Yeah they use snapchat and TikTok, with a sprinkle of instagram.
The problem with these are: they offer two features 1) a social feature. You can send DM:s or comment your friends picture of an ice cream 2) Brain-rot algorithmic short-form video feeds where even the most aware adult can easily get lost for hours.
I think this is calculated. If the social vs feed thing were two different apps, parents could easily just allow one and block the other. But now in order to stop the brainrot, I also need to block them from the social bit.
I wonder if there is any way to set up a firewall so you block the instagram shorts feeds, tiktok video, snapchat random vids ,etc but still allow snapchat messaging?
I bet a lot of time goes into scrolling reels, instagram, tiktok and youtube shorts. That's leisure, but not social. Of course you can send people messages and comment on things, but I suspect only a small minorty of the time goes there. Like socializing at a casino.
It’s not mutually exclusive. If you interact with kids today you’ll see that they do both, just like I did with video games and in-person meeting. They’re still human beings.
Sure you can argue the nuances, however this is missing the forest for the trees.
Children don’t grow up in a vacuum. They see how their peers operate, what they talk about, what they are playing with.
Not being able to do that marks you as an outsider.
And when the “toys” we are talking about are phones, video games, and social media, it isn’t just a question of a one off argument or rule.
I have seen a 1 year old, whose parents keep him away from screens and tech, get hypnotized by swiping the screen of an Apple Watch on his aunt’s hand.
SV and Tech had the most money, most people, and the ability to test and scale every idea to figure out what would enrapture adult human brains.
This is not any sort of fair fight. A competition where the old approaches to family and child rearing win against the Tech that has been created.
I agree about being outsiders. Social media (if this is even a well-defined term) is just how people communicate these days. No need for hysteria and banning (I was on Slashdot in the 90s. Was that not social media?).
I think it’s as ignorant to want to ban kids from social media today as it was ignorant to want to ban my generation from video games 30 years ago. The kids at the time thought the adults were clueless people who did not understand technology. Kids today correctly think the same way about adults who are hysterical about social media.
Each parent can decide the time and age boundaries for their kids. But to think a 14 year old is going to accept being excluded from communication with their friends is just laughable.
All popular social media platforms today (snapchat, instagram, facebook) have endless streams of unfiltered short-form media which is designed to addict. I think few people are actually criticizing online communication for kids (though there are concerns about what communities and people they may interact with). The major problem is addicting media which promotes asocial behavior and sucks away the joy and creativity of going through life.
This is a manufactured impression by people who don’t understand these systems and the reality around them. Yes I would have played video games all day as a kid but I had a functional family and friends to engage with. It’s true that if you don’t have functional parents then perhaps all bets are off.
And anyway iPhones provide controls for parents to limit screen time.
A parallel between attitudes about new technologies, does not work when the parallel between the two technologies itself is broken.
I too was on slashdot, back in the early days of 5 digit/6 digit IDs. I’ve since worked in trust and safety, and contributed to research on it, and have played video games enough that it’s the “sport” I prefer.
The evidence and research shows that social media is entirely different than the benign games we grew up with. Zelda, Mario, Golden Eye, Ultima - are not the same as the behavioral skinner boxes that showed up with the advent of FarmVille.
And thats just games - the Skinner box and addictive design philosophy has resulted in direct quotes from people at meta warning their executives that this is going to make life worse for children and teens.
The comparison isn’t between panic about video games. The comparison is about panic about giving kids cigarettes and vapes.
> Still, teens are growing more wary of social media for their peers. Roughly half of teens (48%) say these sites have a mostly negative effect on people their age, up from 32% in 2022. But fewer (14%) think they negatively affect them personally.
What next? Maybe we should wait for the creators of social media tools to be caught on record saying that they did the tests and know it’s harmful?
However I suspect that nothing I say will shift your position.
Yes, because revealed preferences are different. Meta's properties (for example) have billions of users for a reason (me included).
Some people are prone to feeling bad irrespective of social media. One can also espouse the same view about video games (I don't play them anymore for this reason, but certainly did as a child/teenager).
How many Psychologists did Slashdot hire with the explicit task of making slashdot more addictive?
Meta has entire teams.
It's like believing that cigarettes are fine and shouldn't be specially regulated because 50 years ago everyone occasionally smoked a pipe and it wasn't that big a deal, completely ignoring how the two are incomparable, entirely because the industry made it more addictive to be more profitable
This is mostly false. Most AI features are available in some EU countries. For instance, Pixel Studio and Pixel Screenshots are available in Germany, but not in The Netherlands. I think they are dragging their feet on localization (though much Dutch people would be fine with these AI apps only accepting English input).
How is it "mostly false"? I can't access the new google.com/ai (as a most recent example). Localization is not the issue, the EU is clearly singled out due to regulation.
At least amongst Bay Area startups at your stage, a 50/50 split is common. It has its advocates (YC amongst them) and detractors.
Given how common this is, it's peculiar that this VC is bringing this up so early in the lifetime of the company. CEOs often get different refresher packages as the company grows and assembles a board, but you're not at that stage yet.
If your co-founder is happy with the current arrangement then he can just tell the VC no thanks and everyone can move on. It's your company, not your VC's.
More generally, the most troublesome part of all this is that, at your early stage, every minute spent talking about this is a minute not spent on your product and customers.
Wholeheartedly agree. I really don't see any rational basis for this, and it feels like a huge waste of emotional energy.
I guess it would be good to know: What is the good faith argument for detractors in this case? (assuming that in the 50/50 split there is a tiebreaking vote like in our case)
We have the same model as you at the company I co-founded. The only valid worry that comes to my mind is a 50-50 split with no person designated as the boss. But you already have that part sorted.
Yeah and this is where I honestly don't understand (and am suspicious of) the VC firm's take on this.
My cofounder is happy with this, I'm happy with this. We have tiebreaking and vesting built into the equation so there's no gridlock and no one can leave the company high and dry. And neither one of has complaints about each others' commitment (nights weekends, etc you name it we are "all in" and that is our expectation).
Furthermore we worked nights and weekends on this as a "project" for months before even incorporating so did not go into the equity split just on a whim.
It seems like in the cited examples all of these things were missing on some level. TLDR if someone isn't performing and there is cause to fire them that already exists and shifts the power balance significantly towards the CEO.
(Though, to be a bit pedantic about it, kids don't use Facebook.)