Social media cannot be blamed. Parents are the only ones to blame.
I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off.
If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner of degenerate and pedophile, you allow your daughters in their most vulnerable years to be taught all manner of unhealthy social proving mechanisms, you get unhealthy people. It really is that simple. There are brothels in the world too, you don't blame the brothel when a kid grows up in there.
Raise your kids and quit listening to people that tell you it's unethical to decide how to do that, and quit making excuses and blaming the world for jot doing it.
Helicopter parenting messes kids up in a whole different way that’s often even worse.
Kids are going to like things parents try to keep away from them. They like things that are cool with their peers. They like doing things parents tell them not to do. They’ll find ways to do things their peers are all doing even if you try to block them entirely.
Kids who were banned from those alleged MTV videos simply watched them at a friend’s house and had the smarts to not let their parents know.
Deciding how you're going to raise your kids is not helicopter parenting.
Going through the hoops and figuring out how to do the things your parents don't want you to do is a healthy part of growing up, any parent that doesn't take that into account and actually thinks they're going to stop their kid from becoming an adult is making a mistake.
The goals are to remove easy access to damaging material, and to make them do difficult, clever things to get around it, and to make them think you don't know so that they don't outwardly demonstrate exposure. This limits exposure to the worst of what is out there, teaches them agency and problem solving skills, and prevents them from heavily internalizing whatever they are exposed to.
Yes, when they reach a certain age when they start to want to do things on their own, they'll find ways to be exposed to what they want to be exposed to. There's nothing wrong with this.
I grew up similarly and I think I have to disagree. When we had all the influence from the Tv, we would still se people that were really far away from us.
Right now a teenager that is spending their summer vacation at home can be bombarded with photos of classmates "having the best time of their lives" through social media.
You're right that parents should be more present but even if you explain to a teenager that what they're seeing on instagram/tiktok is not the full reality, it still has an effect on them. I know because even I feel it sometimes.
Well the point is, the world isn't perfect and there will always be negative influences, and it is a parent's duty to limit those influences as much as possible. Before it was this, now it's that. It was bad kids in the neighborhood, then it was TV, then it was videogames, now it is social media, who knows what it will be in 20 years.
I wouldn't explain to a teenager about Instagram and tiktok, I'd DNS block them on all devices. They'll see it at their friends house or whatever, and then I can talk to them, and they'll get grouchy about wanting it just like they do about toys at the store. But at least I'll limit exposure to negative influences, which is my job.
Individual parenting styles and quality obviously have a huge part to play. But when there's a huge toxic elephant rampaging around the room, saying "avoid the elephant" is a less systemic fix that helps way fewer people than "just shoot the bloody elephant".
And no sadly I don't know what shooting the bloody elephant equates to in this metaphor :-(
Also - I'm not sure if you're a parent or what your experiences have been, but I am and my opinion is 100% that stopping my kids doing the stuff that all their peer group does will be far worse in terms of ending up ostracised and alone and probably bullied than the harms social media itself very likely does bring.
You can not install social media apps on kids phone, and restrict them in the browser (facebook has that feature). Dunno how to do the same on the PC though.
Not unfeasible. But non-sensical. You simply cannot offload raising of kids to technology. Besides, parental control tends to have a lot of false positives.
I grew up while MTV had music videos playing. There were mascara wearing men talking about slitting their wrists and there were tough looking black men talking about killing people in the street. Some people imitated that. Some parents turned it off.
If you give your kid access to anything and everything the world has to offer, including every manner of degenerate and pedophile, you allow your daughters in their most vulnerable years to be taught all manner of unhealthy social proving mechanisms, you get unhealthy people. It really is that simple. There are brothels in the world too, you don't blame the brothel when a kid grows up in there.
Raise your kids and quit listening to people that tell you it's unethical to decide how to do that, and quit making excuses and blaming the world for jot doing it.