← Back to context

Comment by Angostura

12 days ago

Listening to something on the BBC the other day that I found thought provoking.

The speaker suggested that the question’at what age do you give your child access to the internet’ could better be framed ‘at what age do you want to give internet companies access to your child’

12 comments

Angostura

Reply
maxehmookau  12 days ago

I genuinely think there's a difference between young people having access to the internet, and young people having access to social media (Facebook, Instagram, etc.)

Social media is designed to be addictive. Much of the internet is not. I'm increasingly in favor of banning Facebook and Instagram to under 18s.

  • willsmith72  12 days ago

    under 18s arent on facebook, and barely on instagram. that might work for 25-40 year olds though

    • wisemang  12 days ago

      Replace with TikTok or Snapchat or whatever they are using. Because they are definitely using social media. Maybe you’re playing gotcha at a poor millenial’s out of date examples but the point stands.

      Source: parent of high schooler.

      3 replies →

rstuart4133  9 days ago

> The speaker suggested that the question’at what age do you give your child access to the internet’

Australia has also banned smart phones from schools. Here the ban had nothing do to with access to the internet or the effects of social media.

To paraphrase your question: at what age does constantly accessing the internet not interfere with work or schooling?

The answer is never, of course. All workplaces have policies limiting it. Schools have the same problem: there were always kids using phones hidden under desks to send message to each other. Workplaces enforcing their internet policies using monitoring software is rare thankfully, but expecting kids to exercise the same self discipline as a adult can is futile and so they moved to a ban. They ran studies on the outcome: https://theconversation.com/banning-mobile-phones-in-schools... TL;DR: Banning phones improved scholastic results.

I'd lay long odds the article is little more than click bait. My guess is a very well known result and the schools are actually banning phones so they can do their main job, which is teach kids. But rather than report that, the journo speculated in the most inflammatory way possible.