As a teenager I was intensely isolated from my peers. I had been removed from education by a parent and, along with my siblings, spent all my time at home. I had little in the way of homeschooling.
The internet, and in particular social mediums, ended up giving me a lifeline. It was my connection to the outside world and gave me a way to socialise, as well as signpost me to subjects I could then look up and learn.
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Without the access I had to the internet I would be significantly lacking in terms of learning but also extremely isolated from any forms of socialisation outside of my immediate family. I cannot help but wonder what hope kids in my situation would fare like with this kind of policy in place.
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@Colman I don't. I think it's precisely the point.
But in my circumstance the level of harm it would have caused me is extensive, and the perspectives of kids withdrawn from society are often completely overlooked or ignored when it comes to things like this
@babe it’s being pushed from the same nexus as the anti-gay and anti-trans stuff as far as I can tell. Not to mention the whole authoritarian structure being built around it.
I mean, it *could* be a coincidence.
@babe unfortunately I think that's the goal for a lot of people who support these policies, even though they won't say it out loud and a lot of them might not consciously realize it.
I came from a background where a lot of the parents of my peers were trying very hard to isolate their kids to control their environment. I know most of those parents would've absolutely adored this wave of isolationist policies.
@babe it's kinda crazy to me: instead of applying pressure on those companies that harvest user data and have algorithms and systems in place that expose to social media addiction, they instead just cut access to social media as a whole, which in my mind is the wrong approach.
How are kids supposed to learn about the good sides of social media and engage with platforms like Mastodon/fediverse etc.?
@babe I can relate to this. I got into programming and compiling open side software in my teens and some of that community really helped me in my early career. I didn't go to the local school and with no internet at home missed out on the discussions in the online groups but those groups only had the school kids in them as far I knew.
Taking the algorithms and features that make them addictive would help not just the kids but adults too.
@BenCotterill For the first two years, I wasn't. Third year I had 30-60 minutes tutoring a few times a week in the basics of maths, english and history, then back to nothing after that.
Requirements for education might have improved, but at the time it was an intensely low bar. As long as you were learning /something/ the local authorities weren't concerned. One year being made to watch The World At War series was enough to count as "being taught something".
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