Memo To Parents and Society: Teen Social Media "Addiction" Is Your Fault 271
FuzzNugget writes "Wired presents this damning perspective on so-called social media addiction: 'If kids can't socialize, who should parents blame? Simple: They should blame themselves. This is the argument advanced in It's Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens, by Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd. Boyd ... has spent a decade interviewing hundreds of teens about their online lives. What she has found, over and over, is that teenagers would love to socialize face-to-face with their friends. But adult society won't let them. "Teens aren't addicted to social media. They're addicted to each other," Boyd says. "They're not allowed to hang out the way you and I did, so they've moved it online." It's true. As a teenager in the early '80s I could roam pretty widely with my friends, as long as we were back by dark. Over the next three decades, the media began delivering a metronomic diet of horrifying but rare child-abduction stories, and parents shortened the leash on their kids. Politicians warned of incipient waves of youth wilding and superpredators (neither of which emerged). Municipalities crafted anti-loitering laws and curfews to keep young people from congregating alone. New neighborhoods had fewer public spaces. Crime rates plummeted, but moral panic soared. Meanwhile, increased competition to get into college meant well-off parents began heavily scheduling their kids' after-school lives.'"
Re:It takes a village... (Score:5, Funny)
Who to blame, who to blame? And the parents will all sing:
Should we blame the government?
Or blame society?
Or should we blame the images on TV?
No!
Blame Canada!
Blame Canada!
Shame on Canada, foooor...
The smut we must cut,
The trash we must bash,
The laughter and fun must all be undone!
We must blame them and cause a fuss
Before somebody thinks
Of blaming uuuuuuuuuuus!
No, no, nothing is ever the parents' fault, what could you be thinking?
Re:My Anecdote Does Not Support Assertion (Score:5, Funny)
I think this "researcher" is full of shit. I think that we are still to blame for providing an easy and pervasive technological environment that allows them to bury their heads in their comfortable world of cyberspace and "social media", never having to come up for air. It's addictive as shit and they are all addicted to it. But, they're not at all interested in socializing IRL.
And they suck at riding horses, so they'll shamefully be foot soldiers when drafted into the military. And none of them have memorized a log table - how are they supposed to multiply big numbers, I ask you? And no one is apprenticed to a trade and sent off at 12 to work any more - how are they supposed to get job skills?
Instead they're off dancing the waltz and exposing their ankles like they have no shame at all. This moral decay will be the end of society I tell you!
Priceless quote FTFA (Score:3, Funny)
"But for the sake of argument, let’s agree that we have a crisis."
Hysterical!
There's a man with his priorities straight. (Score:4, Funny)
Find someone to blame, then make sure they get *all* the blame.
Re:Yes, because nothing is ever your fault (Score:4, Funny)
We are all the product of our environment.
No, no, no! Remember the scene the "Life of Brian" where he tells the crowd "you are all individuals", and they respond in unison "we are all individuals!"
Re:Social media are addictive (Score:4, Funny)
You're right, social media are addictive. So it's time to log out of Slashdot and get back to spending time with your family and friends during the current Christmas-to-New-Year holiday season.
And, yes, I'll do the same. Honest, I will. I can stop any time. Really, I can.
Re:Yes, because nothing is ever your fault (Score:5, Funny)
We are all the product of our environment.
No, no, no! Remember the scene the "Life of Brian" where he tells the crowd "you are all individuals", and they respond in unison "we are all individuals!"
Oh, but you missed the best part. After everyone shouts "we are all individuals", a lone meek voice says "I'm not!".
Re:It takes a village... (Score:5, Funny)
" If you really think your kid has a harmful addiction, you should really do something about it."
Indeed. Join Facebook yourself with your wife and granny and peepaw an mimmy and gramps and befriend the brat.
Post annoying and embarrassing messages and pictures when they were kids throughout the day.
They'll fall over each other to leave FB posthaste.