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.'"
yes and no (Score:5, Informative)
Here is what I see vis a vis the new constant communication paradigm. I see a lack of discipline. I see kids at school who need in constant communication with their parents. I see adults at work who need in constants communication with their lovers, thier spouse their kids, and whoever else will make them feel valuable as a person.
This is a great change from the 80's when I talked to my parents maybe in the morning, definitely checked in by phone after school, than saw them whenever we both were home. I talked to my friends at school, where we made plans for whatever nefarious activities we might want. When I started college and later working, I certainly did not spend the whole day texting everyone. Honestly, at college I was normally around the people I wanted to be around, and a work I already generally knew what I needed to know for after work. I did not have to spend the day, as one ex-coworker of mine spend the day texting to try to come up with some activity for the evening.
What I see here is pretty typical teenage logic, which is developmental appropriate, but hardly a major finding. If the lawgivers do not let me do what I want, I will find some way to circumvent it, and if it is bad it is their fault for making the law. In this case, i can't go wherever and whenever I want, so I will instead play with social media, and if it causes problems it is not my fault.
Seriously though setting limits and fighting such logic is an important part of child rearing. There was a case in West Virginia where this girl was murdered by her two best friends, which was possible because she was allowed to sneak our of the house. There are cases of other children killing themselves over bullying because they cannot put down their phones and so are constantly receiving bullying texts. There is also cases where kids are getting really messed up sleep wise because they cannot put down their phones.
There is really nothing special about this, and there is really nothing new. We always need to learn to live with technology, and parents need to help children learn to live with it. In some ways this is like TV where a new generation of parents really did not know how to balance the TV with the development of the child. It is certainly not the parents fault that it was a better choice to have a kid come home and watch tv instead of running unsupervised outside.
Re:It takes a village... (Score:5, Informative)
Who to blame, who to blame?
Who is to blame for what? TFA presents no evidence (other than conjecture) that teens actually interact less face-to-face than earlier generations. It also presents no evidence (other than conjecture) that using Facebook is harmful. So there is no reason to believe either that the "problem" exists or that it is a problem.
Re:My Anecdote Does Not Support Assertion (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My Anecdote Does Not Support Assertion (Score:5, Informative)
Jesus you sound just like my parents. If your son is happy why don't you leave your son alone and mind your own business.
Ok, so, I'm having a similar problem with my daughter, also 19. The answer to your question is easy. You're an adult. It's my house. I have no intention of keeping you as a pet. If you're working towards something in good faith, a job, or an internship, or college, I'll support that. But if you're just going to sit on the couch, you can do it somewhere else.
Because, I'll say this again to be certain we're communicating -- pause the game so you can hear me -- It's. My. House. Not yours. As an adult you live here because I let you live here.
In your particular case, it might be time to set down the controller and figure out what you're going to do for the rest of your life. Oh, depending on the character of your parents, you may be able to occupy that couch indefinitely. I've seen it happen -- a guy I went to high school with, is still living with his mother in his fifties. Yes, I did say fifties. But I suspect that kind of situation is rare and I'm not sure that depending on it is a good career plan.
Re:It takes a village... (Score:4, Informative)
... teens actually interact less face-to-face than earlier generations ...
I wonder how old you are? Not far out of your teens?
This is not to belittle your opinions, but although the article doesn't present any evidence, it is something that rings true to me, having grown up in a pre-PC and -internet age. When I was a child, it was common - expected, even - that you let your children go out on their own every day after school without worrying much about what they got up to. I never once got driven to school - I had a bicycle, and it was only about 3 km (a couple of miles, for the metrically challenged) along a country lane with only the occasional lorry barreling past. And what do children do when they are on their own? They find other children their age and play, working out their social skills together.
But nowadays parents molly-cuddle their children, so they hardly ever get to scrape a knee or get into minor trouble - get themselves good and dirty. I don't think they lack social skills so much as the freedom and opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives - there is always a parent to head off any trouble they might get into, until they move away from home, and they find themselves unprepared for the amounts of shit that cascades into their lives. Social media and games wouldn't be so attractive, if they weren't such a convenient way to get away from over-protective parents, I think.