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Should children under 16 be banned from using social media and/or smartphones?

Should children under 16 be banned from using social media and/or smartphones?

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Ours turned 11 last year and started "big school" so he had his first phone (old iPhone). First thing that amazed me is how complicated it is, as a parent to set up Parental Controls. You need a doctorate to do it. Speaking to some of his friends, many parents havent done it on his friends phones, and its no wonder. Its complicated and not that reliable in use.

He has no social media, and we are trying to keep him off it as long as possible so his own benefit. He mostly uses it to chat to friends and play the odd game. Any downloads flag up on our phones to approve and the phone filters any inappropriate web content. It automatically turns on at 8am and off 6pm every day. He cant use it in school as the school takes them off the children at the start of each day.

However - what a parent cant do it stop them seeing stuff on other peoples phones. He has already seen adult material on a friends phone, and various Tik Tok videos showing violence, bad language, sex etc. We are hoping that by being open and honest with him that he will realise what is "right" and what is "wrong", but its a minefield.

I think from a reassurance point of view, i.e. where is he, open the Find Me app, oh there he is, or if he needs to contact us in an emergency or a call a friend its fine. What we need is to have phones for children, rather than smartphones. All a child up to the age of 15 needs is a basic phone to do the above. They dont need to see anything else, they dont need to become body conscious from seeing all the perfect people online, they dont need trolls and bullies posting about them, they dont need a camera to send/receive explicit material around the school, they just need a phone with GPS. Thats all.

Unfortunately though, there will always be the parents who either cant do the parental controls, or cant be bothered. The amount of kids he knew in primary school who had a phone, with no restrictions - but these kids were also the same who were playing GTA5 and COD at home and the parents didnt care. However, it would be these parents who would be first to complain and want something banned should something happen to their child.

There is a distinct lack of responsibility and accountability in society now. People like to blame others rather than take a look at themselves.

Biggest problem however is that parents are addicted to their phones too. We dont talk to each other anymore, families dont speak (how many do you see at a restaurant each looking at their phones not talking), its quite sad. There has to be a bigger change in society adults and children for this to work but I dont see it coming anytime soon. Oh, and ban Tick Tok, it serves no useful purpose, takes up valuable resources to cool and power their servers, and is used the Chinese to influence our young.
 
Haven't read most of this thread so sorry if I'm repeating what others have said, but I saw the topic and want to get stuff off my chest.

I'm 30 now, and I think I was first making accounts on things when I was like 12? Sure I was on CF at 13 and then here (well, the old place) by 14-15. While I definitely regret how annoying I was back in the day, being Online back then was invaluable to me and loads of others in this community, and in the public generally.

Was seeing weird shit on people's phones in school from 11 too because I was there in the height of the Bluetooth era, long before Death Grips were inspired to write I've Seen Footage about seeing it all on the dark web. I got my first phone before I'd even left Primary, and my sister got one at the same time even though she is 3 years my junior. We were all on MSN (rip) and all the shenanigans that led to as well. Personally MySpace was just going over the hill when we hit 13, 14, 15, so it was Bebo then Facebook. Unfortunately there was things like revenge porn and bullying just like there is now.

But it's weird seeing the same moral panics I was aware of then around all this being repeated today, especially because they weren't even new panics at the time. I'm sure there would have been an equivalent to the yellow peril conspiracist nonsense about the TikTok algorithm too. I think there's a lot of the internet that's worse now, and the big companies are responsible for it, and funnily enough a return to forums would not only be a net good, but I think now a genuine possibility due to how not only social media is going, but also how things like Google Search have been destroyed.

Not sure how you'd even enforce a ban, without requiring proof of ID on every website, which would be obscene. And imagine what it would be like being 16 and suddenly becoming exposed to and onto the whole internet, it would be horrible. Far better to let them work things out, with their peers at first and then branching out at their own pace, just give them support and guidance if needed. I've always thought that's why my generation, give and take some years, *in general* are a bit more internet savy and why our parents all fall for those dodgy adverts underneath the articles on Reach outlets. We grew up with the internet and saw how it's changed, so understand it better, and I think that's really important.

I find it really uncomfortable bringing Briana Ghey into it. That angle only seemed to emerge after the trial; before that it was noted how she was able to use social media to connect with other trans people and be part of a support network. I've no doubt her killers were at least partly radicalised online but just trying to blame phantom internet users (who often go unnamed) seems a cop-out considering what goes in the papers, what politicians are increasingly comfortable saying, etc. Generally there seems to be a growing portion of society that's heading in that direction for whatever reasons, and banning kids from the internet isn't going to stop adults radicalising themselves on there, or stop them radicalising their kids. Just seems an easy line for politicians to take to look good after a tragedy, knowing it's not actually possible and that they don't need to really engage with any other factors. For every kid who finds the wrong things on the internet there's a dozen more who find a community.
 
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With so much emphasis being put on kids, I think you raise a good point actually about adult radicalisation. It's also refreshing to hear it from someone who is younger than me and has the experience of living through it.

Maybe we're looking at all this wrong? I don't think the blame to parents argument is at all valid, when it's clear this poisonous stuff is thrusted upon children by other means anyway. But it seems like older folk not really understanding it all is a valid one. You just have to look at the "can't they just cancel their Netflix subscriptions and stop eating Avocado's? We had 15% interest rates back in my day" nonsense being spouted about younger people not being able to buy homes to see how out of touch with reality older generations can be. Maybe I'm guilty of that and it's blinding my own search for a solution?

My parents had me young. They're very much Generation X whilst I'm more of a Xenial. Born in the transition between generations. The main thing that defines Millennials is how much the internet changed their lives in the years when they were coming of age, and their social media usage as adults. I missed all this by a couple of years. I was aware that something called a chat room existed in my teens (but didn't fully understand it), I first encountered Ask Jeeves and Yahoo when I was 17 on a dial up internet connection, and Bebo and Facebook came along when I was well into adulthood, had a career and a mortgage.

I used to be one of those people that fell for the clickbait adverts, saw some horrific things online accidentally, and wised up to the culture that was emerging. Easy for me as I'd already grown up. Harder for anyone younger I thought because of the naivety of youth, harder for anyone older through not being as tech savvy. I decided that the internet was useful as a resource and communication tool, but had no interest in posing for selfies and posting what I had for tea last night, so I pretty much avoid social media. The hyperbolic dross and drama on there just doesn't enrich my life in anyway.

But if I look at how my kids handle the internet, they're probably less influenced by it than people older than me. I know loads of people who have swapped the manipulation from newspapers for that of the internet. I've been in many heated debates with people older than me about some of the nonsense they spout that have shaped their views, and when you challenge hard you realise that the source of this nonsense is no longer what they read in the Daily Mail, but what some geezer with thousands of "followers" said on Twitter. No wonder power hungry billionaire barons like Elon Musk buy social media platforms (his platform seems to be adored by a large number of members on this forum) like the media barons of the past bought print media to gain more power, influence, and stay rich.

I can see why though. Although my political opinions change with the times, my overarching place on the political spectrum has changed very little my whole life. But I do like to get the bottom of why people have such polarised views and I research other opinions to try and understand. I've done this a few times with quite hard right political views, and within a few days the algorithms were trying to force more of this nonsense down my throat. I can see how people get sucked in to these echo chambers.

Maybe it'll all come good when our kids grow up? Maybe they're more clued up than we given them credit for? Were we too manipulated newspapers and TV when we were, we just didn't notice?
 
You raise some great points. I didn't want to go too far into the stuff about adults older than me (I've ammended my last post to clarify I am 30 in case that helps anyone place me in that context) because I didn't want to just be like "it's all YOUR fault, everyone older than me is a psychopath and everyone younger was doomed on arival, and I just happened to be born at the exact right time" or something. But sadly yes, go into many pubs in the daytime and you'll see older blokes buried in their phones just as much as any teenager, either on anon or semi-anon Twitter accounts, or under their own name on FB, reading and typing all sorts of horrific things.

don't perhaps know how to really articulate this, but maybe it's easier for younger people, who've had the internet from an earlier age and whose friends did too, to understand that there's other real people behind the words in a different or maybe deeper way? And from there find it easier then to understand people who are different and who we might not otherwise meet?

I obviously again don't mean to say this is universal etc as we can see that that isn't the case.

Your point about algorithms is good too, they don't understand context, they can't parse looking at something one time because of curiosity from researching from an actual interest, and that leads to it very quickly and forcefully pushing things on your feed that can lead you into that spiral. Maybe they haven't reached the point where they can understand how humans work and interact with things, maybe the people who code them are just weirdos who don't. Thank god the print papers couldn't tell which articles got the most reads and could tailor future editions based on that. TikTok just does this a bit faster and more dramatically than say, the adverts on Google, but it's functionally the same process. If any of them have been the worst for the internet though I'd point at Youtube, what was a great service now reduced to reeling off buzzwords for the titles and hideous thumbnails because the algorithm is so cooked.
 
I feel like at this point Pandora’s box has already been opened. Children and teenagers have been accessing the internet now for over 20 years, they’ve had access to smart phones for at least 10 of those years. A ban wouldn’t work or be enforceable.

We got our eldest a phone for their 11th birthday. I was reluctant but knew it had to happen at some point. She got an old iPhone and I’m familiar with iPhones so I have all the parental controls set up and they do seem pretty robust so far but I also monitor texts/whatsapp messages and all that stuff. There’s no social media beyond YouTube and WhatsApp if you count that. She’s walking home alone from school this year and it does give me peace of mind that we can contact each other if needed.

Some of her friends have TikTok and instagram and every now and then she asks if she can download the apps and every time it’s a no and why, in this sense I do kind of wish parents were all on the same page about this and could just unanimously agree not to let their kids on social media until x age but life isn’t that simple😂 Every time I explain to my
Kid why she can’t have TikTok I get told I’m “old and boring and don’t understand”.

The thing is I do understand, lots of us millennials do. We grew up on msn, MySpace and bebo. We were on Facebook when it was all fields and trees. We’ve seen how it’s evolved, felt how it’s affected us. I was on msn at 11/12, sometimes talking to god knows who (friends of friends etc), then MySpace a little later and from then it’s been a series of different platforms but more of the same.

The difference between now and then? Smartphones. The only way you could access social media in the early 00’s was through a pc. Which meant most people could only log on once they got home from work/school, if you went on holiday you just didn’t go on for a week or two unless you had access to a pc at the hotel or could find an internet cafe, if you were out for the day there was no checking Facebook until you got home. Even texting was different, they cost about 10p and had character limits so it wasn’t a like for like replacement for msn when away from the pc. Some people didn’t even get broadband until later in the 00’s, so would only go online for an hour or two max a day.

Nowadays the majority of us are connected all the time. Social media is a tap away at pretty much any time and there’s no longer the restrictions of the times preventing more access, which in hindsight was probably healthier for society than the current state of things. Which is why I won’t let my kids in social media willy nilly. It’s just too readily available.

Whilst I don’t think a ban on smart phones or social media would really work, I do think limits are important. Age appropriate limits that get adjusted as the child gets older. I won’t allow my 11 year old on social media now, but when they’re 14? I will probably consider it, especially as by that point all their friends are probably going to be on there, and teenagers can be sneaky and she might find a way to get on it behind my back. I’d rather know what platforms my children are accessing, than them hide it from me. There is also the potential to set time limits still at that age, so they won’t be spending 8 hours a day doom scrolling.

As a parent navigating this is a * checks what forum I’m in * flipping nightmare. There’s just no black and white answer to any of it at this point, you just have to find the balance between letting them have access and be able to learn from what the internet has to offer whilst protecting them from the utter horrors of it as well because they haven’t yet learnt how to protect themselves.
 
Martin said:
You raise some great points. I didn't want to go too far into the stuff about adults older than me (I've ammended my last post to clarify I am 30 in case that helps anyone place me in that context) because I didn't want to just be like "it's all YOUR fault, everyone older than me is a psychopath and everyone younger was doomed on arival, and I just happened to be born at the exact right time" or something. But sadly yes, go into many pubs in the daytime and you'll see older blokes buried in their phones just as much as any teenager, either on anon or semi-anon Twitter accounts, or under their own name on FB, reading and typing all sorts of horrific things.

don't perhaps know how to really articulate this, but maybe it's easier for younger people, who've had the internet from an earlier age and whose friends did too, to understand that there's other real people behind the words in a different or maybe deeper way? And from there find it easier then to understand people who are different and who we might not otherwise meet?

I obviously again don't mean to say this is universal etc as we can see that that isn't the case.

Your point about algorithms is good too, they don't understand context, they can't parse looking at something one time because of curiosity from researching from an actual interest, and that leads to it very quickly and forcefully pushing things on your feed that can lead you into that spiral. Maybe they haven't reached the point where they can understand how humans work and interact with things, maybe the people who code them are just weirdos who don't. Thank god the print papers couldn't tell which articles got the most reads and could tailor future editions based on that. TikTok just does this a bit faster and more dramatically than say, the adverts on Google, but it's functionally the same process. If any of them have been the worst for the internet though I'd point at Youtube, what was a great service now reduced to reeling off buzzwords for the titles and hideous thumbnails because the algorithm is so cooked.
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No offence taken, I think you've articulated your points rather well. I'm a pessimistic, cynical, and weary guy who acts slightly older than his age. I was mugged a couple of times, beaten up, told I was stupid, and taken advantage of as a teenager in a world that was on the eve of reform. By the time I was in my early 20's, the world I grew up in had changed. Education and schools became almost unrecognisable, social media was just being born, the way people worked and used IT was changing, consumption of media was going through a revolution. I jumped on the band wagon as quickly as I could, but my values and suspicions were still rooted in the era where the racist down the local boozer, the creepy guy down the street who flashed at children, and the kid at school that knocked people out behind the bike sheds all being the people to look out for over your shoulder.

When I was looking at senior schools in 1993 with my parents, my dad summed it up by saying "cor, other than the fact that they can't whack you little sods round the backside with a PE dap anymore, these schools haven't changed a bit since I went".

I don't know what MSN, My Space or Bebo are really unless I look them up. But my partner is a few years younger than me, and she encountered it all when she was coming of age, had an internet connected PC at home throughout her teenage years, and laughs at when I tell her that my first homework in year 7 was to wrap 1970's text books covers with wallpaper. We're both familiar with Facebook. Despite the mere 5 years between us, she sees life quite differently and constantly tells me things aren't how I see them anymore. Although she's not a fan of social media either, she does have more of an understanding.

She's used it to stay in contact with people and has used it as a business tool, but I never have. To me, all this taking pictures of yourself and broadcasting every trip to the park to feed the ducks just seems vain and vulger. I have people who say they've tried to contact me via these channels, but I don't see why if they have my phone number they can't just give me a text of call me. I'm encouraged to use various social media streams through work, but I refuse to have more distractions polluting my own personal device that I pay the bill for. If something needs to be said, I have an email account that I'll access when I'm back at work and I'll read it eventually. I have a phone on me that is on most of the time so I kind of feel like what do people want from me?

Obviously my kids live in a different world. They never go out, they stare at screens all day, and the when the internet goes down it's like the end of the world! Like they have to search for something else to do. Or, heaven forbid, strike a conversation up with someone. Their language is infected with Americanisms. They use the word "gotten", something which I remember being scolded for using at school, a petrol station has been referred to as a gas station, and they don't get off or go out with girls anymore, they "make out" or are "dating". I go to the cinema a couple of times per week, and for doing so I'm now apparently "an old man" according to my 14 year old. Since when did watching a film rather than a nonsense YouTube video become old fashioned?

I suppose some of you guys have given me hope that they do have a broader understanding than I do. They are good kids. They know right from wrong, they're tolerant, open and honest when they talk to us, and don't go round vaping or starting fights. They all do well at school as apparently being the class clown like I was is what saddos do these days. I suppose since they are in the house all day then I do have a degree of parental control don't I? Especially if I think of the awful things I used to get up to when I was out that my parents never ever knew about. I was rolling in drunk on a Friday night but the time I was my eldest age.
 
Most of the issue stems with parents letting the phones/tablets/TV educate their kids rather than do it themselves.

There's so much crap out there, and a lot of adults through not understanding it just kinda shrug and let them get on with it. Not fully realising the sort of things that are freely available (and not even the things like porn, but the crappy YouTubers or "free thinkers" who essentially prey on vulnerable minds) and once you've seen one video the algorithm throws more at you.

As an example, on Instagram Reels, quite often I see one video of say, a ferret, crop up and then suddenly every other video involves one. Imagine that with the far end wing-nut nonsense that's also out there. Ew.

Social media companies should also be doing more. But it's lazy to put all the blame onto them. Is there even a minimum age limit these days? Or like with parents buying CoD or GTA do they think its just a guideline?

Our plan as parents is to guide her when she's old enough. It's very difficult as a balance because if a kid has a crap or no phone they'll get bullied for it. So they come home miserable and parents try to fix it without thinking about the further consequences.
 
I'm not sure, but falling into an 'echo chamber' is extremely easy on social media. For example, I was morbidly curious to see how Tucker Carlson's Putin interview turned out, so I watched about 15 minutes of it. Within 2 days, half of my YouTube feed was either MAGA rubbish or pro-Russian propaganda.
 
@Matt.GC totally with you on the Americanisms, it’s crazy but everything kids watch tends to be from the states. Ours called the petrol station the Gas station, or bucks for money, or the trunk of the car. I have to keep reminding him we are British not American.

And the rubbish they watch on Tick Tok, honestly, I have lost count how many kids have taken their lives or nearly lost their lives following some of the stuff on there. I worry how gullible some of the next generation are.

If someone told them to drink bleach to stop covid they probably would - oh wait, that’s already happened hasn’t it and it wasn’t on tick tok! Correction - how gullible lots (incl adults) of people are these days!
 
GaryH said:
@Matt.GC
If someone told them to drink bleach to stop covid they probably would - oh wait, that’s already happened hasn’t it and it wasn’t on tick tok! Correction - how gullible lots (incl adults) of people are these days!
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Yeah, that was the President of the United States! Trump is another phenomenon. He's managed to build a cult fueled by social media lies. He's always been a swindler who has used media to get his own way. Quite skillfully, he's managed to swindle millions of Americans into believing what he says, and convinced them to ignore facts and truth by convincing them to ignore any other form of information other than the words that come from him and his disciples.

Many of the people that believe in these conspiracies aren't High School students. They're in the their 30's, 40's, 50's and upwards. Lapping this stuff up like he's the second coming of Christ. Aided and abetted by other crackpots that use social media as tools.

Maybe we should be banning middle aged + people from social media instead? If I go back to the kids, they seem far less sucked in by stuff online than many older people I know. Yeah, there's the Americanisms and the odd silly question now and then, but they do seem aware that there's nonsense out there.

All 3 of mine have smart phones. Their schools don't allow them to be used at all on school grounds which I fully support. It's nice being able call them and find out where they are when they are not at home. We allow WhatsApp between mates because all it is really is a group chat messaging service. They use PSN and Xbox Live to play with friends. I can't stop them growing up and catching up with their mates because completely wrapping them in cotton wool can also be damaging. But the idea is to keep their internet connectivity with the outside world at a manageable level.

One of ours in particular does rebel slightly. So and so is allowed Tick Tock. Yeah but they also spend every evening in detention because they think it's funny to immitate porn noises in class and stay up until 2am playing GTA 5. So and so is on Instagram. Yeah but they think it's cool to post pictures of themselves pretending to be some sort of gangster that's straight out of Compton with a vape in their hands, and their parents are wasters.

I suppose it's not totally different from me bunking off school to have a fag in the underpass, or concealing the latest issue of Mayfair inside a Daily Mirror from the local newsagents to sell to people at school back in the 90's. My folks had no idea what I was up to. At least I now have an idea and a way of finding out, even if I don't feel completely comfortable with it all. We have been through their phones, tablets and console messages and they know we can do this without warning. If we found anything we didn't like it was dealt with fairly early on.

My 13 year old was being a sod at bed time last night. "My friend is allowed to stay online until midnight". I don't give a toss sunshine, he's his parents problem and you're mine. All his devices including the Xbox were then removed after the third time of asking and weren't given back today.

It's funny how when they are babies and you are a young parent you have it all mapped out. Like you're going to be awesome and learn from your own parents mistakes. Piece of cake. Never works out that way. The world just keeps changing and throwing curve balls at you. I dread to think of I had another one now how much things will change again in the next decade or so.
 
Can't wait for the next generation to be full of "Aussie-isms" thanks to Bluey <3

Calling the next generation "gullible" then looking at the current state of world politics amuses me though. Populism and schrodinger's immigrant and all that nonsense.
 
The immigrant thing never left us. The only thing that changes is the country of origin we now hate.

Some Young uns have always been drawn to the far right. What's changes is the how they get recruited over. Once upon a time you physically need to go to a place. Now, they can do it from the comfort of there own home.
 
The over dependence on mobile phones is worrying. People will accept something as fact on their screen without really questioning it... but that's not just kids. There also needs to be a whole host of work done on child safety online - I mean if I wanted to look at 'naughty' images as a teen, it took a worrying amount of time for them to load and EVERYONE in the house knew you were online which as, in effect, a type of 'regulation'.

Ultimately we need to prepare young people for the world. I have had to talk to a number of apprentices in the past about how much they use their phones at work - how is that acceptable? A few years I took my 18-year-old-ish new hire out to lunch with my manager and another member of the SLT - he fully expected to be able to sit there on his phone for the entirety... he didn't last long.
 
I suppose it goes back to my strong views on what the definition of publishing is. Manipulating people through conspiracy and lies to serve your own interests is as old as the hills.

There's always been access to extreme stuff and paranoia about the truth. The difference is, you used to have to actively maintain the bubble you were in rather than stumble across it and have it subliminally fed to you. That could be the activity of actually seeking things out, or purposely choosing to not broaden your horizons.

I didn't grow up with the internet, social media or smartphones. I was approaching 30 when I had my first smartphone and wasn't set free on the internet proper until I was 16 (although note that this was simply due to the expense and access to the internet evolving, and not due to any controls placed upon me). At the time, my view was the opposite.

The internet seemed like a free, easy to use library, that connected with the rest of the world. Full of information that no other source could contain in one one place. Tonnes of encyclopedic knowledge and insights in to what people are interested in. All accessed through a fixed terminal PC that you to attend and actively search for stuff through Yahoo or Ask Jeeves, both of which had very primitive filters by today's standards. Yes there was porn (phonerotica.com even brought it to WAP capable mobile phones) and dodgy websites that you could stumble across. But it wasn't in your pocket wherever you go spamming you with notifications.

I initially thought that smart phones and the internet would broaden people's horizons by disconnecting them with the bubbles they were in, making the outside world and alternative information more accessible. Like it would end the tribalism of people meeting in smoky basements every night to discuss Communist or Fascist ideology. I didn't conceive the notion at the time that it would serve to radicalise further.
 
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