Non paywall version here: https://archive.li/73Df4

My bud has a kid who is like 13.

Here’s some stuff, roughly, that he’s posted on Facebook about his son:

“Oh my god my fucking kid is going to be the death of me”

“If you think raising a kid is hard try having a kid with learning disabilities”

“I wish I had a normal son”

I have told him over and over that his kid is gonna find that shit, and it will ruin any chance of him having a good relationship with him in the future.

I’ve even posted in some egregious exams outright telling him to delete that shit for his kids sake.

He doesn’t care. He’s a selfish prick who will talk over you about whatever dumb shit comes to mind because he only cares about himself. He will also guilt you into feeling bad shit like not saying happy birthday to him – he’s over 50.

Anyways I’m gonna go have some more whiskey.

One should share even good things (e.g. achievements) of children carefully. I’ve seen parents continuously sharing even minuscule achievements of their children and trying to prove how smart they are as parents, or the children are prodigies.

If they become underachievers (in comparison to how their parents portrayed them), they will find it very difficult to cope with. One shouldn’t burden children with one’s ambitions.

It’s fascinating that zoomers have rejected cutting-edge technology, trading their smartphones for flip phones and distancing themselves from social networks. They’ve been surrounded by technology their entire lives, and feel threatened by its ubiquity. They want to free themselves from the hive mind and just be alone with their thoughts for a change.

I love tech, but you know, I get it. Young adults probably feel like they’ve been trapped in a dystopian future, and desperately want a way out.

I can’t see the whole article, only parts of it thanks to the paywall, but that’s not really much of a surprise.

All of that is on the internet now, and if they ever went viral, there’s almost no chance that they could be taken down. Every single thing about them that was filmed and posted online could very well stay there.

That’s not even counting pages and channels where the children basically get used as content farms, and their lives are nearly constantly on camera. You can’t claw that back, even if the parents had wanted to.

I can’t imagine how it would feel knowing that your embarrassing moments and otherwise private matters were shared with millions of people online. Mortifying wouldn’t even begin to begin to cover it.

Especially if it’s popular enough that it becomes what their name brings up when someone tries searching for them, for things like job interviews. Is that going to start affecting their opportunities and prospects?

Sorry, kid. Mom and Dad pimped you for internet points.

But in your parents’ defense, many of them were completely clueless about the internet and Facebook exploited this without shame. Facebook told them to share their lives and they did, because it was novel and easy, and because the vast majority lacked the experience (what some zoomers now have) or technical knowledge (what some older geeks had) to understand the ramifications of what they were doing.

I have a one year old son (yes I’m a pretty old dad) and y’all are never gonna see him (too bad, he’s adorable.) I – or rather, my wife – has friends who post pictures of their kids on Facebook. Inevitably they ask why they don’t see our son on Facebook and we tell them were keeping him off social media until we think he’s mature enough to decide those things for himself. There usually follows an uncomfortable moment, then responses have ranged from “hmm, that’s probably a good idea” to “well gosh, I just put EVERYTHING up there! My kids gonna totally hate me when they get older LOL” We’ll see how well that LOL ages.

Of course, most are in the middle ground where they post nice pictures while being cognizant of not posting anything embarrassing. That’s still too much for our tastes, but those kids probably won’t be traumatized by a pic of them in their lacrosse outfit or blowing out candles on their birthday cake.