You know me Fran and you know what I'm going to say here: anytime any institution is enforcing behaviour, its an abuse of power. The book bans are an apt comparison but what about abortion bans? Bans against gay marriage? While the context of control is worth considering, governments placing any restrictions against a subset of people immediately raises red flags for me.
Those are really good parallels too - any blanket ban that doesn't allow for nuance is bound to have issues, and like you said, top-down banning in general raises a bunch of other issues around abuse of power. Especially when the ban affects a specific group of already marginalised people!
I appreciate your deep dive here! I am with you, especially in your insights on hidden costs, and the effects on autonomy and trust between parents and adults.
My two older kids were old enough not to have smartphones when they were young; my third kid did. I navigated this when he was a *young* teen with a first-time phone by using an app that let me control how much he could use the phone to connect with the internet each day. He could visit the sites and social media platforms he wished without me monitoring him in any way, but his time to do so was limited so he had to plan for that. We discussed all of this and I made changes to the daily time allowed based on our discussions. It worked for us, I think, because it kept a real info freak of a kid—he loves researching!—from being on his phone too much, but he could visit sites at his discretion.
thanks for reading!! It's such a tricky topic isn't it? I totally get why parents are worried, and I love hearing how you and your teen partnered on how to make SM work for you both.
It’s great to see you writing again Fran!
You know me Fran and you know what I'm going to say here: anytime any institution is enforcing behaviour, its an abuse of power. The book bans are an apt comparison but what about abortion bans? Bans against gay marriage? While the context of control is worth considering, governments placing any restrictions against a subset of people immediately raises red flags for me.
Those are really good parallels too - any blanket ban that doesn't allow for nuance is bound to have issues, and like you said, top-down banning in general raises a bunch of other issues around abuse of power. Especially when the ban affects a specific group of already marginalised people!
I appreciate your deep dive here! I am with you, especially in your insights on hidden costs, and the effects on autonomy and trust between parents and adults.
My two older kids were old enough not to have smartphones when they were young; my third kid did. I navigated this when he was a *young* teen with a first-time phone by using an app that let me control how much he could use the phone to connect with the internet each day. He could visit the sites and social media platforms he wished without me monitoring him in any way, but his time to do so was limited so he had to plan for that. We discussed all of this and I made changes to the daily time allowed based on our discussions. It worked for us, I think, because it kept a real info freak of a kid—he loves researching!—from being on his phone too much, but he could visit sites at his discretion.
I appreciate the nuance in your thoughts here.
thanks for reading!! It's such a tricky topic isn't it? I totally get why parents are worried, and I love hearing how you and your teen partnered on how to make SM work for you both.