I am a 15-year-old girl. Let me show you the vile misogyny that confronts me on social media every day

[Sympthsical]

162. You're fighting the good fight here

Many of the arguments in this thread are discouraging. "Kids have to be on social media!" is a wild take, and it smacks a little bit of alcoholics discussing why a few drinks after work to take the edge off aren't so bad.

We've performed our 20 year experiment on children's minds. The results are in - mental health ain't doing so well.

It's up to the parents to proactively intervene when it comes to their children.

I think I've mentioned this before on DU, but my then 15 year old niece had to be banned from Instagram by her parents. She was spending tons of time on there with her friends. Welp, she Instagrammed herself into a borderline eating disorder. My brother and sister-in-law would sit at the kitchen table and watch her eat, then surreptitiously monitor her after every meal. It was heartbreaking to witness in person. They were so anxious about what their daughter was being exposed to. But her mother had finally had enough. No more Instagram. End of discussion. Was there pushback and fighting about it? Absolutely. But hey, parenting is rough. They're your kids, not your friends.

People act like social media is the modern equivalent of going to the mall or something. But it's not. It is everything in this world - good and bad - streamlined into one place. Yes, friends are there. So are pornography, violence, racism, sexism, and a hundred other ills. Parents used to be able to control to some degree what their kids had access to. You couldn't go into a sex shop or get a dirty magazine unless you were fairly sneaky about it. Now, it's streamed directly into their eyeballs. A 15 year old girl wasn't waltzing into the bar full of foul-mouthed drunks and hanging out all night. Now that's the atmosphere many of them are exposed to on the regular.

Kids would have stage fright about giving a presentation in front of 15 people. Now everything they say and do is scrutinized and commented upon instantly by thousands of people. They get real time feedback that can play into their worse anxieties. And it is the Internet. It is forever.

This is not "just what it's like" to grow up. There is a permission structure by parents around this. And adults who are "Oh well, whatkinyado? Kids will do whatever they want," about it are actively sacrificing any kind of responsibility as parents to the Internet.

People need to break out of this, "I want to be the cool, understanding parent" attitudes about this stuff. Sure. But you know what you have to be before you can be even that?

The fucking parent.