Because the patterns of consumption and harm are very different. It's the constancy and immediacy of social media that makes up the major part of its harm. It's not something where a 15 minute smoke break or a weekend binge is the main mode of consumption and harm. So the parents have a lot more opportunity and power to handle it if they give it reasonable time and attention.
I think you’re missing that this abdication of personal freedoms to the government in the form of government imposed restrictions on cigarette and alcohol sales is precisely how we’ve gotten to this point over time; arguably following a planned strategy. People who normalized prior subordination to government in the case like cigarettes, alcohol and other things; are now already even more primed to abdicate even more freedom to mommy and daddy government than the prior generation.
It seems clear to me that America is heading into an extremely repressive system where even the nominal use of America may just end up falling by the wayside within the lifetimes of some people alive today. Functionally speaking the, notional or spiritual death of America happened a very long time ago, probably 1840 but obviously no later than the outcome of the Civil War which turned a decentralized union of federated states that formed a republic, into a centralized dictatorial federal power and later the groundwork for becoming the empire we are only 55-80 years after the Civil War, depending on how you want to look at it.
I think people forget that there would have been people who experienced the Civil War that destroyed the central premise of the Constitution, that sovereign states join in a Union to cooperate, and the formation of the Empire of America by no later than the end of WWII.
Those things never happen abruptly, they happen in following a long strategic plan based on objectives not timelines. Part of such a plan is causing ever increasing dependence, deference, and subjugation to government, which is really just someone else’s control over you, the people who make up the “government”, instead of your own control over you. Part of that is giving the impression that money and daddy government will take care of the children, as a tool to psychologically manipulate people by hijacking their instinctual care and concern for protecting children.
It’s why and how they’re more pushing age verification, not ban for minors with similar criminal penalties for anyone who allows minors on the internet/social media. No, you as an adult need to confirm and tie your identity to the digital fingerprint that is tied to all the data that was and is collected about your activity over the last 20+ years … to protect the children of course.
It’s why some people refer to the majority of humans as cattle. You just have to herd them around and they moo and then start fattening up on corn instead of grass, just like the last generation did before they were harvested.