addendum to the addendum

It's not taking up ALL my mental space at the moment, I assure you, but just a little follow-up to Saturday's blog posting, which was a follow-up to the one from the day before...
All that stuff I wrote about is why I am really terrified about my sons seeing social media in the future, unless things change dramatically.
I have done far too much research into how these things are run, and it's more alarming than anything else going on in this crazy world at the moment. The manipulation of emotions, prompting of behaviours and general methods of controlling what you see really isn't that far away from brainwashing. Everyone thinks they are in charge of their own feeds and they're not. The more you try and make it an individual experience for yourself the worse it gets, because you are interacting with the algorithm that controls it and giving it more ammunition to attack you with.
And we can't underestimate the effect of children being exposed to too much 'real world' stuff at an earlier age than any generation before them. Yes, they have to learn that terrible things happen and death and pain are everywhere, but it's nice to let youngsters avoid that for as long as possible, preferably until it presents itself in their own lives. These days, they're encountering these horrors - sometimes actually seeing actual footage of it - as soon as they're old enough to pick up a device. They are seeing things that NO-ONE, in my opinion, should ever see, much less people of school age. They're having to deal with exposure to things that must be having a deep psychological effect, without getting any support, and sometimes without anyone even knowing what they've been affected by. They're having to 'grow up' at a ridiculously young age, before entering an adult world where more and more people these days are acting like juveniles. And that must be confusing, and will probably only get worse.
So yes - I would love to ban both my children from social media, but I know it is no longer possible. And yes, I would love to see a sensible form of control instilled, with some kind of body overseeing all this stuff and keeping it at a level that is, at the very least, safe for our children. But I fear it is a hopeless dream on my part. 
Anyway, this was supposed to be 'just a little follow-up' so I'll stop now.

RC 25-11-24