Todays parents are incapable of handling this. That generation of parents grew up with lax controlls on how they used instant messaging and likley see the internet of 2025 as the same as the one in 2003.

Why are americans obsessed with having more access to cats?

In the UK that is the case. Under 18's are not able to enter a contract and if they do they can void iy an any time.

However there are certain exemptions such as regarding provision of food and clothing and other things including contracts to provide a service.

Perhaps its similar here, as the chatbot is a service the contract could be binding.

The experiment is over.

> It wasn't until her son attacked her for taking away his phone

DO NOT LET KIDS HAVE ONE.

They should be using the internet in full view of the parents for homework research only. It is an educational tool, not a pre-teens playground anymore.

When we all did such things as 90's teens the internet was very different vs today, it was new, innocent (mostly) and pretty geeky so the only people really using it were us geeks and hackers and academics. Most "normal" people only used it for email, to replace the home fax machines they never really needed but got anyway for the novelty, later kids were using instant messaging and thats when it all slowly started. Those kids have kids now and the parents never saw the real issue that is todays net, remembering the days of AOL and Yahoo Messenger as being the worst it can get. Now social media and "A.I" have ballooned out and the parents literally have no idea what it is like as a kid online now.

A prime example of this is when a UK documentary series following an experiment in a school where a class of kids were to do without phone/tablets etc for 4 weeks, the teacher and parents joined in as well. Two of the parents were acting like presenters, it was their idea after all, and they decided to get brand new phones and sign up to TikTok to see what would happen if the kids did it. We can all guess their sheer terror and shock on camera as they, with brand new TikTok accounts acting as a boy and a girl the same ages as their boy and girl, were within MINITES getting PUSHED content of explicit sex acts and bodily harm as well as fashionistas wanting to tell the virtual girl to learn to make herself throw up after dinner to be thin and sexy.

After 4 weeks, some kids having actual withdrawal symptoms that the shows Doctor confirmed as what he would expect as he told the adults that they themselves showed signs of substance addiction regarding their phones, the kids all noticed significant changes. The most common of which was they felt much more connected and satisfied regarding their friendships at school, even if said friends were not part of the experiment and still had their phones. Several of the kids, especially one girl, who saw her social media as a "game" where she had to actually stay up late at night beating the stats of her mates with shares and likes, they al reported significantly reduced anxiety. The social gamer girl was even admitting she had panic attacks and por sleep and anxiety all the time before the experiment, although she was happy to get her phone back after the 4 weeks she said she was going to severely restrict her use of it as she finally was able to feel more normal.

One boy was a terror in class, always getting into trouble and bullying etc. During just those 4 weeks his parents and teachers saw a massive shift in him, he was listening, more agreeable and even helpful and polite to others in class.

Another couple of boys when given their phones back both said they didnt think they needed them anymore.

This experiment has run for 15-20 years. No kid before 2000 or so had such immediate and unfiltered access with social pressures from people right next to them plus those in countries halfway across the world with no shared culture and different politics... We have all seen the consequences, those kids found dead at home having died live on camera to perform a social media challenge.

The next generation can be saved. Till they are 16 they should clearly be on what is basically a curated parent controlled and monitored intranet. Some say 16 is too young, including some of the kids in that experiment in the school, even they said it.

Nicely put!

Great news. Less STD spread while reducing the surplus population.

So a tech nobody from a single games company talks to an elitist newspaper about concerns that only a financial bull would care about simply because he thinks that everyone on blighty is for some reason using an iphone.

Well I'm on android and I dont care what happens to the iphone users and their game choices.

> From what I've read the average woman wants 2.6 kids

I dread to think what the 0.6 child would look like

Ah so you want extinction of races you dont like.

There is a word for people like you.

Does it taste nice? I prefer Clubs and Trios myself. Does a Zanzibar have caramel?

> Not all people believe in having so few children.

Why do you think this is anything to do with choice?

- Low sperm counts getting even lower (last time I checked us guys didnt have to chose the number of points to assign to fertility stats when we get to 18).
- No interest in sex (there are so many easier and more attractive alternatives resulting in no repercussions).
- Economic stangation literally making an accidental pregnancy a trip to the abortion clinic.
- STD's

Basically it seems more like a need to actually CHOOSE to "do it" as all the other options are a no-brainer.

> Gen Alpha (2013-2024) and Gen Beta (2025-2039) may have a real shot at home ownership when Boomers and half of Gen X are gone

You'll be waiting a long time.

> we should consider alternatives

We did. They all failed, ended up in slaughter and war crimes. Where have you been?

I dont think you quite understand what this means. Tools? Mechanics? All of that will be gone. Much of it is proprietary crap that nobody will learn to understand without breaking laws. Then you have education, with very little offspring the kids are NOT going to be sent to school or much of what we would think of as a school.

We will have an aging population with aging infrastructure that the kids have no hope of understanding or maintaining, letting much of it simply rot along with the aging and more senile knowledge holders: the old fogies that rely on young kids working earlier vs leaning to pay for pensions etc.

You will have resource rot, brain rot and knowledge rot. Whole swathes of the country will be empty, ghost towns and cities as there are just not enough people to live everywhere. Librarues, the keepers of the science you say will be inherited by the overworked kids, will be empty and abandoned all over the country. Forget the internet, who is going to keep that up? The clouds will be shutdown as companies collapse, A.I will have been pressed into replacing as many humans as possible but A.I cant swap a DDR stick nor can it flick the switch on the PSU.

You might for a while have local intranets kept up by larger communities. If they connect to each other you'll have a smaller internet. But as it is now with all the clouyds, machine learning, social media etc, all will scale way back as companies lose out due to lack of employees.

Maybe A.I robots will keep a underused internet up. Like A.I robots forever resurfacing all the roads across a country while nobody can actually drive on them for lack of oil or car parts. Rubber tyres dont grow on trees, well ok they do but who is going to harvest the rubber and vulcanise it?

Such things may happen in small communities, if they have the resources and means of power still, but most advanced knowledge and tech will simply be a mystery to them.

We are not a global civilisation.

The east and west are VERY different and even if both were affected those that survive and take over will be the tribes.