33
votes
"By all means, go after big tech. But for the love of the next generation, don’t pretend that it’s going to help vulnerable youth."
Link information
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- Title
- KOSA isn't designed to help kids.
- Authors
- zephoria
- Published
- Jan 31 2024
- Word count
- 3142 words
This goes along the line of "don't hate the players, hate the game", which I agree with.
It doesn't matter if Meta and TikTok get shut down tomorrow. Something new will just take their place. Kids are innately curious about the world; this is also a developmental stage when kids are intensely curious about how they measure up to their peers and engage in status play to learn about how hierarchy works.
And internet as a technology itself allows kids to expand their peer circle from the school to the world. (So... destroying the internet is a solution.)
I'm pretty sure I agree with her? Idk that was a lot to read. Although she does say to focus less on social media and more on how young people have severed connections. But aren't our connections severed because of Social Media.
While I think social media is definitely a huge force that affects our ability to make connections, I don't think it's as simple as "our connections are severed because of Social Media." Social media's effects there seem to me to be more multifaceted. Some of my richest connections and deepest relationships were formed on social media -- I met my now-wife through Discord. Social media is a very mixed bag, and I don't think it's right to frame it as all bad and lay the blame completely at its feet here. There are also other non-social media factors that are definitely increasing social isolation and lack of conmectedness, such as a lack of "third spaces" (ESPECIALLY for teens).
The question people debate (or perhaps more often assume everyone agrees on) is whether or not social media is the reason for the loss of third spaces.
I don't think I've ever seen someone make that claim myself before. It's not a super coherent thing to argue, imo, as it's unclear how exactly social media would cause that. Perhaps there's some indirect effect, but I certainly don't think it makes sense to claim that social media alone is responsible. Not to mention that there are other things with a more apparent direct contribution toward the loss of third spaces (especially for teens), like anti-loitering measures.
It's a pretty simple argument. For example, as people transfer their connections to social media, they don't care as much about going to church, etc., which means their kids get to just sit around at home instead of going to church, youth group, bible study, etc.
...you do realize that "third places" don't have to be religious, right?
I'm just not convinced of this argument. Plenty of young people use tons of social media and take advantage of third places when they're available -- when I went to college there were a ton of great third places around and we took advantage of them! People complaining about a lack of third places are the same people who are using social media, so it seems utterly unsubstantiated to claim they also don't care as much about them.
And even with your church example, I don't think it actually tracks in reality that social media decreases one's interest in attending church and associated church social events. Certainly there are no shortage of people avidly using social media and attending my parents' church.
Unless I see some actual evidence to back it up, I'm going to continue scoff at blaming social media for the lack of third places in many areas/communities. Not every negative recent change in society has to be social media's fault.
Yes, of course I do. It's why I put both "for example" and "etc" in the same sentence. And I don't appreciate the passive aggressive phrasing of the question.
In a lot of places schools have become third places. Every school I went to (which was quite a few - the joys of poverty!) had after-school programs or clubs and some of them had community centers attached to them.
This unfortunately was not my experience growing up -- but I also attended a small private school rather than my local public school, which exacerbated social isolation.
parasocial relationships online distracting people from seeking physical connection.
People wouldn't complain about a lack of third places if they were distracted from seeking physical connection. I'm not going to say parasocial relationships don't cause that problem for some people, but it doesn't make much sense as an explanation for losing third places.
It's not the same people complaining though. Most people are not very aware of the value of third places. They just know they are grumpy and disconnected.
Amazon kills malls and teens are impacted but the online shoppers are not the ones complaining.
It's a complex problems and I don't know all the causes or all the answers. However teens being online might lead to less use of teen centers where they exist.
Brick-and-mortar stores are part of the street ecosystem. When people go out to shop, they also go someplace nearby for a meal and then drinks and entertainment. In these spaces, people mix and mingle.
But as parts of this ecosystem die out, its general attraction becomes diminished. Fewer people shopping, eating, drinking, going out for entertainment.
In their place, people order food and drinks to their homes and stay in to watch streaming services or play video games — and our commons, our third places, die.
The main thing I just want is to acknowledge that these are complex problems that can't be boiled down to one cause (social media).
As teenagers we’d go to the library for our third place. I hope that’s an option for many kids today.
A bit? I think a larger factor comes from the "stranger danger" narrative over the 2000's (shortly before the social media explosion). No one trusts any adult around kids anymore, and as the article pointed out teachers are barely staying afloat themselves. In some ways social media is a coping mechanism for something that has been on the decline for about the same amount of time.
The other factor not really touched here is that there's literally no way for kids to really get together anymore. Stranger danger hits again, but even with that out of the way... what do you do to hang out? malls are on the decline in the US, anti-loitering systems are widespread, and kids lack the money for any sort of cafe/restaurant hookup. There's also the issue of non-walkalble suburban areas and horrible public transportation in some cities. We've made it so much harder for kids to (as they say) "touch grass". No wonder they simply opt for the digital space.
Growing up in the suburban sprawl, we just… went outside, practically every day. We didn’t need to be able to walk to malls or spend money. Sometimes it was just one or two kids shooting hoops in someone’s driveway. Other times it was a group playing whatever sport pickup game or riding bikes in the quiet neighborhood. Occasionally we’d get enough kids for a big football game in a field or tag/manhunt among the houses. There were some woods nearby that we explored when we were a bit older. If it rained, we’d play in someone’s garage or home. The activities were endless.
This was also my experience growing up. Friends' houses, yards, my suburban neighborhood were the places I spent 90% of my time. We walked or rode bikes everywhere. VERY occasionally, we went to shops, the mall, the pizza place, or the movies, but no one hung out there or any commercial space on a regular basis.
This sounds pretty much exactly like my childhood too.
Where I grew up in the suburbs, there weren't enough kids in close enough proximity for something like that -- and my area was not more sprawl-y than average. Even within the same school district more often than not you'd live too far away from your friends to walk or bike to their place without getting thinks officially signed-off on by your parents and probably someone to drive you. Hard to frequently spontaneously hang out with friends outside if you need to get a ride to do so. Heck, I'd have gotten trouble for hanging out at my neighbor's house without getting my parents' permission beforehand.
There's also a point at which one's age affects the activities you want to engage in with your friends, especially if you aren't sporty. My next door neighbor was my age, and we played together in our yards a ton as kids. But once we were teens, our desires when it came to hanging out were different. We wanted places where it was easy to sit and chat -- lucky for us our houses were fine for that often, but people with worse parents and less privacy at home wouldn't have had that.
Maybe I've just been spoiled but I feel like every place I've ever lived has been within at least biking distance of a park. You don't have to pay to hang out at a park.
As long as the park isn't full with homeless people and addicts...
I want the homeless to have space for themselves, but they add to the perceived risk of parks and public libraries.
That's sort of the paradox of "third spaces".
If you make a space for everyone, everyone will be there.
Which is why we need a solution for homelessness and especially violence. Families with kids deserve the use of public spaces also.
Groups of teens hanging out in parks often get the cops called on them by "well-meaning" strangers. Especially when those teens are black.
My experience is anecdotal but that stranger danger thing was definitely not a huge problem where I live. Of course there is a general warriness but nothing all encompassing like you're saying. Idk if that's it.
Seeing Zuckerberg get chewed up and spit out in congress put a big smile on my face, I don't really care what the excuse is to be honest.