ChudFusk wrote: Tue Dec 17, 2024 2:32 pm

the corpo wrote: Tue Dec 17, 2024 4:25 am I was involved in helping draw up a code of conduct for personal device use in our kids primary (elementary) school and our principal was in despair at the damage having social media access was having on the children. And it's not just the tangible fear of being exposed to horrible views etc., but the power that it puts in the hand of bullies, it's monumentally dangerous. At the same time she was having kids upset and troubled who didn't have devices because they didn't know what was being said about them online.

We had our own incident where schools competed in a writing challenge, and kids would review short stories from other schools. My daughter wrote a review, the person reviewed on the other side the country was able to track down her cell phone number and start sending her abusive messages. At the age of 10...

And it's all well and good saying it's up to the parents to monitor and safeguard the chats, we definitely do, but it's scarily apparent how few other parents do, the stuff that appears in the various groups is horrifying.

Don't know what the laws are in the US, but in Europe most social media is illegal for those under 13, and I'd be absolutely in favour of banning devices for under 13, with heavy regulation for those above. One local area here, the parents of a district of local schools worked together to have a no phone social contract for all kids in the area, and it's been a huge success.

And the argument that the genie is out of the bottle doesn't really hold water, no 10 year old is buying their own phone, someone is choosing to give it to them. If they need it to be contactable, plenty of dumb phones are on the market.

I’ll admit that I am being a bit of a cunt by saying this, but all of the totally correct and insightful things you said in your post are a little bit undermined by the fact that your 10 year old has a cell phone…