[petercooper]

I don't think many adults remember what it was like being 13-16 years old. Twitch is part of the culture. Would I have liked to been "banned" from using IRC, chatrooms or keeping an online diary in the 90s, as were common in geekier teen culture? Not every kid is geared towards playing team sports, chess club, or hiking all weekend. I socialized in person quite a lot as a teenager, but my online life was still very important to me in a way that's only more significant with modern teens (and I know because I'm raising my own now).

The term "online social interaction" keeps getting thrown around as if that's inherently a bad thing. For some teens, that's one of their biggest social outlets outside of school, and that is not necessarily bad even if sometimes bad things happen online. What is bad is when parents don't take an interest in their kids and what they're up to, but you can't legislate for that.