Besides targeted content and advertising, what could be the basis to claim tha
social media is more addicting to the television that we had growing up?
There have been some psychological findings regarding "clicks/likes" and dopamine that you don't get from TV.
What about META and Youtubes claims that it is failed parenting that has lead to their childs over indulgence in their products?
- Certainly unless we were sick, there were always limmits on when and for how long we could watch TV...
I tend to agree with the companies here. A lot of this could be avoided if parents controled screen time like ours used to control TV watching, video gaming, etc. The trend with a lot of parents these days is to hand their
kid a phone or tablet to keep them occupied which, IMHO, is not good.
Today, devices (Phone, tablets, computers) have sophisticated parental control
to limmit or block access to apps, sites, etc. The only problem is parents no
have to deal with the blowback.
A lot of parents don't like to "deal" and let Junior have the phone/tablet.
Their fault, not the companies', although the companies know this and I
don't doubt use it to their advantage.
Third, if it gets as far as damages... How much harm do you think the two companies mentioned in the lawsuit are causing children?
I do think these companies know there are harmful aspects of their
products. There have been a couple of documentary series that I am aware
of (one on PBS and the other on some other cable station) that tracked
people (high school age in many cases) and their usage habits, and that documented issues with social media in general on people of all ages.
It is sort of like smoking, IMHO. The point where they learned it was bad
for you came long before I was born... and that includes consumers knowing.
However, that didn't stop the cigarette companies from trying to hide/mask these facts with their big advertising budgets long after I was born.
In that instance, yes I think the consumers were partially to blame. I
also think the companies knowning what they knew and still using
manipulative techniques still puts blame on them also.
Mike
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