The most common reply to this is: “people said the same about Books/TV/Comics/Games/Facebook stop being such a Luddite”

My answer to this is approximately: “yes they’re all relatively bad compared to the thing that came before so they were all right!”

Even books. If the option were between my child reading about blacksmithing/compsci and DOING blacksmithing/compsci I’d choose the latter every time. It gives you real experience and opinions.

The difference with each successive new wave is that it becomes increasingly addictive. It’s possible to read one book and stop for a while. Shorts can hook you for hours and then draw you back the next day with no natural stopping point.

Or look at corporations + elites constantly attacking children for the last 40 years (pushing school vouchers, school choices, attacking teacher unions, politicizing school boards).

Who do you think suffers when elites attack public education? It's always the children.

Fun fact: Silicon Valley elites are big proponents of school vouchers because, like their hatred of American labor, they also hate public schools and don't want to pay for that either.