Why is everyone forgetting the parents in this shit. They are the ones giving their kids access to this shit, not monitoring and moderating their access to this shit, and letting screens do the job of raising their kids instead of doing it themselves.
Yeah someone has to be paying for the phones and internet access, both mobile internet and or home internet or if they don’t have a phone yet, the tablet , desktop or laptop with internet access. It’s usually the parents paying for this stuff.
There are parental controls built into the Android builds of all the various mainstream manufacturers. The main exception might be for example small companies selling phones with custom Android OS distributions or people who install their own where parental controls are not built in, but that isn’t what the vast vast majority of people are using let alone installing on their child’s phone.
There are parental control options built into IOS too. They allow parents to setup a variety of controls.
The following article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation cites various research about how a majority of social media use even by people under 13 is often done with parents knowledge and even direct help.
Most Social Media Use By Younger Kids Is Family-Mediated
If lawmakers picture under-13 social media use as a bunch of kids lying about their age and sneaking onto apps behind their parents’ backs, they’ve got it wrong. Serious studies that have looked at this all find the opposite: most under-13 use is out in the open, with parents’ knowledge, and often with their direct help.
A large national study published last year in Academic Pediatrics found that 63.8% of under-13s have a social media account, but only 5.4% of them said they were keeping one secret from their parents. That means roughly 90% of kids under 13 who are on social media aren’t hiding it at all. Their parents know. (For kids aged thirteen and over, the “secret account” number is almost as low, at 6.9%.)
Earlier research in the U.S. found the same pattern. In a well-known study of Facebook use by 10-to-14-year-olds, researchers found that about 70% of parents said they actually helped create their child’s account, and between 82% and 95% knew the account existed. Again, this wasn’t kids sneaking around. It was families making a decision together.
A 2022 study by the UK’s media regulator Ofcom points in the same direction, finding that up to two-thirds of social media users below the age of thirteen had direct help from a parent or guardian getting onto the platform.
The typical under-13 social media user is not a sneaky kid. It’s a family making a decision together.
The parents are also suffering from the negative medical effects of algorithms designed to manipulate and addict. You’re asking why a victim of drug abuse isn’t a more responsible parent.
You are correct, but that does not absolve the companies or the government of any responsibility. It should not be “anything goes” as far as intentionally addictive designs on anything with a screen for the same reason they can’t just put cocaine in Doritos. They still engineer in what they can, but with some guardrails. And even in that case the regulations here in the US leave a lot to be desired.
What you say is true but it’s off topic because that’s not the current situation. What we’re actually seeing right now is that parents literally do not want to take their devices away from their kids and they don’t want to supervise their kids. It really is that simple.
This is not a situation where most parents are trying to do the right thing and they can’t do enough and they need an extra hand. This is definitely a situation where many parents aren’t even putting in a good effort.
You know like what if they didn’t give their kid a cell phone. What if they took the cell phone away at 9:00 p.m. Most parents would never dream of doing either of those things.
It’s interesting because I was talking to my psychologist about this last week.
Mental illness runs in my extended family specifically my best friend is a functional alcoholic. He grew up the son of a functional alcoholic.
We all agree that alcoholism is an addiction, just like gambling, social media, etc.
The problem is that as a society we are addressing the specific addiction. AA for alcoholics. For gambling the government has programs you can admit yourself to.
What I was postulating to my psychologist is the real problem is some people have un underlying susceptibility to addiction. My experience with addicted people is regardless of good or bad if you remove an addiction they will replace with an unhealthy obsession on something else. Alcohol will be replaced with something else because the problem is the person has an imbalance they can’t do something in moderation. I’ve seen this time and time again.
Plus factor in comorbidities like ADHD and you have a stew going.
My point being, yes you’re correct tech is a problem, but it’s 100% the people too in some cases it’s just without the social media their addiction may have been benign so not visible. “Oh look at Mary with her beanie baby collection.” Or “oh look at Jack he really is a go getter running his 10k rain or shine every day.”
But without the addictive design the users don’t spend enough time to see all the ads and tracking required to reach the target growth. Somebody think of the shareholders /s
The addictive design of platforms, software and algorithms should be adressed, not the users age.
And the tech companies should be made responsible to design more healthy platforms, etc.
The problem is the design of tech, not the people using it.
Why is everyone forgetting the parents in this shit. They are the ones giving their kids access to this shit, not monitoring and moderating their access to this shit, and letting screens do the job of raising their kids instead of doing it themselves.
Yeah someone has to be paying for the phones and internet access, both mobile internet and or home internet or if they don’t have a phone yet, the tablet , desktop or laptop with internet access. It’s usually the parents paying for this stuff.
There are parental controls built into the Android builds of all the various mainstream manufacturers. The main exception might be for example small companies selling phones with custom Android OS distributions or people who install their own where parental controls are not built in, but that isn’t what the vast vast majority of people are using let alone installing on their child’s phone.
There are parental control options built into IOS too. They allow parents to setup a variety of controls.
https://families.google/familylink/
https://support.apple.com/en-us/105121
The following article from the Electronic Frontier Foundation cites various research about how a majority of social media use even by people under 13 is often done with parents knowledge and even direct help.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/01/congress-wants-hand-your-parenting-big-tech
The parents are also suffering from the negative medical effects of algorithms designed to manipulate and addict. You’re asking why a victim of drug abuse isn’t a more responsible parent.
The same parents who scream anytime a teacher grades them fairly?
Teachers should be legally allowed to posses a metal gauntlet for backhanding idiot parents across the face.
You are correct, but that does not absolve the companies or the government of any responsibility. It should not be “anything goes” as far as intentionally addictive designs on anything with a screen for the same reason they can’t just put cocaine in Doritos. They still engineer in what they can, but with some guardrails. And even in that case the regulations here in the US leave a lot to be desired.
Saying stop ignoring parental responsibility, doesnt mean ignore everyone elses culpability.
What you say is true but it’s off topic because that’s not the current situation. What we’re actually seeing right now is that parents literally do not want to take their devices away from their kids and they don’t want to supervise their kids. It really is that simple.
This is not a situation where most parents are trying to do the right thing and they can’t do enough and they need an extra hand. This is definitely a situation where many parents aren’t even putting in a good effort.
You know like what if they didn’t give their kid a cell phone. What if they took the cell phone away at 9:00 p.m. Most parents would never dream of doing either of those things.
Oh it’s never the parents’ fault, they’re Parents.
It’s interesting because I was talking to my psychologist about this last week.
Mental illness runs in my extended family specifically my best friend is a functional alcoholic. He grew up the son of a functional alcoholic.
We all agree that alcoholism is an addiction, just like gambling, social media, etc.
The problem is that as a society we are addressing the specific addiction. AA for alcoholics. For gambling the government has programs you can admit yourself to.
What I was postulating to my psychologist is the real problem is some people have un underlying susceptibility to addiction. My experience with addicted people is regardless of good or bad if you remove an addiction they will replace with an unhealthy obsession on something else. Alcohol will be replaced with something else because the problem is the person has an imbalance they can’t do something in moderation. I’ve seen this time and time again.
Plus factor in comorbidities like ADHD and you have a stew going.
My point being, yes you’re correct tech is a problem, but it’s 100% the people too in some cases it’s just without the social media their addiction may have been benign so not visible. “Oh look at Mary with her beanie baby collection.” Or “oh look at Jack he really is a go getter running his 10k rain or shine every day.”
Clearly the next step is to require ID in the OS /s
But without the addictive design the users don’t spend enough time to see all the ads and tracking required to reach the target growth. Somebody think of the shareholders /s