> They can message people they actually know IRL, somewhere without a feed full of crap from people they don't know.

Just how do you think they get introduced to TikTok? What do you think gets posted in the school class WhatsApp group chat?

My kids' WhatsApp group chats are mostly a torrent of sharing idiotic TikToks, YouTube Shorts, and celebrity Instagrams.

Which my kids can't watch… until they're savvy enough to bypass my restrictions. Until then, they'll watch it in school, on their friends' phones - little consolation there.

And when that pauses, they just have stupid sticker wars, and the kind of impolite banter (often misogynist/homophobic in nature, definitely not age appropriate) that may well have been par for the course when I was their age, but that I would never have committed to in writing, in essentially a public space. Not to mention the almost bullying.

The mere suggestion by my kid (on my advice) that a separate space was created to discuss actually important stuff, like forgotten homework assignments, test dates, etc, was met with incredulity and laughter by peers (the almost bullying).

Kids teach their peers how to act. Peers have way more influence than their parents. We need a majority of kids to understand TikTok/etc are bad for them.

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phantasmish 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ah, the inevitable "meh, give up, it's hopeless" post, to go along with the "why don't parents do their fucking job and leave us alone?" posts. No thread on HN related to parenting and technology is complete without a healthy dose of both sorts of post.

Sorry, I'm trying to do my fucking job, as others demand.

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zelphirkalt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

To look past the "give up" post, it did have a good point about how children will get into contact with such feed monsters.

I think it will be a good idea to try and get other parents on board. Other parents of the kid's classmates. Maybe they are struggling with this too, but don't see the way forward. And you can show them the content of feeds and shit that kids consume. You can come up with some minimum age or other idea, which you suggest for children to have, before you as a group of parents allow them to access things. Or you can come up with a once a month special lesson or something, where you show what can go wrong to the kids, and cooperate with the school.

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intended 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I dont think that comment materially undermined your position, if anything it supported it?

	▲	ncruces 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Exactly. My kid has a smartphone but no data plan; no social media; can't take it to school. When I did that, I was the annoying one, who they fought every inch of the way. When the school banned phones in the playground, I was suddenly one of the first to get it right, in their eyes. I'm trying to do my job too. But we need certain rules to be consistent throughout our society. Even if they will be broken, it matters that the rules are there and we can agree to them.