Least odious social network for teens?

I have a former teen.

The person to ask about social networks is your teen.

Because to a first approximation, you're not about to "give a little bit."

You are accepting that your teen can pretty much do whatever they want if they really want to.

That is the great thing about having a teenager. You are establishing the adult to adult part of your relationship.

And that is all about trust.

You have to trust them to try and make good decisions.

That means you have to provide input they can trust.

So that probably means accepting privacy theater as privacy theater.

Good luck.

The platforms people mention in this thread should be irrelevant to your decision as a parent. If your kid's friends are all on Snapchat but you only let him have Twitter because that's what HN says is safe... then you aren't achieving much as a parent - that would be as good as banning social media altogether. Allow your kids to use whatever platform their peers are using and teach them how to be responsible with it.

My kid cyberbullied a kid via a shared google-doc. There really isn't a social network that won't be quickly (ab)used beyond whatever it was intended for.

As a dev: there are pretty much no legitimate use cases for a teen on social media that aren't better served by other means.

As someone who was once a teen: the only one they are going to want is the one they think the cool people are on. By hook or by crook, they will get there.

As a dad: Absolutely not. Throw out all internet-capable devices. Construct a Faraday cage around your domicile.

Where their friends are, then make sure they have good friends. I'd let them pick any network, with the caveat that parents are friended. And the understanding that I have full access to their phone at any time, although I've never once actually looked at it.

Assume that anything you forbid, he can easily access and keep secret from you; and the more you forbid, the more he'll feel justified in doing so.

If they're younger, I'd suggest social-networks-light, through games with social aspects, like Roblox, among us, and Minecraft.

To answer your other question... I'd most want to steer my kid away from the mind-rotting effects of Twitter. But I wouldn't forbid it, just make sure that they understand my contempt. Every time.

I know that this won't help (teens just won't listen, that's what being a teen is all about) but what I'd try to teach a teen is that in no particular order:

1. everybody is fucking around and finding out

2. most adults don't really know what they're doing, so don't even bother about other teens that look cool

3. the most important people that you should be friends with, try to look cool for and have compassion for is yourself

4. FOMO is really a thing and induces a lot of people to do very dumb stuff, some of which will be regretted later

5. 99% of what you see on social media is purposedly crafted and fake

6. you don't everybody's approval most of the time, even in life in general

7. most mistakes are fixable, often times you can make amend

8. some laws are dumb but you should follow them anyway because the risks and annoyances in getting on the wrong side of the court can get very bad very fast.

If a teen could understand these relatively simple points, they could probably use any social network and would probably chose to use none of them.

Twitter. The whole idea of the platform is open communication. Sure, DMs/Private Tweets exist, but so does email and texting... so you have to manage that kind of interaction already.

I find twitter to be less of an attention sink than the others. And the content your teen is consuming (following) can easily be monitored by you if you have concerns.

Good for you trying to take care of your children. I am not currently a parent, so I will have to join the oodles of non-parents telling parents how to raise their kids. You can join the oodles of parents who tell non-parents 'your life is incomplete without children' if you wanna, I don't mind :)

If the teen knows the dangers, and you reinforce the methods how the websites manipulate them, and you show the teen the studies that use of social media tends to affect body image and make one compare oneself with the 1% of the entire world vs his actual peers, then I would let that teen make the decision on which social media to use.

With some caveats that you highly recommend using de-algorithmized views where possible. IDK if Facebook still enables a Chronological News Feed or not, but if it does, highly upsell that, disable like counts, mute listings of retweets, "XYZ liked", unfollow default subreddits etc.

Something fully moderated like https://newmoongirls.com/ is the safest way to go, but it's only applicable to certain demographics and probably isn't what the kids think of as a "social network".

the specific network is unimportant. Good and bad things will inevitably happen regardless. What is actually important is instilling the trust in your child such that they feel comfortable discussing anything that they may experience with you.

Alas Club Penguin is dead

I don't have kids but hope to one day. I've thought a bit about how I'd approach similar scenarios. Take my answer with a grain of salt, as it's probably not one you're going to like.

> If you had to let your kid have a social media account, which network would you feel least concerned about, and why?

All of them are equally as harmful or beneficial as the user makes them. If my child were to allow others' opinions blindly sway them, or if they easily let their emotions get the best of them, then no social network is going to do them any good.

Instead, I would be more concerned about their ability to reason about harsh comments, considering differing opinions, and overall having good critical thinking. After that, it doesn't matter what someone says to them on the internet - they'd be able to have a more thoughtful, mature understanding of a given situation and be able to respond more maturely and appropriately.

Isn't this what it's about, anyway? Sheltering them from nasty stuff isn't really preparing them for the world. The world is a very nasty place. If they aren't secure in their reasoning and emotional control while sitting, safely, in their own home behind a computer/phone screen, then they're really going to have a tough time out in the real world.

> Note that although "alternative" social networks are interesting

This is how you get your kid indoctrinated into anti-semitism or other ideologies. Most "alternative" social networks these days exist as newfound homes for extremist or inhumane groups. There are exceptions, as I'm sure someone upset about my comment will point out, but you're doing what we call in the industry a "bandaid patch" by forcing them to such networks.

> I'm mainly interested in your thoughts on the main social networks that teens use, like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, etc.

All of them spy on you, use your data, do facial recognition, and prey on their users, regardless of age or demographic. As will any alternatives, regardless of what they claim.

As for the "social" effect, it really depends on who they follow/interact with. No platform is going to be inherently better than the other in that regard.

> my teen doesn't seem to care

Because your teen is probably optimizing for something different than you are. They're in a different life stage, after all.

They haven't been through the life experiences to really value privacy yet, as they haven't seen the direct consequences of it being taken away, or had that "wtf" moment when they see private moments shared to the public in one form or another.

This is all part of the learning process. A teen should be a teen, not an advocate. You can educate them all you want but ultimately it needs to be their own choice. The people I've encountered that are the least prepared for life tend to be (though are not exclusively) those who had very sheltering/protective parents.

Being a teen is all about doing things yourself and failing. You don't have to worry about the choking hazards anymore, so let them break some stuff and deal with the results - even if that means ego/reputation/etc being hurt in the process. That's part of growing up.

Just my $0.02.