| Parents cannot and should not be watching their teenaged children 24/7, and if they tried, the children would find ways to hide things from their parents. Most people find the parents that deny their children any privacy as abusive. It's healthy for children to have time away from their parents, so they can learn and practice being adults. The vast majority of teenagers have managed to do this without becoming pregnant, alcoholics, drug addicts, or join violent street gangs. (And some that do still manage to sort their lives out when they get older.) What's changed in recent years are unregulated, algorithm-driven social media - that guess people's moods to get them addicted to content and purchase products, including harmful products; - that pushes content full of misinformation, conspiracy theories and violent extreme politics; - allows random adults on the other side of the world to reach out to children for exploitation (sexual or financial) or recruitment for violent political causes; - 24-hour interaction, so there's no break from the drama or abuse of school when you leave school for the day or weekend; Supposed child-friendly platforms like YouTube Kids or Roblox are attractive places for people who want to exploit children. The profit motive encourages companies to take a hands-off approach, and the scale of users and content means that it's difficult to control. |