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1. Embed this notice
   juliette (juliette@mastodon.green)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 01:53:58 JST juliette

   My thoughts on social media bans everywhere is that if you're taking digital connections away from teens, you better make sure they have third spaces for physical connection, and give them options for transport that is not "parents drive us around" otherwise all you're creating is isolation.
   And you may not need a social media ban if you start by preserving and creating those third spaces. #SocialMedia

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 12:16:25 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @juliette "Variety of options for socializing" that doesn't include full access to internet is a non-starter. It does nothing for kids who don't want to socialize in person, who feel unable to, who have nothing in common with other kids in their locality, etc. It just serves neurotypical- and other in-group supremacies.

   • Embed this notice
     juliette (juliette@mastodon.green)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 12:16:26 JST juliette

     in reply to

     We need guardrails in social media, for everyone’s well-being:
     - stop endless scrolling
     - end advertising based on history and social media behaviour
     - support parents and teens to put freely chosen boundaries
     - GIVE TEENS A VARIETY OF OPTIONS FOR SOCIALISING
     - stop thinking we’ll end bullying by banning the medium and work on root causes
     - fund real, effective mental health support for those going down unhealthy digital roads.

     4/4

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     juliette (juliette@mastodon.green)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 12:16:27 JST juliette

     in reply to

     The main reason there is a push back on teens’ social media use is the impact on bullying primarily, and the difference in what adults see as real socialising. But while this is happening (and I’m not going to pretend it’s not), banning teens from social media as a response is not just throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it’s replacing the bathwater with petrol. 3/4

   • Embed this notice
     juliette (juliette@mastodon.green)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 12:16:28 JST juliette

     in reply to

     Woops, this seems to have struck a chord. I’ll expand:
     In the last decades (probably the last century actually) spaces to just hang out in public have decreased, while roads have become less safe for light road users - pedestrians and cyclists, which teens overwhelmingly are.
     Additionally, online spaces have become a refuge that didn’t use to exist for teens looking for communities that are hard to find - anything from very specific nerdy hobbies to LGBTQ+ groups. 2/4

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Wednesday, 10-Dec-2025 14:20:58 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @juliette Hot take that shouldn't be: Any effort to ban kids from the internet and force in-person local socialization is a form of conversion therapy and inherently abusive.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 15-Dec-2025 10:34:50 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Epic Null

     @Epic_Null @juliette The default that's already there is "convert to normal or be condemned to loneliness and being made to feel bad about yourself without any voices to counter that and validate you". Work to accommodate in-person socialization isn't needed for that default to happen.

   • Embed this notice
     Epic Null (epic_null@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 15-Dec-2025 10:34:51 JST Epic Null

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @juliette So what is the take of "Those who want to ban kids from the internet aren't even interested in doing the work to accommodate in-person socialization, indicating that they aren't even trying to engage in conversion therapy - they are just straight up not recognizing that children and teens are people"?

     Rich Felker and Paul Cantrell repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Epic Null (epic_null@infosec.exchange)'s status on Monday, 15-Dec-2025 10:35:14 JST Epic Null

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @juliette I certainly wouldn't say I see a lot of "Pro safe-streets" discussion from the people who push to ban the internet for children. Or "Build more parks". Or "Open more child-friendly stores". Or even "Build denser housing so kids are closer to other kids". Or even "More libraries! Safe routes to school!"

     You know, conversations that would emphasize opportunities to socialize in person.

     It's just "Remove them from the internet"... and it's like "And let them go WHERE?!" Because ultimately, I know there is no "where". Not the streets, the parks, the library, the internet...

     The goal seems ultimately for the children to not exist

     And that makes a lot of sense when you consider that change often comes from the youth... but that makes it less okay, not more okay. If you want to keep kids from organizing to create a new movement, you can just... keep them from meeting. It's the same isolation we are used to today just... more!

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Miakoda (hellomiakoda@pdx.social)'s status on Monday, 15-Dec-2025 10:52:33 JST Miakoda

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias @juliette I'd have literally committed suicide in my pre-teens without the internet. Socializing in person as an undiagnosed autiistic kid with other mockable disabilities was just not gonna go smoothly. In fact, one of the times I really tried, I was sexually assaulted by a classmate. *sarcastic thumbs up*

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Monday, 15-Dec-2025 12:16:09 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     • Miakoda

     @hellomiakoda @juliette And this is exactly what the people proposing these laws want. 🤬

   • Embed this notice
     Morgan ⚧️ (raphaelmorgan@disabled.social)'s status on Tuesday, 16-Dec-2025 05:36:51 JST Morgan ⚧️

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Epic Null

     @Epic_Null @dalias @juliette IDT the goal is for kids not to exist. I think it's for them not to develop as people. For them not to grow into individuals who can realize that these systems are unfair and their parents are abusive. My generation grew up with internet-facilitated sex education, abuse education, and history education. The rich people who built the education systems to starve us of that information don't like that. Nor do groomers or abusive parents.