some things we, as a society, have recently done to teens:
-traumatized them with gun violence
-vastly reduced their rights to reproductive healthcare
-had a moral panic about their genders
-abandoned them to the ravages of covid, destroying their immune systems
it's not tiktok that fucked em up
if you're a kid in the US you have seen the adult world fully abandon your interests in health and safety in every way, from refusing to install air filters in classrooms to refusing to address climate change.
you are constantly surveilled. there are no third places for you to hang out in: you are likely restricted from malls, hours are cut at libraries, cops are fucking everywhere and they hate you.
a lot of people sure read this as me saying "tiktok and other social media is good and has no problems". the person that said that is imaginary and you may take your conversations with them out of my feed
it's just incredibly obvious to me that social media is filling a need for people, including children, that is otherwise not being met. our society is structured at every level to take away coping mechanisms and never address root causes.
This. Right here. Nailed it.
We're living in a challenging time and almost all the structures and relationships that used to help us through those tough times have been diminished if not outright destroyed.
People will turn to what little they have to fill the gap.
It's also just so cynical because social media, like any other tool or medium etc, can be either used in proper moderation or it can be abused.
Why do people constantly have to do "waffles/pancakes" with everything they read online?
The older I (and my kids) get, the more I am becoming a kids' rights advocate. One more reason why I am so enraged by this year's presidential "choices."
In anarchist spaces it's referred to as child liberation. Children are among the most vulnerable and marginalized members of our society viewed by many as little more than their parents property. It's very frustrating how often parental rights are talked about instead of the rights of the child.
I learned only recently that the U.S. is the ONLY nation to not have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Excepting Somalia. I think.
Because "parents' rights" and also we're the U.S., we're special, and don't y'all forget it.
She's a bit simplistic at times, but increasingly I think Alice Miller was totally right. Poisonous pedagogy/authoritarian child abuse is some huge percentage of what's wrong with everything. Because then, they grow up. Lather, rinse, repeat.
oh and don't forget: "dudes randomly showing up with guns to murder indiscriminately" is such an issue that you have to have drills in school about it
because the adults who run things have told you those guns are more important to them than you are
yeah if i had known the post would blow up i probably would have included other violence too, since i don't think school bomb threats have gone out of style since i was in middle school
i'm so exhausted. i need to stay healthy, because my health is so fragile, but it feels futile - i share a house with someone who doesn't mask, so if something is virulent, i will get exposed regardless. i have a friend who is housebound in fear. we're all so tired.
Banning “addictive feeds” just sounds like they don’t want kids able to talk to each other about the shit they’re being put through, for fear they might organize and fix what’s being done to them.
Pool. Pinball. Rock & Roll. Ouija Boards. Cable Television. Dragons & Dungeons. Satanic Cults. Computer Games. The Internet. Social Media...
You know what? I'm sensing a kind of... pattern here.
I think the real problem might be all the supposed adults, who apparently are addicted to Moral Panics.
- destroyed free, accessible "third spaces" where teens could meet up and socialize without someone calling the cops on them.
How else are they supposed to socialize?!
The Christian extremists holding this country (and arguably the world) hostage have a serious answer to this. Teens don’t need to socialize, and their parents will pick a spouse for them. They can socialize at church and sanctioned activities but they should either be working or raising children
I mean, curtailing the algorithms that are increasingly made to be as manipulative and addictive as possible would be great, but like, I doubt that's going to be the outcome of this law. And it doesn't solve any of the other problems you mentioned. So, like, this feels all very performative?
As someone from a state (WV) with the highest percentage of children in foster care largely as a result of the pharmaceutical industry pushing legal heroin on poor, hardworking people, tiktok is waaaaay down the list in reasons why the kids are fucked up.
And, Hochul repealed congestion pricing for autos— which most kids don’t want and can’t afford— 14 months into a consecutive hottest global sea surface temperature streak, during a regional heat wave.
Awful.
you are constantly surveilled. there are no third places for you to hang out in: you are likely restricted from malls, hours are cut at libraries, cops are fucking everywhere and they hate you.
Agreed up to the last line. But if you'll allow me the belief that TikTok is actually kinda shitty and bad for us: it's wrong to dismiss the minor win here. Yes, our overall score is still 2/10, but you sound like you're kicking the one thing that upgraded it from 1/10.
