suffering from extremely mixed feelings about the push to get kids off social media, because it's 100% true that it's addictive and teaches dysfunctional behavior and is generally soul-eroding
but I don't see the corresponding passion for providing all-ages community spaces with no admission cost that are readily accessible via a public transportation network that goes deep into the burbs
so are they just supposed to stare at the wall or what
This is being legislated is because social media provides kids with exposure to people and information that is not curated by their parents, and this lack of control makes them nervous because their whole worldview is reliant on keeping their children sheltered and misinformed. I see this as very much in the same vein as the banning of queer books, and books about race. The goal is to control the information kids have access to such that they cannot make up an informed view of the world and of themselves, and thus slow the bleed of potential ideologues.
This is unlikely to work though, partly because the internet is too big and partly because kids understand that actions taken on their behest, to "protect" them, are hollow at best and malicious at worse when there are much more deadly dangers to them than social media that those who claim to speak for them have no interest in resolving. Ultimately, it cannot be hidden from them that they are the maleficiaries of gerontocracy.
i've been reading a lot of... christian thinktanks in these email leaks and the document leak wired covered for American College of Pediatricians.
And they all rail about 'screen time' as much as abortion or trans stuff. Because, yeah, it's more about control than anything, and the people who aren't on that side, railing about 'screen time', tend to be people who saw papers funded by these places, or talked with the people involved, unknowingly.
also, it's just like.
the people pushing it from other angles are choosing the obvious causation.
but social media itself isn't the problem -- it's the people on it. And even then, the reason your kids are depressed and anxious isn't social media. it's the world.
millenials who don't own a house can't raise kids without a three-income-household in most cities and even suburbs. zoomers have it worse, coming of age in a time when we're in a manufactured recession that's looking like it'll be come self-fulfilling if our president doesn't realize that letting the debt default is literally against the constitution. governments work differently than businesses.
there's already a suicidality crisis among late millenials. I don't know about zoomers but I can't imagine it's much better.
but it's not because of social media. Social media just means you can view more of it than normal. But social media is still just, at it's heart, people. And a lot of those people speak their minds without the risk of being punched in the face, but it's their actual thoughts, not just them "tolerating" with you in polite company.
and I think that gets forgotten with the evils of social media, because yes, it tries to make the groups clash.
But at heart? it's a social issue, that goes far beyond social media. Social media just lays the rot bare for everyone to see.