alt Hacker NewsI am not parent comment, and I'm also not in favour of restrictions for all/most people in the name of "the kids" for all the reasons covered in this debate. Invasive age verification feels even worse.
But I gotta tell I am not looking forward to deciding which is worse when my little kids grow up and I either have to: - let them use TikTok (or whatever it is by then) and suffer what I know to be an insidious poison - make them be on the outside of the circle and suffer exclusion by their peers because they don't get any of the memes
I've been the only kid in class without the new 18-rated Call of Duty game, or indeed a games console to play it on. At the time, it sucked. In retrospect I totally agree with my parents, young children should not be playing games about shooting each other! (Of course other parents may disagree)
CoD was only the new hotness once every couple of years. TikTok can make something the new hotness every week.
My only real hope to escape this dilemma is that enough other parents in my cohorts realise how poisonous TT is and the problem goes away... I can't say I'm optimistic.
> At the time, it sucked. In retrospect I totally agree
Being parented essentially means rules applied that are in your long term interest despite your own preferences (typically shorter term). When I had to go to bed on time, it sucked. When I had to eat my vegetables, it sucked
The kids who didn't watch soaps, didn't have phones, didn't get to see 15 films... etc, were fine in the end. This isn't a new concern. Every other generation of parents has done it.
> My only real hope to escape this dilemma
I simply don't see a dilemma.