Requestblogging: Social media, the post, and hobbies

[sabotabby]

blogcutter asked "What do you think about Australia prohibiting social media for the under-16 set?

Can our postal service (snail mail) be saved? Would postal banking help? And would it maybe get rid of all those payday loan shops that are a blight on our urban landscape??

How do kids' and people's hobbies change from one generation to the next? What are the practically obsolete ones (stamp collecting? penpals?), the current ones like online gaming, and the emerging ones or the ones we haven't yet seen?"

Those are all really good questions.

Social media ban for kids

I'll start with three statements, which I believe to be true but which are also contradictory.

1) Social media corporations and Big Tech in general are evil and actively detrimental to the existence of life on earth.
2) Children are human beings and deserving of freedom, autonomy, political opinions, and privacy, albeit at a graduated basis based on their maturity (not necessarily the same as their numerical age).
3) The fact that I can go on the internet and encounter the opinion of a 15-year-old is a crime against humanity.

Which is to say that it's complicated. And also basically impossible. I would like them to ban Nazis from social media, and of course they can't manage to do that, so there is not really any way to stop a semi-intelligent 15-year-old with a VPN from avoiding the ban.

While I do think that social media is harmful to kids (and here I would already get more nuanced, because Tumblr is social media, but it's not harmful in the way that Instagram is harmful, and Instagram is not necessarily harmful to all kids), I don't for a second believe that Australia's social media ban, or any other proposed social media ban, has much to do with actually protecting kids. I think it has to do with fear that kids could turn out to be trans, or support Palestine, or learn that their government did and continues to be involved in horrific genocides. "What about the children!" has been a rallying cry since time immemorial for people to shut off their brains and get on board with the latest moral panic, and especially with one of the most slovenly pseudo-researchers of our age, Jonathan Haidt, cited as the eternal expert on this, I just don't trust these people.

I also believe that social media addiction is a symptom of a deeper problem, which is a lack of community connection and public space. That's why it worsened over covid. We long for connection with others. Neoliberalism has restricted the sphere of the public—where are the parks? The community centres? The union meeting halls? The community concerts and dances?—and this goes even further for adolescents, who don't even have a mall to loiter in anymore.

Normal kids would much rather spend time with their friends in meatspace, but we don't let them do that anymore, do we? Scoff at the hosedrinking Gen Xers all you like but at least we were able to walk to school and stay at home by ourselves without our parents being arrested for child neglect. We went to all-ages shows and got fake IDs and went to better shows, we drank underage, and we were mostly better adjusted for it. It worries me much more that none of my students have fake IDs to get into punk shows than it does that they spend time on TikTok, which is one of the few paths of affordable entertainment and socialization open to them.

Furthermore, we have eroded education into credentialing. Kids don't get involved in extracurriculars because they love it and want to meet new friends; they do it because they're resume-padding to get into competitive programs. They're over-scheduled and under-challenged. They're both over- and under-parented. They have no privacy. Their only space to be themselves is to take their phone into the bathroom—the one place where there's probably not a camera—and sneak an un-surveilled conversation with a friend. So of course they get addicted to their one escape.

I often complain that my senior students don't know history, which is to say that there is one compulsory history class, in Grade 10, and it mostly covers WWI. When I ask them what they learned outside of school, the only ones who know anything that has happened ever in human history—let alone contemporary politics—are the ones who spend a lot of time on Tumblr, Reddit, and TikTok (formerly Twitter but now they just get Nazis). That's not to say that every kid is using social media for that, just that social media is filling in for where institutions have failed miserably.

I would love to see more regulation and breaking up of Big Tech monopolies—I think that would create a stronger, more diverse social media landscape. And I'd like to see the traditional media regain its credibility and staffing. I think if we opened up the black box fuelling algorithms it would create positive change for all of us, not just kids. Because as harmful as social media can be for under-16-year-olds, it's not as bad as the genocides that Facebook encouraged adults to perpetrate in Myanmar and Ethiopia.

I also think we should concentrate on harm reduction and teach responsibility rather than ban things.

For more thoughts on this, selki posted this great nuanced episode of Tech Won't Save Us, where Paris Marx interviews Australian journalist Cam Wilson, and it sums up a lot of my feelings as well.

Saving Snail Mail

I love snail mail and I love posties and Canada Post is in fact a very good idea even if its current management can go fuck itself. Full support to Canada Post workers even though I have several cool things in the mail that I would really like to get sometime soon.

I like the idea of postal banking a lot, and this would bring infrastructure to remote parts of the country. Apparently it works really well in Japan. So yes, I'm in favour of that. If it gets ride of payday loan places, so much the better.

I also think that things like mail are necessary for civilization and we shouldn't cede them to Amazon.

Uhh that's about all I got on that one.

Hobbies

You know, when I ask the kids what their hobbies are, they claim to not have any. That's been the case for my entire teaching career though. I'm not sure I conceived of my hobbies as hobbies when I was that age either.

I would say gaming takes up most of their time. Which makes sense—it is very time-consuming and immersive, it can be both social and allow for social avoidance, and there's such a variety that it appeals to all of their interests.

They're individuals, though. Some of them like sports, of course; some enjoy cooking or baking, others podcast or make YouTube videos, some hunt and fish, some build and paint miniatures. I can't generalize. I don't think any collect stamps but a lot collect things like plushies or those awful Funko Pops. Penpals I'd say might still exist in a sense, as some of them have internet friends, which I think is the same thing but you don't have to pay for a stamp.

Comments

[agoodwinsmith]

I know this is demented, but I am old enough that ballpoint pens were new and innovative and scary. We learned cursive using ballpoint pens in grade three. We were not allowed to bring pens to school until grade three, and we could only bring the specific special ballpoint pens we bought through the school.

There isn't any new thing that hasn't scared the people in charge of teachers.

Socrates was worried that having things written down would mean that people's memories would atrophy, and they would wander around pathetically with empty heads..

[sabotabby]

That's true, actually. I think oral tradition societies have better long-term memories.

That's amazing about the ballpoint pens, though! I feel—and I have no evidence for this beyond personal experience—that the kids would take better notes and learn more if they were given a set of those gel pens. I have like the grownup version of those and I enjoy writing with them, whereas regular ballpoint pens and those godawful pencils you get in school are pure torture. Not that the kids take notes but if we have them different colour gel pens they might start to again. They should give me a $10K salary raise as an educational consultant for this thought.

[agoodwinsmith]

I vote for gel pens! The physical pleasure of mark making is seriously enhanced.

Back in the day, while researching something else, I came across an article arguing that many features of literary works (as opposed to non-literary everything else) are vestiges of the memory devices used to memorize such things as Homer's epics, which are not teeny tiny works. Like the "when the eagle lands on the moon" prophecy, as an oral item, precisely ordered words is/are not the point.

I find it interesting that one of the upshots of writing things down instead of memorizing them is that we got a whole religion for whom the written word is more holy/important/sacred than anything else in its system, including the deity.

[sabotabby]

Which, as a reader with memory issues, is great. But any technology is a tradeoff, even that one.

[greylock]

I'm curious when that was? I think we had similar rules at my school, but that would have been late '70s. I'm wondering if that was a hangover from similar thinking.

[maeve66]

I agree with everything you said about social media use and kids, though my students (ages 11 through 14) mostly use YouTube, in-game texting, and MAYBE Instagram... MAYBE TikTok, too. But not really Tumblr (which is too bad). My younger niece got in on the political TikTok (and made me watch a lot of it, which was pretty refreshing, ngl). Then she aged out of it and got more active on Tumblr.

I tried vainly to cling to handwritten correspondence for the LONGEST, but email defeated me in its instant gratification and ubiquity.

As for gel pens to reintroduce writing, I hella concur -- I used to take notes and write letters using a huge assortment of colored pencils, in high school. I color code lots of my notes to this day. I do wish kids would learn cursive, even just to develop a fucking signature, because none of them can do that. When presented with the need to sign something, they carefully print their first name.

Things my students will cop to, as pastimes/hobbies/activities: drawing and art in general; singing, sometimes on private YouTube channels; gaming, of course; cooking; watching K-dramas, C-dramas, T-dramas (Thai shows -- is that a thing? One of my students, a Yemeni girl, claims it is); fanfic (or drawing OCs from fanfic)... you know, it is reassuring me just to tabulate these. I collected and traded stamps and it was fucking stupid, in retrospect. Though I enjoyed coin collecting. And more book reading than my students do, sigh.

[sabotabby]

Some of my kids can do cursive and some can't even read it. Such a strange period of history.

I love when I get a kid who's into fanfic or fanart and drawing their OCs. It's such a delight.

My only old-people hobbies are birdwatching, reading, and maybe beading. Though all the people I know who bead are young.

[dissectionist]

I can’t speak to Thai dramas, but I’ve enjoyed the heck out of some Thai horror movies. If their drama is as fun as their horror, it would be worth watching.

[vass]

(Thai shows -- is that a thing? One of my students, a Yemeni girl, claims it is)

2022 Thai drama KinnPorsche has 13,169 works on AO3.

[ghostpuppet]

https://youtu.be/90WD_ats6eE

*

[minoanmiss]

takes notes

I have to admit I love the epistolary friendzhips I can maintain over the Internet using fewer stamps than I used to.

Re: *

[sabotabby]

Me too. Though I love getting and giving things in the mail, it's such a pain in the ass and by the time it gets there, things have changed.

Re: *

[ioplokon]

That's the fun. So much great literature depends on a letter arriving at exactly the wrong time.

Re: *

[sabotabby]

True, but do I want my life to be great literature? Or mediocre comedy.

Re: *

[frandroid]

LOL

[china_shop]

Thanks so much for linking to that podcast episode. That was excellent (even if the Aussie barely stopped to take a breath *g*).

[sabotabby]

Hah he had Many Feelings and Thoughts. I like him.

[vass]

This Australian's take: there is no way for social media companies implement such a ban without collecting and then managing/storing either IDs or biometrics from everyone who uses them.

This is not only a bad idea, it's such a bad idea that even the social media companies don't want to do it. (Keeping secret "shadow profiles" of the social networks and age/sex/location etc of people who have never had a Facebook account, sure, but being legally accountable for handling everyone's driver's license or how they use our photos? Nah.)

That's without even going into whether it would be just or right to do this to under-16s: I have opinions, but my opinions on that are beside the point compared to how ill-conceived this whole plan is, it's never been implemented successfully in any other place it's been tried, and the government who passed it doesn't know how it will work either, it was a "we'll figure it out" bill.

[sabotabby]

Oh yeah, that is a really good point (he does bring it up in the podcast, but not enough).

I don't want these corporations having that much on me. Absolutely not. That goes double for what I want them to have on kids.

[greylock]

Nonsense.
We have ROBUST cyber laws.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?

[blogcutter]

Wow - thank you for all your astute comments on kids and social media! I'm still processing all the points you made and I'm enjoying reading the reactions of other Dreamwidth members too.

Speaking of paying for a stamp (or not) ... One thing I've always valued living here is that you can write to your (or any) Member of Parliament with no stamp required. Of course I know that it's a purely symbolic democratic right that does nothing to alleviate poverty, but dammit, it's still important to me! That plus the fact of being able to send something anywhere in the country, regardless of distance, for the price of a first-class mail stamp.

But with regard to penpals, do you really think that internet friends are equivalent to snail-mail penpals, either from an economic or a psychic and emotional standpoint?

Economically, you may save the price of a stamp, but you still need a phone, tablet, laptop or other computer, or at least access to one.You still need reliable internet access. And the technology needs to be constantly updated, even if it doesn't crap out on you, and that costs money too.

From a psychological and emotional standpoint, there are even more factors to consider, and I guess a lot of it boils down to the medium being themessage. You feel more connection with the message you're sending if you're writing longhand, whether with pretty gel pen, ballpoints, fountain pens, calligraphy pens dipped in fancy, quality inks or paints, and so forth. As a rule, there's much more planning involved too. At school in the earlier grades, when we prepared any kind of written composition (essay, letter, speech for an assembly or whatever), we were expected to first do a draft, then revise it ruthlessly, present it to the teacher who would also correct it and suggest improvements, and only when it passed muster would we go on to make our "fair copy".

With this kind of training in my rear-view mirror, I tend even now to follow a similar procedure when I'm writing personal letters, especially if it's someone I only write to once or twice a year. I'm conscious of how my words may be felt or interpreted, and also of the time lag between sending a letter and receiving a response. Moreover, I tend to save personal correspondence almost indefinitely. How long do you hang on to your e-mails, or other online interactions? How often have you regretted pressing "Send" prematurely, perhaps when you're in a bad mood or simply in error?

Finally I'd like to comment on hobbies in general, not only those tied in some way to snail-mail or the online world.

You say that the kids you teach often claim not to have hobbies at all. Is that perhaps related to the point you made about eroding education into credentialing? When I look back on how I spent my leisure time as a kid, my fondest memories relate to when I was between about 10 and 16. After that, there was the expectation of looking for part-time and summer employment, settling on a career and what I wanted to "be" when I finished school and there was way too little time to hang out, daydream and "find myself". And to think that back in my young day, everyone was predicting the great leisure society of the future!

Will we still get there, do you think? How will people spent their leisure time 50 or 100 years from now?

[sabotabby]

But with regard to penpals, do you really think that internet friends are equivalent to snail-mail penpals, either from an economic or a psychic and emotional standpoint?

It's not the same, but it has its advantages. The advantages of snail mail are many, as you say (and yeah, I hang on to my mail correspondence forever, though I never look at it! I also hang onto my email forever).

But just as an example, my BFF lives in another country, so we see each other once a year or so. In the meantime, we write very long emails every month or so. But we're also in touch over Discord so quick, casual communication is easy. (Even easier than texting because I have Discord up all the time, whereas I hate typing on my phone.) The types of things we talk about over emails and via Discord are different, but it means we talk more frequently than we used to, and that's good.

I miss actual unstructured leisure time too! I started working when I was around 13, so I never had tons of it, but I remember even back then thinking about how precious it is.

Kids today have less of it and I think adults have less of it than they did when we were young. That's a loss. Another, related loss, is the ability to just do nothing, even to be bored. They can't handle being bored. They don't have an inner world of the imagination. They don't seem to daydream much because they have phones to look at.

Will we still get there, do you think? How will people spent their leisure time 50 or 100 years from now?

Not without a revolution. Hate to be one of those leftists but productivity gains become profit unless we resist.

[greylock]

Cam Wilson is great.
The AU ban is insane. Not for any of the man reasons you mentioned, but it's not hugely popular (also unworkable) and it's a weird issue to fight an election on.

I like the idea of postal banking a lot, and this would bring infrastructure to remote parts of the country. Apparently it works really well in Japan. So yes, I'm in favour of that

I'm reduced to postal banking now since my bank went online. And try finding an ATM.
It's a good idea but, of course, it's no longer fee-free. And post offices aren't exactly a model of efficiency. They're also not hardened against crime.

So I think they're not great in larger, disbursed countries like Canada and AU. The issue is still moving physical cash around and storing it. Banks, at least, were designed for that.

[sabotabby]

Getting kids offline is very popular across the political spectrum. It's absolutely unworkable but I think it's an election winner.

[greylock]

I get wanting to get kids offline/less screen time, but I don't sense a really strong desire to have the government do it, and I sense a lot of opposition to any plan that requires data (PII/biometrics/etc) for *anyone* to access social media/the Internet/pron/whathave you.

Admittedly, I am sure you know many more parents than I do.

[sabotabby]

Parents I know are so fed up with their kids' screen time, but don't have the means to control it at home. They are leaning on someone, anyone, to fix the problem for them.

Most people, kids and adults, don't care that much about privacy.

[greylock]

Most people, kids and adults, don't care that much about privacy.

More fool them. I still believe that will come to feast on everyone's faces with time.

[smhwpf]

Yeah, I tend to think that attempts at banning of this sort are likely to fail and potentially be counter-productive.

Are there ways of steering kids towards ;less toxic aspects of social media? Either the generally better platforms, or better regions of whatever platforms? Teaching social media hygiene? I mean, us adults could do with that.

Also like you say, regulate, break up the social media giants, destroy capitalism, etc.

[sabotabby]

The change really has to be systemic; a certain number of kids, like a certain number of adults, have addictive personalities and/or are looking for any excuse to disengage from the real world. So steering them to better spaces tends to be counterproductive, as they don't listen. Whereas the other things—creating more physical spaces that are free, breaking up the Big Tech giants, de-atomizing our society—change collective behaviour rather than relying on an adolescent's individual will power. Plus will make things better for everyone else.

[ghostpuppet]

You go girl. :) I like getting mail too. :P Hobbies? What are hobbies?? ;)

[sabotabby]

My hobby is whining on the internet.

[ghostpuppet]

XDXDXDXDXDXD Sabot you slay me sista.

[yhlee]

if we opened up the black box fuelling algorithms

TOTAL SIDE ISSUE
I agree with this absolutely; my pragmatic concern, without being someone who works for such a tech company but as someone with multiple contacts in tech, is that we have been at the point where - let's take neural networks. It can be incredibly mathematically nontrivial (or flat-out impossible in any reasonable sense) to even figure out what the rules are in a neural network, because the machine generates it in a way that's not necessarily "readable" to the humans who coded it. I'm guessing that something like the Amazon or FaceBook algorithms are not tuned this way but I'm pretty sure others are. I miss journalism being an actual thing although I remind myself that "yellow journalism" was not a term coined in the 21st century, so nostalgia may be illusory.

[sabotabby]

I think at least in the age of yellow journalism, there was a certain amount of media skepticism wherein everyone understood that what they were reading was hella biased. Whereas now most people think the AI summaries of the news are accurate and objective.