Is the Internet Destroying Some People’s Lives? **Mod Warning In Post #131**

"do you vote in protest or for a preferred option"

Okay

Why are you of the opinion that only one option or the other is the only way to go in a free democracy?

I've been voting for over 30 years, numerous times I've utilised my vote for protest and also for a preferred option.

Sometimes my preferred option is to utilise it as a protest vote.

So what are you on about?

I fell down the rabbit hole in my early twenties, it consumed me to the point that I became insufferable, by my own admission. Too much of anything is bad for you. That includes love

So you assume something from my post that doesn't exist, then use your entire post to disprove your own assumption.

Well done.

I wasn't talking about Brexit. I was talking about the US election which was interfered with by Cambridge analytica through a system of social media manipulation which culminated with the US capitol building being ransacked.

But I'm sure you also have an explanation for that.

I don't get it. I'm on the mobile if that affects it or is it esoteric?

I'm fine with the outcome of the bank bailouts in Ireland. Saved 120,000 depositors in Anglo Irish from losing all their money. Guaranteed the deposits of many more in the other institutions. Prevented all the mortgage holders in negative equity who defaulted, from losing their homes.

Banks and Credit Unions are just a collection of customers who have deposits or who have taken out loans. A bailout is a bailout of customers.

Not dude what Trump and Brexit have to do with the thread, apart from being exactly the sort of talking points that get their 90 IQ followers all up in a huff.

Sounds like someone is very angry they were allowed an Atari 2600 back in the day

No it's not, just needs to be controlled for teens and even more so for those who are weak at school or have any issues or gambling tendancies, the same with smart phones, once someone is an adult earning there own living they can do as they like.

A group of male teens ran out on the road in front of us the other night laughing like hyenas, I know from experience in 10 years time they will be the engineers, teachers, IT types, bus drivers, or doctors of the world that's the way the world goes.

It is very easy to blame the object of excess for the issues caused by that excess. And it is not always wrong to do so. We can blame alcohol or gaming or social media or whatever for destroying someone's life and in some cases be correct. Such things are addictive and can grab hold of someone in an awful way that ultimately leads to their demise.

All too often though - and my own entirely subjective feeling based on anecdote and experience is that it is the vast majority of the time - the object of excess is a symptom not the disease. Something entirely else is wrong in that person's life and the outlet they turn to in excess to self medicate is just a symptom of that.

Without a deep dive into your neighbours lives we are all just arm chair psychologists therefore - engaging entirely in guess work. We simply do not know what is going on there any more than you. Which is to say pretty much not at all. But my first guess would rarely be that he is a casulity of gaming or the internet that has made him a "lost boy". I would first be looking for what else is missing or awry in his life that he is hiding from - to find if he has already been "left behind" and has retreated to gaming and the internet to escape.

I can say no more than that therefore from what you have written. Save to say that if it was me in that situation as one of the parents of said boy - the absolute first port of inquiry I would be turning to would be myself. Failed or bad parenting. I would be looking to see if I have failed the child in some way and looking to see what I could do. Starting with tossing every screen and electronic in the house into the nearest charity store so they can make some money and then looking to rebuild by child's future from the ground up without them.

I do not know your neighbours or anything about them. So I do not know if they are good parents or bad parents or what else is going awry in their child's life. All I can say is that I would be looking at myself first and foremost as a parent if I was in that situation - and checking the boxes there first before moving on to further inquiry.

On a side note - somewhat related - I have mentioned before that my kids are relatively electronics free. With at least one user getting antsy because I have mentioned it once too often for their liking. No televisions in my house. Little access to phones. And I see the teenagers in my daugthers life staring at their phones a lot as many of us have. But if their friends come to my house they leave their phones at the door. They do not have to do that when they visit other friends houses. If there are all so addicted to the phones and so forth therefore - then I often wonder why it is my house they most often always want to come to. Could it be they are not all as addicted as we like to think and when a stimulating, engaging, interesting alternative exists they happily take it? Is it therefore the internet, the phones, the social media and the gaming that is failing our kids? Or is it us? The adults?

Indeed. There are happy mediums there I find. Like I do not stand over my children 24/7 screaming "Are you not entertained" in my best Maximus Decimus Meridius voice. They have their own paths in life and entertainments and so on. But I set them on a lot of those paths. And I tended to walk the first steps of those paths with them and in some cases still do.

For example my daughter loves to fire rifles and other guns. I do that with her too. The same with Jujitsu and combat sports. I was building in the muscle memory of certain aspects of self defence and attack since they were toddlers. If you grab any of my kids from behind for example out of nowhere they will instantly adopt a position/posture without even thinking about it that is designed specifically to allow them to slip out and escape when they choose to. Similar to how people can fill out space when you put hand cuffs on them so they can drop that space again and have space to play with to skip the cuffs.

There are other pursuits my kids have though that I started with them but then backed off. But they still do them. And every so often I will try out another one with them and see if they take to it - or if I will take to it - and then either continue it with them or back off.

Contrast this to the parenting approach of handing them a screen every time they pipe up in any way. Anything for "peace and quiet" and to get rid of them and get them out of your face. That approach is not for me. If it works for others so be it. I am not here to critique what anyone else does or does not do. I just certainly would not do that myself. I see for example toddlers sitting in buggies in the supermarket staring at a phone so the parent can get peace while shopping. Certainly understandable. But the parents later wonder A) why their kids are addicted to phones and B) why they are picky eaters and will not eat vegetables and the like. Both issues I think can be approached and often bypassed by a completely different approach to supermarket shopping with a small child.

But as you say the ultimate goal is self management and self motivation. That has to be built into the equation too of course as you rightly point out. I just think there are many ways to get there and for me, the approach I have taken, is a very hands on early in the process one where you walk many paths with them before letting them set off the rest of the path on their own. It certainly a much higher effort / input approach that many others. But it's the one that works for me.

Ultimately though if a child is sitting around scrolling social media for hours and then screaming into a headset on games for the other hours and failing at school and social life and personal health and hygiene and so forth - then I will not automatically assume its a failure in parenting - but a failure in parenting would still be the first thing I would be moving to look at. Rather than assuming it's all the fault of the games, the internet, or the social medial algorithms. But generally in life when I start pointing fingers I always try to point it at myself first - just to be sure - before I point it anywhere else. A scapegoat is always easier than taking too close a look at ourselves I find.

I’m more worried about clowns like Musk being elevated to wise sage status. He’s just pissed off he wasn’t first to develop it.

Lol, what an ironic comment.

Imagine having multiple accounts.