<story><title>30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok</title><url>https://www.honest-broker.com/p/30-of-children-ages-5-7-are-on-tiktok</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pesfandiar</author><text>This is sad. As a parent of a grade-schooler, I feel helpless with a complete lack of awareness around this. It feels as if everyone is calming their kids with opiates and Xanax, and no one bats an eye because that&amp;#x27;s what everyone else is doing.&lt;p&gt;Even if you&amp;#x27;re aware of the mental health issues associated with social media use, you have the option of either giving up and losing your kid to the phenomenon, or giving them FOMO and complexes by depriving them of a phone.&lt;p&gt;The only positive trend I&amp;#x27;ve seen is school districts banning smartphones. That could relieve some of the social pressure to hook your kid up with a smartphone so early in their life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>AlexandrB</author><text>&amp;gt; or giving them FOMO and complexes by depriving them of a phone.&lt;p&gt;I had plenty of friends when I was young that had restrictions on &amp;quot;TV time&amp;quot;. My parents, in contrast, were very &amp;quot;hands-off&amp;quot;. I&amp;#x27;ve never heard people who are now adults who had &amp;quot;TV time&amp;quot; restrictions express a lot of FOMO or regret about it. Some frame it as &amp;quot;my parents were strict&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;my parents were a little overbearing&amp;quot; but that&amp;#x27;s about it.&lt;p&gt;Obviously I understand that it&amp;#x27;s not the same thing since phones are a 2-way medium and can sometimes be a lynchpin for communication these days, but it&amp;#x27;s not &lt;i&gt;that&lt;/i&gt; crazy or unprecedented either.&lt;p&gt;What&amp;#x27;s talked about less (and I suspect the cause of a lot of reluctance to take phones away) is how parents now track their kids&amp;#x27; whereabouts using smartphones and apps[1].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;may&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;honey-lets-track-the-kids-phone-apps-now-allow-parents-to-track-their-children&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theguardian.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;2022&amp;#x2F;may&amp;#x2F;01&amp;#x2F;honey-lets-tra...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>30% of Children Ages 5-7 Are on TikTok</title><url>https://www.honest-broker.com/p/30-of-children-ages-5-7-are-on-tiktok</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>pesfandiar</author><text>This is sad. As a parent of a grade-schooler, I feel helpless with a complete lack of awareness around this. It feels as if everyone is calming their kids with opiates and Xanax, and no one bats an eye because that&amp;#x27;s what everyone else is doing.&lt;p&gt;Even if you&amp;#x27;re aware of the mental health issues associated with social media use, you have the option of either giving up and losing your kid to the phenomenon, or giving them FOMO and complexes by depriving them of a phone.&lt;p&gt;The only positive trend I&amp;#x27;ve seen is school districts banning smartphones. That could relieve some of the social pressure to hook your kid up with a smartphone so early in their life.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>squigz</author><text>(I&amp;#x27;ll preface this by saying I&amp;#x27;m not a parent, and I don&amp;#x27;t raise children. I imagine it&amp;#x27;s not an easy endeavor. But...)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; you have the option of either giving up and losing your kid to the phenomenon, or giving them FOMO and complexes by depriving them of a phone.&lt;p&gt;Are these really the only 2 options you see? No &amp;quot;teach your child about the issues with being on a phone all day&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;set reasonable restrictions on phone usage&amp;quot;?&lt;p&gt;Edit: People replying to this comment seem to have forgotten the role of parents.</text></comment>