• Chozo@fedia.io
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    21 days ago

    While all of that may be true, it doesn’t necessarily negate the adverse affects social media can also have on young people.

    I think you got lucky and found a community that accepted and welcomed you. But a lot of kids aren’t as fortunate, and their experiences with social media are a lot more sinister. Children are more exposed to predators and harassment now than ever before.

    I dunno that a full “ban until ___ years old” policy is the cure, either. But it’s a start.

    • sandbox@lemmy.world
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      20 days ago

      There is little evidence for this claim. As far as I recall, evidence actually shows that things like bullying, harassment and child sexual exploitation are dropping.

    • UraniumBlazer@lemm.ee
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      20 days ago

      I don’t understand why the knee jerk reaction for everything is just “ban it”.

      You want to reduce the exposure of children to predators? Moderate the platforms. We can agree that Reddit n Lemmy’s moderation is a lot better than Instagram’s moderation. Why don’t we start with that???

      The biggest way predators do their predatoring is by sliding into ur DMs. You could restrict this by requiring approval for all such new DMs by a parent’s account or something. There r just so many ways that social media can be made safer for kids.

      Social media is a digital townsquare. Sure, there r some malicious actors lurking about. Does that mean that kids should just be banned from this townsquare? No. The townsquare should be made safer for kids. There must be some hand-holding for kids in the beginning so that they can learn how to make the best use of this infrastructure in the future.