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.
