The topic is very nuanced. Social media is bad but so are the authoritarian actors wanting more and more control over everything. The government control aspect is a huge concern of mine too but it's already well covered here so I want to go over the reasons it might be a good idea.

Yes this is true parents are responsible for their kids but it's also true that the village a kid lives in actually influences the kid more than their parents. So it's up to the parents to choose a good village. If every village has the same global social media apps then obviously that's more difficult and not a pit of success. Keep in mind most parents also have a shitload of other stuff to do especially with inflation requiring two incomes to operate a household.

Individualist types don't seem to get the whole village thing at all. It's hyper-individualism with no acknowledgement that we DO affect other people with our actions. Pollute as much as you like, fly noisy planes, drive oversized killer-SUVs. Let every company do what it wants because free market competition and better technology, or something. We're actually social animals and our happiness has a lot to do with how we stack up socially. Hence if just one kid has a device the other kids get jealous and want to keep up; The obvious answer is to enforce a culture of no-phones. But that would take a some agreement so a individualists don't like it.

I disagree. It’s easy to say this from your armchair, but when your kid is the one kid not on social media because you’re such an righteous parent, and that kid is getting bullied by all the other kids for not knowing what’s going on in TikTok or Insta, you start seeing this as a problem that requires the coordination of large numbers of people who you may or may not know, many of whom are kids who lack executive function.

If you just disdain children in general, you can go ahead and say that instead.

This completely negates the nuance and social pressures and sounds like you just want to be edgy. The network affects are huge and others like teachers and clubs are pushing these services as a means of communication instead of using, other, safer services. There is no choice if one wants to be a part of society currently.

> To all the parents defending this: you are responsible for your children and what they do.

Stop delegating action to the individual.

Me and missus are full time employees, I do not have oversight to what my kid is doom-scrolling on his lunch break.

> Passing laws that affect all of us because you are too lazy and ineffectual to raise your children properly is unacceptable.

How does it affect you? Unless you are a corporate mouthpiece this does not affect you at all.

I do not want my kid to watch any degenerate pornography on his formative years just because some lobbyist wants to shove freemarketeering ideologies down our throats.