I don't know. I suspect you live in the US so it might be easier there, but here in the UK I feel very unusual in my desire for privacy and freedom.
I have tried to convince people here that it's weird that the government, businesses and individuals are constantly filming us and using AI to monitor us, but in their view it's a good thing because it allows the government to stop bad people or supermarkets to stop theft, etc... And I don't even strictly disagree... If you value safety and are trusting of authority then mass surveillance is a reasonable position. I'm just not oriented that way personally. In my view the greater risk is a monopoly like the government abusing it's authority against me.
I suspect we'd need a cultural movement for people to start to care, and I'm not sure how you make privacy and freedom cool again...
More controversially I think it's just how I'm wired... And that you can't convince people to distrust authority. My desire for freedom and distrust of authority has been with me since I was extremely young. My dad is wired like it too, and so is my sister. We never talk politics as a family, but I've noticed how we're strangely aligned on these issues. In the UK people took lockdown very seriously, but we were all outraged about the idea of the government imposing house arrest on us, regardless of the risk.
I think your willingness to bend to authority is very core and hard wired trait. It's a trait which can be rapidly selected for in basically all social animals. The US as a country massively selected for people who were orientated towards risk and freedom, but not so much anymore. In fact, it's hard being anti-authority in an increasingly hierarchical corporate world.
Anecdotally, all the parents I know and have discussed this with are desperate for this to work.
How it should work I'm unsure in the big scheme of it, but we limit access to various things until age 18 here in Australia, and I think this is one long term battle that I believe the tech sector will lose.
Rather than applying more bans, perhaps we should consider ways of living that allow parents to spend time talking to their children. Understanding what their days are like and the problems they face. For me much of this discussion and the excessive demand it takes from parents sounds more like a problem of the society as whole. That we are not having enough time to raise children since both parents are forced to work, best if they do it over 40 hours a week.
My proposition is that parents should have more time for their children. If they would have more time with them, they could fix issues and show to their children how to live a better life instead of becoming a social media controlled zombie. Someone else in this thread mentioned that obesity should be fixed first, different issue, same solution. Since parents are expect from our current society to work both over 40 hours a week they can not, and will not, educate their child. Since they can not they search for the simple solution that someone else has to do it and impose laws to solve the problem.
And it also does not stop underage drinking or smoking, despite having the law. I understand why we have this law as it has a physical impact and literaly no upsides.
However, smartphone usage and also the use of social media can have positive impact and is not inheritly damaging. Which is why I argue that a ban seems like the wrong direction.
>However, smartphone usage and also the use of social media can have positive impact and is not inheritly damaging. Which is why I argue that a ban seems like the wrong direction.
I'd be curious to see some literature on this. My understanding is A LOT of metrics/scores etc are tanking because of smartphone usage.
if i’m understanding what you’re saying correctly, it sounds like you think parental involvement is a) lacking, and b) would be effective in its own. i’m not sure either of those holds true.
it takes a village, even with fantastic family life, and these companies are trying to tell us they’re exempt from the village yet they still want to be part of it. this is how we got here to the government (us, the people) taking it to the next step.
had these companies done the correct thing and acknowledged their responsibilities as members of the village, other solutions may have been found. they have no one but themselves (and their cultists incessant defense of them) to blame.
in the real world, good kids from good families in good areas fall too. it’s naive to an extreme to believe those alone are enough.
I know! How about new technology that "automates" stuff, letting them pay us lower wages to work more hours (if we're lucky to keep a job)? Maybe it should even be trained on our work
This feels a bit like whatboutism. While the transition might be hard this will sort out if it comes to that point. You (and in a possible future the AI) are producing stuff for people to consume. If no one is consuming stuff you earn no money and there is no reason to produce. So you want people to have money such that they can spend it.
It's not whataboutism, it's pointing out that your idea how parents should have more time and energy to make sure their children aren't badly affected by social media, instead of just banning it, is rosy-eyed when you consider reality. We are heading in the opposite direction.
Reducing bulling isn't the primary goal with this kind of thing, more a secondary benefit.
Did you know that heroin (at the time, that was a registered trademark) was originally sold as a "non-addictive morphine substitute" to be used as cough suppressant?
People weren't at all sure how to even regulate substances in the early years of the 20th century, which is why when the US got Prohibition it was via a constitutional amendment rather than a mere law, even though they already knew about drugs laws and the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act predated Prohibition by about 5 years.
Right now, we're not sure how to even regulate social media.
Paint the Cameras Dead campaign asks people to notice the surveillance infrastructure disappearing into the background of our cities. Look up. Find the cameras. Ask who placed them there and what they see. Map them, but do not stop there. Respond with something of your own. A drawing. A sticker. A message. An intervention we have not imagined yet.
We started hacking public space with anti-phone zombie stickers: small interventions designed to break algorithmic hypnosis, disrupt passive scrolling, and force people to look up from their feeds.
