Ask HN: How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

You don’t need to worry that much. Most people turn out pretty OK despite their parents screw-ups and best intentions.

Limit the amount of exposure to social media and talk to them. There are no shortcuts.

Don't cut off completely, but limit, talk to them about it, show examples of when it is a positive impact, show examples of negative impact.

My 7 year old gets access to YouTube and that is about 4 hours per week, split between Saturday morning and Sunday morning. His content is of his choice but we make sure he watches something interesting and we have discussions about what he watches: some cartoons and science shows or instructional videos. As far as social media goes, we try to keep it as far away as possible and instead fill his time with a lot of activities and sports and daily time spent outdoors. I noticed when screen time exceeds 4 hours a week he feels bored and having some minor mood issues.

Set clear boundaries for screen time, monitor content, encourage open communication, and promote offline activities to balance social media's influence on your children.

At my kids' school (UK, ages 5-11), many parents have signed an online pact to agree not to give smartphones to their children:

https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk/

The website lists the number of pacts, broken down by school and year group.

My kid is in year 1 (age 5) and the website received pacts on behalf of 42 out of approx 60 children in this year group.

Hopefully with a little more publicity, the remainder will agree to sign the pact too.

When kids were young (< 13), kept them off it for as long as possible. In fact, it was forbidden. Friends/colleagues thought I was a tyrant (and some thought I was an idiot) for trying to shield my kids this way, but those were the rules. Eventually, I had to capitulate. But even now, I regularly check in with the now much older kids to discourage worthless hours of doom-scrolling.

I have a kid (5~8 range) and what we did was to limit PC consumption, avoid getting our kid a tablet and cellphone. It has been really good and my kid still has his/her innocence intact. Hopefully this will continue until adolescence. We're also trying to put the kid in different outdoor activities as well as playing with him/her (chess, uno, etc...). It's not easy, but is doable.

My take is to defer them having an unlimited internet access as much as reasonably possible + build trust.

I don’t believe blocking things from a position of authority would work well for the most kids longterm.

I play Roblox with my kids age 11 and 6. I grew up with the original Nintendo when I was seven. The older child is allowed to use YouTube to look up learning videos and cat videos. Screen time is strictly limited to 15-30 minutes a day.

I have 3 daughters. This is kinda working for us, with ongoing negotiation.

- No phones before 8th grade

- Phones start out locked down (talk/text only)

- Enable select apps (e.g. Camera, Duolingo) with proven responsible behavior.

- No social media apps or accounts

- Youtube and similar are blocked at the router at home

- Computer (Chromebook) use is supervised, mostly

- No phones when you have a group of friends over. Yes I will confiscate them.

So we compromised on giving them devices/phones (with restricted access) but in return, got them to agree that they will not use social media of any kind at least until 18.

I think it is very difficult in today's world to prohibit completely. It may create more rebellion down the road and I like to be open with my kids. A little bit of device is not end of the world as long as you control it which we do.

This is unpopular but I don’t gives a shit:

1. Children don’t need a cell phone until high school.

2. Block social media at the house with a PiHole.

3. When your kids get sad about how unfair is it they aren’t popular or don’t have access like other kids remind them they aren’t paying for it.

My kids aren't interested but as far as I can tell it doesn't have a huge impact on kids. And I don't believe there's any convincing research to support it's dangers. I tell my kids to not believe everything they see online but that's about it.

It’s easy. Don’t let them have it.

They did not have screen time without me watching with them, discussing what we were watching. Also, paying for no ads was a big benefit, but we talk about ads to make sure they are prepared for the psychic assault.

Going thru this now with an 11 yo and 14 yo.

It’s a non-stop, swash-buckling battle to get them to put down their phones and do literally anything IRL. Their attention has been completely hijacked, their childhood robbed from them, and I feel like it’s pretty much a total parent fail on my part. But it’s the same with all their friends too. Shameful and sad and just wrong

At the risk of ridicule, I think we need to incentivize kids/people to use social media less. Think, “Touch grass. Earn points.”

Faroff dot fun

It's sad but teach them to use an LLM so they know where to find the best response when they are being bullied online.

Device time limits and prerequisites, and periodically check-ins (hey, what are you doing/watching?)

Even with all this, it's obvious that the influence is very strong

(Father of children ages 7, 5, and 2.)

3 thoughts, ordered from most concrete and practical to most speculative.

Concretely, how do I do this? My kids go to a Waldorf school. (waldorfeducation.org) Is it expensive? Yeah. But, among many other benefits, you're automatically joining a conspiracy of parents dead set against tech-ified childhood. (A HUGE number of whom, you know, _work in technology,_ which tells you something.)

Second, and more reflective: I find that as a general matter, I spend more time thinking about how to call my kids toward things rather than away from things. Yes, social media and TV and video games will fill attention voids. But only if there are voids. The stereotype is that a parent will try to keep kids from doing 12 million things, but really you spend your best parenting effort trying to get them to love or value about 4 things. If you succeed, avoiding destructive habits and behaviors is much easier.

Third, and most speculative but most optimistic: I think we have hit peak social media for teens. It feels a lot like that point with cigarettes where everyone was still addicted to nicotine but nobody was pretending it was cool or sexy anymore. If you don't have kids yet, then society has 10-15 years to get its act together on this stuff before your kid is in the really dangerous age range for bad mental health outcomes from being drowned in tech. Could it remain this bad? Sure. But it's (literally) a generation from now in every respect: culturally, technically, politically, and socially. There is momentum for reform at many levels: legislative, private, school-level, and social. You have time for several of those reforms to fail and iterate. Someone will have figured it out by then. You may have to move—or join a cult—but I promise your kid will be worth enough to you to go find those people and live among them.

This is an interesting question which will lead to interesting answers on its own right, but be aware that by the time you have children your worries will already be outdated.

Not putting your infant in front of a screen to shut them up is going to be an evergreen good recommendation, but social media will have changed drastically by the time your kids are old enough for it. More importantly, our attitudes around it will have changed. You can already see countries and communities adopting social media bans on children, so in ten years you can expect that the main things to worry about will be different. Today, I worry that adults just gobble up any misinformation they read regurgitated by some rando or an LLM without critical thinking.

Don't let them use it. Are you fucking dumb?

Don't let them use it. Are you dumb?

My experience from parenting two children to adulthood and being way too lax about devices led me to roughly the following rules for the rest of my kids:

1. Absolutely no phones in bed at any point of the day. Dpublecheck at bedtime that the phone is where it's supposed to be.

2. I vet every app on the phone.

3. Web browser is whitelisted.

4. I vet every contact on signal/whatsapp. No other messaging apps.

5. When they get access to a computer, I let them know that I can know everything they do with it. Also, the computer is stationary in a central place in the house.

When they complain that their friends have more rights, I will lament the unfortunate situation where I cannot dictate the rules of other families.

I'll obviously revise these rules as they grow and I get the feeling that they can handle it. The default mode for parents must always be that they can not.

Ours are now a bit older - 17 and 20. So - on the one hand, I have no experience of kids who have lived an "always-digital" life. On the other, I feel I've learned quite a lot about how to think about this in a feasible / managed kind of way, and I think (?!) that we've emerged with two reasonably balanced kids who have both "real" and "digital" lives and a somewhat realistic world view. As a concerned nerd I've also been on the case from the beginning, worrying about it, trying different approaches, etc.

My strongest opinion is probably about the age that kids are exposed to this stuff, and the role that parents take (or - more often - don't take) in defining what is ok and what isn't ok. The headline here is that kids have too many gadgets and too much exposure to the online world, and they have this too young. IMO, it is not ok for a kid of 7 to be spending all their time looking at screens, let alone a kid of 3 or 4. I mean, really, I don't think it's ok for my son of 20 to be spending all his time looking at a screen either - but in that I now have limited (no) control :-)

In this - sorry - but parents of younger kids are often complicit. Granted, we all face huge pressure from all corners and I totally take on board that social media and the digital world in general is built in order to make us addicted, and our individual power is limited. But... parents often don't say no enough. It's understandable - they're tired, the kid is kicking off, pop a screen in front of them, job done. But - parenting is hard, and it's always been hard, and you have to work at it - whether it's learning to read, fixed bed times, eating vegetables. Letting your kid get away with stuff is going to bite you / them on the ass at some point. A screen is not a golden bullet, and as we all know it's also often actively harmful. So, sometimes you'll have to say no, and the kid will cry, and you'll be the bad guy - but that's ok. It's always been ok, it's not abusive, it's about setting sensible boundaries.

The thing is, you're not going to stunt your kids' social life or anything else by not letting them have a phone until they're 13 or 14. And - tough if they say "all my mates have them" - that's been the argument since I was a kid and Matt over the road had a Grifter and I didn't. My mum didn't take that shit back then and nor should parents now.

The "but all their friends are on there, it's how they communicate now" thing - I mean, yeh. But - if I'd spent 20 hours a day talking to my mates on the phone or even in person my mum would have (rightly) freaked out. It's not ok, and until they're 16 or 17, and even beyond! - it's ok to express your opinion and apply pressure as much as you can within the constraints of your world / network. After all, you're (probably) in charge of the PiHole, their phone payments, whatever - so you do have an element of control. And as the old trope says - "while you're living under my roof, you play by my rules"...

In practical terms - no phones in bedrooms, limited screen time, no screens (ever) at the table during mealtimes, some parental monitoring of what apps are installed, keeping tabs on email inboxes for younger kids. All the usual stuff.

Finally - lest I sound like a loon - all of this should be done with open dialogue, even from a very young age. Talking about access to pr0n, safeguarding, why unfettered access to social media isn't great, what harms this stuff may do, why you know better as a parent - all of this is best done in an open, friendly way. Open and friendly does not equal "parents are a pushover" - but this works best in my experience when you're very honest about why you have concerns and are applying the controls that you're applying.

Good luck out there.

I can already see a big difference between "kids" that are now 20 and those that are 10: parents are now way more aware of how nasty and exploitative social media are.

Ten years ago parents had zero issue handing their used phone to their kid when buying a new one. Now many parents have a "no phone whatsover until at least 13 years old" (some even pick an older age).

Schools too: it's very common now to have school with a very strict "phone stays in the locker or you get disciplined" policy.

I did buy my 10 y/o a "phonewatch" (I'm not calling it a "smartwatch" for it's really dumb). A real one, with its own SIM card (funnily enough it's a real, physical, SIM card, not an eSIM). So she can do what a phone what supposed to allow: give and receive phonecalls. Some people shall buy a dumbphone I guess. Works too. That watch's screen is so tiny and pathetic that it's impossible to anything with it: no TikTok. No Instagram. No nothing. (we're in control anyway, with an app on our phones, of what goes on the "phonewatch").

Kid knows that she won't have a phone before at least 13. Maybe 15. That's the deal.

The thing is: as a parent, you are the boss and you set up the rules. A kid is not the boss.

We're no luddite: she's also one hour of Nintendo Switch play per day. She can have fun solving "code monkey" coding puzzles on a computer. She's allowed to watch a few Minecraft vids.

But mindless media consumerism no a smartphone at 10 y/o, like some of the other kids at school are doing as soon as they're not at school? No way. We simply don't allow that.

> How do you prevent the impact of social media on your children?

By being the boss.

P.S: as a sidenote good luck bypassing the DNS blocker I put in place without an admin account. On my LAN, I'm the boss too. No SIM: no SIM to put somewhere else. SIM subscriptions with monthly allowed data usage set to 0 bytes works darn well too (we've got one such SIM).

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