I swear have people forgot what it was like when we were kids. It's not like Facebook is covering new ground here. My parents were pressured into to giving me internet access so I could talk to my friends on AIM, I begged my Dad to buy me a cell phone because all my friends had them. And don't even get me started on Pokemon cards, Game Boy links, slap bracelets, silly bands, a bike so I could reach my friend's houses, and a car when I turned 16.
You're not conditioning your kids to be soulless zombies to lord Zuckerberg any more than I was conditioned to love AOL. Let your kids socialize in whatever way their friends are, the actual socializing and shared experience is what will matter years down the line.
I understand where you're coming from but I hold the extreme opposite view.
I believe it should be illegal for a company to intentionally allow children into a system where their psychology is manipulated. Instagram has huge negative psych effects, predominantly on young girls. But the other social dynamics, and the effects of advertising, and the effects of the echo chambers that result from the algorithmic feeds are profound and harmful across all social media platforms.
It isn't socializing when every photo is edited, every post that a kid sees is the most dramatic thing thanks to the algorithm, and moral/political activism is rampant and signal boosted. Kids should learn how to deal with real humans in the real world rather than digital characterizations of humans curated by a machine.
When I was a kid, my parents said the same things about TV, Music, Cartoons and Magazines.
This is not in defense of facebook or IG, they are problematic for kids for sure for many reasons and they should be restricted from data collecting on kids.
BUT... American culture is rooted in pop/controlled/manicured/curated culture... we idolize celebrities, sports teams, beauty... we should fix that too
For kids chat app, they're not allowed to collect this data. For apps that do collect this data, they have to be what, 17?
Beyond that, in the 80s and 90s we were certainly marketed too... cartoons were invented to sell us toys, get us to buy cards/games and get our friends addicted
I understand what you're saying. But I think it's different now that everyone is online and sites like Facebook require you to use your real name.
Growing up, I hung out on chat rooms and online gaming servers. And I probably experienced stuff I wasn't ready for. But it was under a pseudonym and all online.
In social apps today, the bullying the kids do to each other is brutal and cuts much deeper because they know other. And, unlike back in my day, you can't just delete your account and log off. The next day in school, you'll see all of the kids who sharing awful doctored photos of you and telling you that you should kill yourself.
You're not conditioning your kids to be soulless zombies to lord Zuckerberg any more than I was conditioned to love AOL. Let your kids socialize in whatever way their friends are, the actual socializing and shared experience is what will matter years down the line.