[9rx]

> The problem [...] is addiction.

Is it? Only around 10% of the population will develop an addiction (of any kind). About the same rate as the population who live chronic sedentary lifestyles, which comes with equally (or maybe even worse) health and social consequences. Where is the regulation that forces you to prove you are of a certain age to sit on the couch?

This seems like a lot of effort for something that impacts such a relatively small group of people — a group of people (in size) that we otherwise don't normally care about one bit. 10% of the population is marginalized time and time again. What's special about this particular case?

[davkan]

I would hazard a guess that much higher percentage than 10% of the population thinks that they themselves are on social media more than they’d like to be, whether thats addiction or not idk.

You’re probably right though, i don’t think 10 year olds should be on social media in any capacity. Why? Partially because they can easily get addicted sure, but also because really any amount of interaction with these platforms is bad for them because they are monstrous mind warping engagement machines.

[9rx]

> they are monstrous mind warping engagement machines.

No doubt kids will choose social media over cleaning their room. Would they choose social media over going outside to play, if society still allowed them to do that?

The "boob tube", so given the derogatory nickname due to the perception of much the same idea you present, may not have been able to take the warping engagement to the same extreme, but during its prime also didn't really capture the youth attention because the youth had better things to do, like disappear into the woods until nightfall. TV use has always been dominated by older people who, through things like failing health, have lost the ability to do anything better.

True addiction or not, it is worth noting that addiction doesn't happen overnight. One needs repeated exposure to develop the necessary neural pathways. This is why addiction shows up much more commonly in obviously tough environments. People use a device as an escape from their situation, which feeds the mechanisms necessary to develop an addiction. Social media is most certainly engineered to tick the "this is enjoyable" box, but that alone isn't enough to develop a problem. There needs to be something that sees someone want to use social media above all else on a regular basis and, as you point out, it is very likely that much more than 10% of the population don't actually find social media to be all that enjoyable; just more enjoyable than taking out the trash.

So, maybe we can reframe this as: All this work to continue to keep up not wanting to see kids without a metaphorical helicopter constantly over their heads as a result of an imagined boogieman that was invented in the past? Seems like a horribly misaligned effort.