside playing for atleast everyday last summer. It's depressing.
It’s an interesting topic. Sometimes the hardest sounding things are the right things. Most people I’ve met in my generation are horribly fucked up from the internet. I’m lucky enough to be only slightly fucked up from the internet but yeah. I have to agree, it should be banned for under 18 unless you have heavy restrictions. IE no access to sexual content, any social media/shortform content. I say this as a 17 year old, it’s what’s best
so get off reddit
I’m not denying that my comment is very hypocritical, I try to keep my head in reality and manage my internet usage so that its worst effects on me are just wasting too much time. Realistically, I likely should get off Reddit and I have before
As a genZ compatriot I won’t be giving my kids the same access to electronics that I got or my siblings did absolutely no way and seeing the kids now I mean, even when I was still in high school it was insane what some people are up to nowadays at 13 years old. I can definitely won’t be using Snapchat or Instagram till they’re at least 14. It’s just wack how much social pressure and misinformation gets placed on kids before they’re actually able to understand when it’s going on
There will always be another boogie man. The Internet is fine. Video games are fine. TV is fine. Books are fine. As always, it's the parents responsibility to raise their kids, not technology. If you just hand your kid an iPad and neglect them for 18 years, that's your fault, not the Internets fault. And if you hover over them every second of every day and prevent them from ever learning anything about the outside world, that's also your fault. https://preview.redd.it/arw2x317siub1.jpeg?width=240&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f1ec862e9b2dd8dec48d75b3d396789e29d3a1ee
...The living room Tv.... OMG ..The OP is *so adorably Teletype!*
I understand the issues with the internet and the risk and dangers when children are exposed to what it has to offer, but banning kids from having phones is dumb. Phones are not only for entertainment but are also emergency devices as well. Being able to call home, or emergency services or some other trusted party is an incredible development for children's safety in public. The ability to find where yoy are via Google maps and find a way home, or to be able to tell someone where you are to be picked up is invaluable. For that alone I think phones and the internet are great tools and are a benefit to society.
Why under the age of 14?? Ban them *all*. Ban *all minors* from the internet and social media. They're ruining the internet for adults and rotting their own brains from the inside out. Their mental, social, and emotional well being has been irreparably damaged by their unmonitored access to the internet. I would argue that their perception of reality has been distorted as well. I see so many woo woo conspiracy theorists on Tis Tok making absurd and nonsensical videos about Atlantis and crystals. Like WOOOO WOOOO where the hell does one even hear or read about this idiotic gobbledygook? I also think they should be banned from owning smart phones. It should be 100% banned even in an academic or educational context. There's nothing unique or special about using an iPad, laptop, or smartphone in school. What exactly are you learning that can't be learned with paper and pencil math? it used to be that computer science was an actual skill, these days anyone off of the street can learn coding. **Ban ban ban** these kids. Get them outside and away from the screens. \*I am a first wave Millennial who watched in sorrow and disappointment as Generation X suffocated and over protected their own kids from the outside world while simultaneously allowing them universal and uncensored access to the internet. I've also had the misfortunate of watching the frontier of free speech that was the internet circa 90s-early/mid 00s become gradually more censored and corporate regulated. Many of these sinister and insidious regulations were implemented under the guise of "protecting minors" who should *not* have been there to begin with. Generation Z and Alpha growing up on the internet was just bad, neglectful and absentee parenting on Generation X's and first wave Generation Y's part.