Annie D

@ann-arcana

Queen of Burgers 🍔

she/her
www.redpanda.fun/

Writer, game designer, engineer, bisexual tranthing, FFXIV addict

OC: Anna Verde - Primal/Excalibur, Empyreum W12 P14

Mare: E6M76HDMVU
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Annie D @ann-arcana5/23/2023, 3:08 PM

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy5/23/2023, 3:08 PM

suffering from extremely mixed feelings about the push to get kids off social media, because it's 100% true that it's addictive and teaches dysfunctional behavior and is generally soul-eroding

but I don't see the corresponding passion for providing all-ages community spaces with no admission cost that are readily accessible via a public transportation network that goes deep into the burbs

so are they just supposed to stare at the wall or what

it's very uncomfortable to me how "they don't allow you to socialize outside the family" is considered major abuse between adults, and something you can do to a kid if they've been a little annoying or if facilitating it would take any effort.

feels like society has not contended with the fact that there are a lot of parents who are not, like, actionably Abusive, but you sure as hell can't rely on them for emotional support. and likewise a lot of school situations where kids aren't bullied per se but also nobody is their friend. and the combination of those two circumstances can, well, it's been 20 years and I'm still kinda not okay about it

edit: also there is some definite connection to book banning and "don't say gay", with "social media is toxic" being sold to liberals as a cover story.

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in reply to @pervocracy's post:

Annie D @ann-arcana5/23/2023, 3:11 PM

this is gonna sound like old man talk but legit like ... i used to just be able to go outside, play with the neighbor kids, try to break into a military installation, whatever

the way people talk about kids now it's like ... are they even allowed to do that anymore? like the malls all closed and the tv talks about letting your kids out unattended as tantamount to selling them to Epstein, and so I'm just like ... what the fuck, man, of course their all on tiktok

Amy Dentata @amydentata5/23/2023, 3:12 PM

crime stats are incredibly low compared to previous eras and research has shown it's mostly family members that are a danger to kids, yet people still believe in Stranger Danger

Annie D @ann-arcana5/23/2023, 3:17 PM

it's so wild because like, I grew up with stranger danger but I still had more freedom than any of the kids post Chris Hansen

Amy Dentata @amydentata5/23/2023, 3:37 PM

same. very same. i can't even imagine being locked up like that. it's not a good idea

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy5/23/2023, 3:59 PM

Yeah and the weird thing is my parents weren't the permissive type, they were very strict about some things, but "never leave the house" wasn't one of them. If anything it seemed like the other way around in my town in the 90s - indulgent parents gave their kids rides wherever they wanted, strict parents said you've got two good legs and I'm not your chauffeur.

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy5/23/2023, 3:20 PM

my friends and I did break into military installations!

(admittedly we lived on an Army base so this applied to any time we went anywhere we weren't supposed to. most notably an old bunker that turned out to be full of bees.)

and yeah, I don't know anyone with teenage kids very well, my peers who have kids mostly have babies or grade-schoolers, but it does seem increasingly accepted that children should not be unsupervised for one moment and that would have made my childhood unbearable.

Annie D @ann-arcana5/23/2023, 3:28 PM

it's a curiously american thing too, or at least an anglo thing? 'cause in Finland i'd see like 8 year olds just taking public transport to school in the mornings and stuff

Amy Dentata @amydentata5/23/2023, 3:38 PM

anglo americanism is all about obsessive control so that tracks

Cliff 🦖 Pervocracy @pervocracy5/23/2023, 3:43 PM

I don't know? I'm American but lived in the Marshall Islands from age 7-9 or so. I was free-range there but it was also a tiny island so you couldn't really get lost. And then when we got back to the US I didn't really go back on-leash, I was allowed to walk/bike around the neighborhood at 9 and I think I started taking public buses by myself at maybe 12? IIRC this was on the early side but not scandalous in the mid-90s. But things have changed a lot since then.

Nire Bryce @NireBryce5/23/2023, 6:33 PM

so the fear campaigns there were for the same reason -- the internet made kids realize things about themselves (while also exposing them to risk), and the risk was overblown because the people loudest about it were pushing for control instead.

it's hard to stuff the ballot box the long way around if your kids keep defecting before they reach the voting age.

Annie D @ann-arcana5/23/2023, 7:37 PM

there is a very short distance between "won't somebody please think of the children" and the 14 Words, and boy does it get harder to deny it's deliberate

Joe @thetallestjew5/23/2023, 3:34 PM

i think another thing society hasn't contended with properly is the political disempowerment and objectification inflicted upon children. like the reason that that wouldn't fly and would be abusive if done to an adult is because the way in which a parent has complete authority and control over their children is limited to situations like brittney spears' conservatorship and we all do agree that that's abusive.

i think there are a lot of well-meaning liberals (and even moderates/gently conservative people) who are nervous about the effects that social media and electronics usage had and have on kids' thought patterns, and who wouldn't say that they think children should be legally considered their parents' property. but, those same people operate from the assumption that any legal decisionmaking on behalf of a child must be done by their parents and their parents alone, and drawing that to its logical conclusion gets you to some pretty uncomfortable conclusions about the autonomy that children are allowed to have. one of which being, the conclusion that restricting childrens' social media usage is 1) an available choice and 2) the right choice.

big agree that the disappearance of "third spaces" contributes to this though, plus the increased and ever-increasing lethality of the typical car on the roads to pedestrians. kids can't hang out "at the playground" or some such because doing so requires crossing a 6-lane highway that didn't exist when their parents were kids and they can't drive a car in order to do so, virtual spaces are the only free ones left that can allow them to socially cross those distances that their parents used to cross physically.

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