Ken Starks of the Reglue Project has written the details on how they guide participating youth away from junk sites like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and similar sites and towards useful, learning-oriented sites. He talks about which educational sites have shown to be most popular and singles out two exceptionally good ones.
Those who have followed Reglue.org over the years know that we place a strong emphasis on STEM topics and education. "STEM" is the given acronym for science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Linux is superbly well-tooled for these purposes and every computer we place with a financially disadvantaged student is Linux-powered. Now, that might sound like a steroid-fueled buzzkill to most, but in researching the online STEM subject matter, we found that we could actually make it fun. Yeah. Science....go figure.
The amount of STEM-related online content is massive and there is no shortage of content that is developed for the age group Reglue targets. The challenge was to find the content that captured and held their interest. Kids, right?
Therein lay the challenge.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Hartree on Monday May 20 2019, @02:56AM (4 children)
It may work with some kids like the pre-selected group in a STEM oriented program like Reglue, but with most kids I predict it'll be as effective as a program to promote eating kale chips instead of Doritos.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday May 20 2019, @03:05AM (2 children)
Are they nacho cheese flavored kale chips? Because if that's the case, I'm in.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Hartree on Monday May 20 2019, @06:11AM
If you drown anything in enough cheese it's usually edible. but then again, the cheese by itself might be even better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @11:23AM
Looks like u never learn, do you?
If that's the case, reglue is not for you, because, like, it's for education.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Monday May 20 2019, @01:16PM
I agree for the most part. On the other hand, in his article he mentions that the video source the kids liked the most, Joe Scott, is "iced tea through the nose funny". That helps a lot.
My teenage son mixes his time on social media and his watching of Fortnite trolling videos with watching some videos by Michael Reeves, who builds silly robots. "I'm the Elon Musk of bad ideas, if he was three feet tall, Filipino, and dumb." Mark Rober and Adam Savage also have a lot of technical videos that are entertaining, if not as hilarious (or obscenity-laden) as Reeves' content.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @03:56AM (4 children)
It's not STEM you NAzi! It's STEAM. A is for Art, because Art is now on par with the hard sciences that built the civilization, Racist!
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday May 20 2019, @04:21AM (3 children)
Huh? I thought Steam was a copy-protection scheme.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @04:41AM (2 children)
I thought steam was the best way to clean my GOOPy vagina.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @12:12PM (1 child)
Who doesn't like steamed clams?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 21 2019, @02:16PM
Superintendent Chalmers
(Score: 5, Insightful) by krishnoid on Monday May 20 2019, @04:59AM (9 children)
What do all of those things have in common? They're all about communication with other human beings -> communication with your peer group -> communication with people you personally like -> communication with people you personally know. And all pretty much slice-of-life type stuff. If you consider that 'junk', it's either that it *is* junk and that kids need to be guided away from it, or it's something that human beings need and get value from, and judging them as 'junk' discounts that need/value out-of-hand.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @05:16AM (4 children)
Not really. The junk sites are about surveillance capitalism and have designed their user interfaces to be as addictive as possible in order to maximize time spent on screen. That's very different that communicating and time spent with such interfaces is by definition unproductive. If the interface was efficient, it'd be a matter of signing in, getting something done, and then going away happy. What happens? The opposite. It takes forever to fiddle with the interface and everyone goes away unhappy. There are no safe levels of social control media. Use it a little and become a little unhappy. Use it more and become more unhappy. Use very much and become very unhappy. Study after study verifies that.
Further, what is actually being communicated via social control media? If the messages went straight through in chronological order, then maybe you'd have a point about communication. However, with algorithmic sorting putting the incoming messages into a completely different sequence, it is even more clear that the social control media sites are simply about mass influence on top of the surveillance business model.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bobthecimmerian on Monday May 20 2019, @01:30PM (3 children)
Actual communication may be a byproduct of these sites, but it very much is part of them. There are no ads in Facebook Messenger communications or Twitter direct messages (the ads will be all around the conversation, but not in the middle). People don't engage to be influenced, they engaged to see the baby pictures from their cousin that lives four hundred miles away.
I'm an FSF member, but when we label proprietary products as first and foremost influence and advertising sites we just alienate people. That's like calling an Xbox a DRM box. That's absolutely an essential part of it, but people don't go to Target to buy an Xbox because they want DRM.
Further, I have a Mastodon (fully open source) social network instance, and it's 90% as addictive as the proprietary services. A lot of the appeal of these services is innate to human nature. In real life, if I want to discuss the Portuguese soccer team, or nanobot technology, or treatments for foot fungus I might not have anyone within ten miles that's interested in the topic at all, let alone interested in the topic at the same time of day and available to talk. With social networks, even open onces, I can almost certainly engage someone somewhere. That's incredibly alluring.
(Score: 3, Funny) by krishnoid on Monday May 20 2019, @07:58PM
I see your point -- your ideas involving nanobot technology to treat Portuguese soccer players' foot fungus are intriguing to me, and I wish to subscribe to your social media instance.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @08:53PM (1 child)
"I'm an FSF member, but when we label proprietary products as first and foremost influence and advertising sites we just alienate people. That's like calling an Xbox a DRM box. That's absolutely an essential part of it, but people don't go to Target to buy an Xbox because they want DRM."
i have limited sympathy for "people" who willingly sell their children's future out for perceived convenience and status.
(Score: 2) by bobthecimmerian on Wednesday May 22 2019, @05:30PM
If I restrict the devices and gadgets my kids can use because of software freedom, I guarantee this will be the result: when they reach adulthood and move away, they'll get all the devices they've always wanted and pay even less attention to my views on these topics than they do already. I see the choice of a gaming console or iPhone as a choice between freedom and slavery. They don't, and all the pontificating I do on the topic just closes their minds further against me.
If you have a way to convince my kids to freely forego these monstrosities, I'm all for it. Let's hear it. Otherwise, every restriction I apply today just makes them a bigger slave to DRM and anti-privacy products in the future. I've got to win them with rhetoric when they're adults. I may still lose even then. But I'm guaranteed to lose if I just make fiat decisions now.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Monday May 20 2019, @05:57AM
Communications are important. Unfortunately, those social media platforms seem to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator among people. Sure, you can find groups on each of those platforms that share higher goals, and higher subject matter. But, the vast majority of those platforms are dedicated to crap, while being heavily mined for data, and exploited for advertising. There is little difference between those platforms today, and television throughout most of it's history. Trash.
I can't say that you are right, I can't say that you are wrong, because you make a valid observation of the human condition. What I will say is, we have done it all wrong, mostly because all of those platforms are designed to exploit the humans who use the system.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @09:46AM (1 child)
Your comparison operators are the wrong way around in terms of emotional value.
Communications with random people < communication with peers < communication with people you like < communication with people you know.
Your "one of these things" is all about promoting the least-valuable communication there is. That qualifies your "one of these things" as junk, regardless of whether some people can use the same platform for more valuable communication too.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 20 2019, @11:31AM
See also "member access operator" the "arrow" specialzation, in CP preference [cppreference.com]
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Monday May 20 2019, @04:35PM
In other words: The bazaar and the cathedral.