Social media/mmo games.

For boys, the incel and alpha male shit is what I see really affecting their life trajectories. Once they get into those mindsets they start to repel good influences and quickly end up in echo chambers. The only people who will put up with them are equally toxic and they feed off each other and quickly spiral. A good boy can turn into a woman hating rebel that doesn’t listen to any adults shockingly quickly.

Unfortunately, I do not know specifically where this content lives for you to block. I’d definitely start with YouTube and tiktok. Also, talk to your kids about this stuff! It’s great that you’re trying to responsibly manage their Internet access. A lot of parents don’t, and everything you’re protecting them from on their electronics they can easily pick up from others at school. Even if you homeschool to prevent this eventually they’ll grow up and leave the nest. The only holistic way to give them the best shot (no method is guaranteed, they still have free will) is to teach them the critical thinking skills and morals they need to identify and reject this stuff on their own.

Right now I think it’s a three way tie between mainstream social media, online gambling, and right-wing influencers.

Other people covered the sneakily harmful stuff that’s publicly accepted. I’m still gonna say 4chan. I assume it’s still up. I like to think I grew out of it or that I had a good filter as a teen, but I’m sure it negatively affected my views at least for some time. But half of the evil shit just seemed funny. You can’t tell who is serious and who is trolling because they’re all in the same thread together, feeding equally. So now I’m occasionally reminded of the actual death, mutilation, and harm I saw there.

I don’t know what other boards are similar and active. I don’t know what other modernized sites have joined that niche. I’m aware regular social platforms push harmful conspiracy and fringe theories and create their own spiraling echo chambers. 4chan is still a terrible place.

tiktok insta youtube

imo they’re worse than porn.

anything big corporation controlled imo. Maybe not always all the time, but that is actively trying to harm people. They wont call it harm, but that is what it is.

Anything that scrolls infinitely and provides content via algorithm. Shit, it’s harmful for anyone, but especially impressionable teens.

Anything with infinite scroll should not be accessed be anyone under 18.

Algorithm based social media is my second big nono. YouTube can be fine as long as no algorithms are involved.

Any social media app should never recommend connections, my SO works with at risk children and I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard of a kid getting groomed because a rando added them on Snapchat. Random connections enable perverts. Discord is just as bad for the same reason.

Either way limiting screentime is extremely important, but just as important is technological education. Kids these days have no idea how to navigate the Internet because most adults can’t do it properly. Educate yourself always when educating the next generation.

I’d say TikTok and Instagram. I think short form media is probably already inherently bad for attention span in itself but the kind of content most teens especially seem attracted to on those platforms makes it double as bad.

YouTube

I have two kids and I won’t allow them to watch YouTube until they’re teens or if I watch the vids with them.

Between ElsaGate, disinformation, sexism, and just disgusting ads that play on there…and then there’s YouTube Shorts for brainrot…you can’t just blindly allow them access. Even the “kids” version of YouTube is fucking terrible.

I download Ms Rachel’s videos and play those from my Plex server for them if I need a break or have chores/dinner to do and need a hour to distract them. No ads or auto play videos or anything else.

For your teens, best you can do is make sure they use an ad blocker if possible and teach them how to vet info. I hear people at work say the stupidest “alpha male” sound bites and a simple Google search proves shit wrong 99% of the time, yet these idiots gobble it up.

If you’re worried about misinformation, the most dangerous places are main stream media and a bad algorithmic selection on youtube or other “endless scroll” websites.

And the main stream media thing not because it’s obvious nonsense, because they having specific wording and focus you don’t really see until you look for it, so it looks balanced and fine and high quality, but you only get a good sense of what’s going on by reading from multiple international sources, even bad ones and noticing the differences in focus and tone and thinking about it.

If you have a source or person you trust implicitly, be sure to check them in depth from time to time. How they report on different topics and such. E.g. is it always pro or contra something.

Anything could be harmful. They haven’t been taught how to discern whether a source is credible. They’ll just believe what people tell them if they see no reason to doubt. I do think that just because misinformation exists, that doesn’t necessarily mean your teen will buy into it forever. I think being misled is part of the process of learning how to identify trustworthy sources. Rather than controlling access to information, reinforcing your kids’ understanding of logical and evidence-based reasoning will pay off in the long run.

Instagram is my answer

So you think you can explain to a kid that porn is exaggerated and they will not be turned on by harmful practices like strangulation and will not consider them normal?

Big tech social media for sure (especially the video platforms). Their algorithms are predatory as fuck.
Just the other day here there was a guy that killed his wife because she wanted a divorce, and his messages were stuff like “I am an alpha” and shit like that, mentioning stupid “influencers” and “coaches”. This is just one more idiot who was brainwashed by targeted content tailored to create echo chambers that breed extremism because it drives up engagement and ad revenue.