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u/cattermelon34 1h ago
Social media was made to be addictive to children. Even big tech knows this. Not saying one shouldn't also be a responsible parent, but this is a difficult issue given the pervasiveness of social media
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u/Soul_Hurting 48m ago
Not just children, everyone. It hurts everyone. There needs to be rules about the design of the pacing of content. Because it wasnt as bad as this a decade ago.
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u/dumnezero Art enjoyer 48m ago
It was made to be addictive to adults; children have weaker resistance.
If the adults gave a shit, they'd be trying to delete the "social" media corporations, not just their apps.
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u/qdp 27m ago
Yeah. So glad I don’t use social media.
Now to go check my reddit comments upvoted ratio to validate my existence.
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u/catscanmeow 21m ago
reddit isnt social media its an anonymous message board. i dont know who you are.
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u/TabularConferta 30m ago
https://youtu.be/aIsI4H5aooo?is=r6c4oeLQVOXI8AXb
Legal eagle is starting a court case
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u/Square-Dragonfruit76 56m ago
It is Big Tech's fault. They have done everything in their power to obscure and delay the research about the harms of smartphone and social media use.
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u/Semper_5olus 1h ago
"I shoved it up my butt to see if the vibration felt good, and now I can't get it out!"
"That is also Big Tech's fault"
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u/davidsk Campus Comic 1h ago
Bonus 4th panel for patreons
-5
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u/Dewey_Decimatorr 1h ago edited 13m ago
While social media is predatory and dangerous, it is also completely optional. It is parents responsibility not to just let their kids loose on the internet
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u/Sunandmoonandstuff 1h ago
Thank you. It's a balance.
Parents are absolutely responsible for monitoring and managing their childrens habits.
However, social media is designed to be addictive in order maximize engagement and should be responsible for implementation of reasonable safeguards for children.
It's shared
If you take your child to a dangerous amusement park and they are injured it's both the parents and the parks fault. The parent for taking them there and allowing them to ride. It's also the parks fault for running inherently dangerous rides when there is an expectation that a service provided to children should be safe.
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u/Here_For_Work_ 28m ago
It gets tricky when 90% of a kids friends use social media as a primary means of communication. Yeah, it's technically optional if you don't care about your kid being the odd one out in their friend group. It'd be cool if we just voted in politicians that would hold big tech accountable.
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u/Dewey_Decimatorr 8m ago
True, but this is again an issue of parents allowing it to get to this point. My children will certainly know how to use tech, but that's not the same as being dependent on and uncritical of it.
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u/Mogura-De-Gifdu 20m ago
Exactly. My oldest is 8 years old.
Why would I give him a smartphone or tablet?
And I'm not even one of those totally against screens parents. Just: he plays pokemon, and dreams of leaving home once he's 10 too to go on adventures where you use your pet-friends to fight others to near death. Now that is a healthy use of screens.
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u/Candle-Jolly 44m ago
The (techno?) song "Infohazard" by Ninajirachi is literally about this, literally.
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u/TheCharalampos 32m ago
Yeah the thing that was designed to be addictive and made as widely available everywhere with zero regulation definitely has no responsibility, it's all the parents fault.
This is classic corpo tactics, push the onus on the users and skid away from regulation for a few more years.
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u/DonJonBaldur 2m ago
I don't think the comic is pushing the blame exclusively onto the parents. I think it's trying to say that parents should be aware of what their children can find on the internet, and take at least some measures to help keep their children's internet usage healthy.
The corpos in charge of media sites are definitely at fault, but if you're a parent in this day and age, you are responsible for helping make sure your kid uses the internet in a safe manner.
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u/Nikolite 38m ago
I love how many top 1% commenter flairs there are on this post along with people with tens of thousands of posts/comments talking about how dangerous and addictive social media is while on Reddit
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u/LongNailedbooboos 26m ago
Just because people use social media doesn’t mean they’re actively on them all the time.
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u/Hazywater 57m ago
This kind of thing sort of glazes over just how much money and effort corporations will spend to eek out a sliver of more profit at the cost of people's well-being. There is a concerted effort to make everything wrong with the world your personal responsibility, be it tech, water conservation, plastic pollution, etc and completely absolve corporations of their actions
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u/dumnezero Art enjoyer 43m ago
Raising your kid is mostly your responsibility. Sure, it's easier in a community (non-car dependent asphalt desert.)
If you're giving up the kid as a parent, then your responsibility is removed and now it's our responsibility; in that we very much need much better child care systems.
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u/superhamsniper 24m ago
The internet has changed, many social media platforms try to addict children to doomscrolling cus that makes them addicted for example, and an addicted customer is a profitable customer.
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u/Phaylz 15m ago
That is an advantage younger millennials and down have, and that is an awareness and familiarity with technology. You can't expect a non-gaming parent to understand why or even how to set up a parental account and child account on a gaming console.
I know this because I constantly dealt with calls from parents claiming someone stole their card to buy video games but it turns out that it was their child on their home console. One lady in particular swore up and down that her 8 year old doesn't even know how to use a debit card. And yes, it was GTA V Shark Cards.
That still doesn't excuse tech from creating devices and apps geared specifically to ape how our brains function, from child to adult, to grab our attention and keep us there.
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u/Cool_Set4681 1h ago
Mommy let you use her iPad~
You were barely two~
And it did all the things~
We designed it to do~
Now look at you, oh~