Lol. Like corporate social media isn’t creepy.

Almost every kid has felt that they were missing out on something because of parental rules at some point. The kids who had no rules were not necessarily the lucky ones, since good parenting always involves setting boundaries. i’m really not making the “in my time” argument because if we fixed the problems with social media i would have no problem letting my kids use something i didn’t have access to. to me it’s about balancing risks: make it safer, then let kids use it! after all, op is opening the door by making this post. she is directly responding to the expressed desire of her kids and trying to find a safe way to let her daughters access the tools they think they need.

For my part, i don’t consider forums social media. I may be in the minority, but im not as worried about stranger danger or cyber bullying as much as corporate control over content and privacy. i have never used snapchat, but i assume part of their revenue stream involves advertising and selling private data. maybe snapchat is very responsible about these things, but there is no oversight. take facebook, for example: a whistleblower just alleged that facebook targeted teen girls with weight loss and beauty products when it detected that the girls were feeling bad about themselves (say, when they had deleted a bunch of selfies). these exploitative and predatory decisions (to target an individual) are not approved by an ethics board. they are not subject to scrutiny. the only time we become aware of them is when some executive gets laid off and has a sudden crisis of conscience/lucrative book deal. maybe a ban on individualized ads and content feeds for young people would be enough to fix big problems. forums mostly don’t suffer from those problems.

You are right. But if things have changed, they can change again. Many countries are in the process of banning smart phones in schools and are legislating age minimums for social media. In such environments, access to social media becomes much less important. I think a better long-term approach would be to mitigate the risks of social media, and the fediverse is already addressing some of the big problems like corporate control of information and algorithmic curation of content. I like the idea of social media, but i hate the (prevalent) implementation.

True, using a defederated mastodon server as a group chat is “off label”, but i think it could work. I am not a fediverse expert, though.

With her friends, presumably. Why would she want strangers or mere acquaintances on her group chat?

There are more and more kids who aren’t allowed on social media because of its multifarious harms. Don’t forget that 20 years ago, no kids had social media. By all accounts, kids were doing fine back then. Also, OP said that her eldest daughter, at least, has a friend group, so your concern about their social isolation is probably misplaced.

Hah, you are correct

Jury nullification for Luigi. Anything else is injustice.

Ugh, all those electrons straight into the landfill :(

Truly, the replayability is staggering.

Combining fun with short-term goals is what works for me. I started playing squash 10 years ago and I love it. I play 3 times a week and that takes care of most of my cardio. Now when I lift weights or do extra cardio, it is because I want to beat that guy from league, move up a division, etc. Open ended reasons like health or beauty were never enough motivation for me.

I don’t currently hate my job, but i used to hate it. That is point 1: sometimes things get better. Point 2 is that i used to write down all the things i hated about my job. This did not help. Instead i started making lists of things that were good about my job. It was a short list for a while, and sometimes the items were pretty weak (e.g. nice water fountain). seems silly, but doing this put my brain in the mode of looking for a positive. it actually helped get me through some tough days. Point 3 is to work on anything you can find that makes it more tolerable: bring a nice lunch, keep snacks available, use your vacation time (if available). self care was huge - i hated my job every day, but on days when i was tired, it was excruciating. on days when i was rested, it was merely annoying.

Not forever, obviously. But a lot of very small portfolio investors have bought meme stocks in enough quantities to prop up the price for a while. Take DJT, the Trump media stock. The company made less than one well-paid lawyer last year and has no serious business prospects, yet the price goes up. It sure as heck isn’t berkshire hathaway or some big institutional investor buying THAT hot garbage. If someone who rolls coal owns stock in Tesla, it’s not because they believe in decarbonizing the economy; they liked Musk’s nazi salutes and nazi tweets and his proximity to trump. “Owning the libs” is not a tested investment strategy, but my personal opinion is that a whole lotta small-time investors will lose their (very modest) life savings when the stock price of these BS companies eventually collapses.

To a Trump worshipper, this headline reads “buy, buy, BUY!”

If i need wifi, bluetooth, or an app to use a product that shouldn’t need it (eg a toaster, toothbrush) i will not buy it. i also won’t buy a wireless device (say a bluetooth speaker) if it requires an app. I would be willing to pay $500 more to have a tv with no smart features than a ‘smart’ tv. corporations: keep your shitty malware. my phone is a temple.

Totally agree. Especially since in my country, young people are swallowing far-right propaganda at a higher rate than boomers. Canada’s Tater Tots are trying to elect a MAGA candidate right now. Age is not the problem - the well of information has been poisoned.

Life is hard and confusing. Many people are frustrated with the way that the social landscape has changed: relationships, jobs, and economic prospects have all shifted for the worse in developed countries. Young people are the most affected. Every time this happens, a con artist comes along and starts offering easy answers. Sometimes it’s a politician, sometimes it’s a religious leader. Nowadays, it’s often an influencer.

Tate tells men, “it’s not your fault that your life sucks,” and he is right (to a point). After all, people who don’t own houses can’t be blamed for the state of the housing market, right? So who is to blame? According to Trump, it’s brown people. According to RFK Jr., it’s vaccines or food colouring or some shit. According to Tate, it’s women. He tells young men that feminism is surely the reason they are unhappy: the Woke Left is trying to emasculate you! Be an alpha! Follow my simple formula for abusing women and accumulating money and your problems will go away.

Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. This is not a truth that all people can accept. We can fix some of the problems that we are facing, but it will take time, effort, and cooperation. In the meantime, many men are comforted by Tate’s message: women are the reason you are unhappy, and everything can be fixed by returning them to bondage! If you are very young (or just a little stunted), this message is much more palatable than the admittedly challenging option of actually fixing things.

I use the share by email button all the time because it is 2 clicks easier than copying and pasting the url.

waiting is effortless when you have a distraction so good that when they call your name, you briefly forget why you were waiting. i was once tempted to tell the nurse, “hold on, i have 2 more pages to read”