Is society trying to hide the truth from the children?

[Silent_cries]

I just thought about it, and why is it so that children are being wrapped in bubblewrap by society today? Everything has to be so damn child friendly. You can't even as much as say a mildly bad word on childrens tv shows nowadays. Back in the day themes like drugs, mental health and even suicide were common on childrens tv shows, and it's not like children back then were any more damaged than they are today. Is society trying to hide the truth from them? Are they trying to shield them from all the fucked up stuff that's going on in an attempt to brainwash them into becoming pro-lifers or even worse? Or am I crazy?

 

[EvisceratedJester]

Why is it that every single older generation always goes on to a rant about how kids are so cuddle nowadays, when in reality, outside of some improvements in how they are treated, they really aren't. I feel like most of the people who say this shit don't pay attention to the types of things children are watching.

Things like mental health and death are still commonly talked about in children's shows. Hell, a lot of people still prefer children's animated shows over adult animation because it generally more mature. Along with that, there are plenty of things that past children's content shielded from kids, like the existence of queer people. Children's shows today are arguably more open about more complex subject matter in comparison to children's shows of the past. Hell, VLD literally has an episode where there is a shot of Lotor's melted decomposing corspe. I'm not even lying.

Spoiler

In reality, the loss of child-friendly spaces online is actually a huge issue, with more and more children being exposed to things they shouldn't be exposed to.

 

[SexyIncél]

Societies often treat them like little retards. I sometimes talk with children & tell them about world suffering, using places like SaSu for case studies

I mean, I also teach them math, or anthropology, or whatnot. Just casually. What else is there to discuss, after all?

 

[trashprincess]

I was thinking the opposite. With the Internet, children have more access than ever to "non kid friendly media". Nothing from the past really compares to unrestricted Internet access.

 

[Adûnâi]

Everyone has his own truth. I always had this impression that children loved hanging cats, for example. But maybe I just read Ukrainian civil war literature in school? The 1920s were brutal lmao.

 

[psp3000]

parents: *not raising their children and just handing them electronics without monitoring them*

child: *does something bad or dangerous they saw online without the watchful eye of their parents*

parents: THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! *stuff about censorship and parental controls* THAT *insert device of social media app or television network* IS AT FAULT!

this has happened in the past several times already and thought it would stop by now but it has only gotten worse

 

[Final_Choice]

I believe it's in order to preserve the "innocence of a child" so they don't have to think about all the depressing things with the world and society and live blissfully happy (or at least try) during their childhood.

Also advertisements, companies usually only accept deals with platforms that have a clean image to make sure they won't seem bad to the people. This makes it so that platforms are greatly incentivized to have a clean and family-friendly image and uphold it, which then makes everyone in it be forced to do the same. This then influences anyone and anything in the public eye to follow suit in order to not be negatively impacted financially and socially.

 

[reclaimedbynature]

parents: *not raising their children and just handing them electronics without monitoring them*

child: *does something bad or dangerous they saw online without the watchful eye of their parents*

parents: THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN! *stuff about censorship and parental controls* THAT *insert device of social media app or television network* IS AT FAULT!

this has happened in the past several times already and thought it would stop by now but it has only gotten worse

A lot of parents are exhausted and overworked, when a child is fussy or bored - to them it just seems easier to stick a screen in front of their face. I can't really blame them, society makes it difficult for parents, it doesn't give them the time or resources.

I do agree with OP a bit, there's a lot of censorship today - kid's entertainment is an exploited industry, with a lot of cheap and questionable useless filler most of the time. Personally I don't think these themes are necessary so early in a child's development, unless it's to warn or inform. The problem is - going about it in a way that isn't scarring, frightening or overwhelming to the child or offensive to the parent. The reason isn't censorship or to brainwash - it's profit, it's so that the content is ''safe'' from lawsuits, constructive criticism so it's low effort (because who cares right? its for kids) and because children are an easier exploitable target audience (i.e fornite skins, toys, merch and ad revenue).

 

[RosebyAnyName]

My personal experience is being punished in gradeschool for casually saying I might kill myself in the future (didn't realize it would be a weird thing to say, I was bad at understanding social things as a kid). My parents asked me where I learned the word "suicide" from, and I showed them it was from a manga I was reading.

Now my parents blame manga / anime / japanese fiction for my mental health issues, and think everyone who likes it must be a nutjob. All this, while avoiding the fact that I expressed being suicidal as young as mid gradeschool regardless of where I learned the words for it.

It's easier for society to blame "the media" instead of themselves. "Does violence in TV shows cause violence in real life?" "Do video games cause violence?" and even way back in the day, "does rock and roll cause violence?" The corporations that release and market TV shows, video games, music, etc. cave to the pressure because most of the time they don't care about audiences or art, just about not getting in hot water and making your product as appealing to as many people as possible.

Of course, as people mentioned above, kids now have exposure to some of the worst stuff imaginable right at the tip of their screens, so all that censorship ended up being kind of pointless anyways.

 

[Blurry_Buildings]

I'm mad about the playground equipment. The 2000's children got some cool leftovers from the 80s and 90s when they didn't care about injuring the child but of course they had to start phasing the good things out.

What happened to the cool rusty metal spinny thing?? Why are modern day monkey bars and jungle gyms so low to the ground? (I swear I'm not remembering it wrong you could easily put a 3' child on one of those things and have two more child lengths before the woodchips- now it's one 3 foot child hanging from the bars and half a child length between them and the stupid rubber play floor they started replacing all the woodchips with). They're also getting rid of all those weird fountain things where you stand on concrete and a giant (relatively speaking) metal sprinkler sprays you with water. Slipping on the concrete is a valuable life lesson about wet surfaces and floors best learned young.

 

[Silent_cries]

My personal experience is being punished in gradeschool for casually saying I might kill myself in the future (didn't realize it would be a weird thing to say, I was bad at understanding social things as a kid). My parents asked me where I learned the word "suicide" from, and I showed them it was from a manga I was reading.

Now my parents blame manga / anime / japanese fiction for my mental health issues, and think everyone who likes it must be a nutjob. All this, while avoiding the fact that I expressed being suicidal as young as mid gradeschool regardless of where I learned the words for it.

It's easier for society to blame "the media" instead of themselves. "Does violence in TV shows cause violence in real life?" "Do video games cause violence?" and even way back in the day, "does rock and roll cause violence?" The corporations that release and market TV shows, video games, music, etc. cave to the pressure because most of the time they don't care about audiences or art, just about not getting in hot water and making your product as appealing to as many people as possible.

Of course, as people mentioned above, kids now have exposure to some of the worst stuff imaginable right at the tip of their screens, so all that censorship ended up being kind of pointless anyways.

Well yeah, you do have a good point and I realise I might've been a little wrong. I still feel like there's something off about censorship on childrens shows on tv, childrens channels on yt etc.
I'd like to clarify that my thread was meant as a question bc I was wondering about this and not a set statement bc I didn't neccecarily feel that this is the case, I was just contemplating really.

I'll reply further tomorrow bc I'm pretty tired rn.

 

[untothedepths]

I don't know. Kids now basically just watch "skibidi toilet" and that "elsagate" stuff. Doesn't seem very appropriate to me at all. But yeah, I do think that everything is trying to become way too sanitized but then again I don't think children should be on most social media platforms. They need their own space online. I think in reality bills like banning tik tok is just to take control over the internet and strangle hold it. Which it will if that bill passes expect to see a lot of freedoms gone. It was never about protecting children, it was about diverting responsibility of the parent and swooping in for control.

 

[deathslament]

I don't care about children.

 

[sserafim]

Societies often treat them like little retards.

Why?

 

[theboy]

sounds like a conspiracy

 

[SexyIncél]

Why?

Because one function of many societies is indoctrinating the youth. After all, they pushed Socrates to ctb (using the equivalent of SN) for corrupting the youth

i.e. "FOR the CHILDREN"

 

[sserafim]

Because one function of many societies is indoctrinating the youth. After all, they pushed Socrates to ctb (using the equivalent of SN) for corrupting the youth

i.e. "FOR the CHILDREN"

Like the Hitler Youth? Isn't that because the youth are the future? It only makes sense that they would indoctrinate the youth…

 

[RosebyAnyName]

Well yeah, you do have a good point and I realise I might've been a little wrong. I still feel like there's something off about censorship on childrens shows on tv, childrens channels on yt etc.
I'd like to clarify that my thread was meant as a question bc I was wondering about this and not a set statement bc I didn't neccecarily feel that this is the case, I was just contemplating really.

I'll reply further tomorrow bc I'm pretty tired rn.

No worries, I might have misinterpreted your original question. This has been an interesting thread.

 

[sserafim]

Because one function of many societies is indoctrinating the youth. After all, they pushed Socrates to ctb (using the equivalent of SN) for corrupting the youth

i.e. "FOR the CHILDREN"

Hemlock right?