alt Hacker NewsI get the instinct to ban it, but I’m not convinced the evidence supports treating “social media” as a single public-health toxin.
1) The best large-scale work I’ve seen finds the average association between overall screen/social-media use and teen well-being is tiny. That doesn’t mean “no one is harmed”; it means the “it’s wrecking a generation” story doesn’t fit the data very well.
2) “Social media” lumps together very different things: - messaging friends, hobby groups, learning communities, identity-affirming support - infinite-scroll algorithmic feeds + targeted ads + push notifications + autoplay People in this thread are mostly describing the second category (“attention media”). If that’s the problem, regulate that layer.
3) Blanket bans are easy to route around and may push kids to smaller/shadier apps with weaker controls. If you want a lever that actually changes incentives, go after business model & design: - no targeted ads to minors - default chronological/subscription feeds for minors - disable autoplay/infinite scroll for minors by default - limits on notifications (especially at night) - transparency + researcher access to study effects - device/school-hour phone restrictions (where enforcement is actually feasible)
If you want to “end the experiment,” change the rules of the lab (platform incentives + design), not prohibit the existence of teens talking online.
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Once again I am hoping for a ban on _smart_phones. Not laptops. Not tablets (although those could get tricky I admit). Not dumb phones. Details will need to be worked out (like smart watches or future VR devices). Maybe a combination of:
- SIM - large enough screen or video playback capability - camera
Easier to democratise enforcement (report and fine) and you don’t need to rely on the very platforms you are trying to restrict.
Teens can still talk online. Social media is an obvious poison and we shouldn't give kids access to it.
The Australian 'social media' ban is only blocking specific platforms, so not really a social media ban. Lots of 'but what about' and 'kids will just' articles in the media, which didn't really address that forcing kids to move from a known toxic environment to a hopefully less toxic environment is at least a step in the right direction, even if not a silver bullet. There are certainly good reasons for kids to be on social media, but none of those reasons are valid when talking about Twitter. Youtube seems the hardest one to deal with, combining a great information resource with uncontrolled toxic comments and borderline illegal and harmful content.