[saghm]

I don't think you're wrong, but I also don't think that keeping phones from kids will really make a huge impact. I have trouble imagining that the same parents who are (according to this framing) using phones as an excuse not to interact with their kids in as healthy ways wouldn't suddenly start interacting with them in healthy ways if the kids started needed more attention; they'd probably just interact with them in other unhealthy ways, which would not be possible to enumerate in order to try to legislate against.

On the other hand, I totally agree with your last point! I find it quite plausible that maybe parents having phones directly detracts from the quality of the parenting that a child receives; if we're saying these devices/apps are literally addictive, it stands to reason that a parent might get hooked to the detriment of their child, and with a modern perspective of addiction, it's not due to a character flaw as much as just a fundamental bug in our biology and psychology as humans. It would honestly make more sense to me to restrict the use of smartphones/social media for parents than children, but of course that has zero chance of happening (and there are are surely a myriad of downsides for this approach as well), so in general I'm just skeptical of this sort of thing being enforced from the top-down despite being pretty extreme in my left-wing views (and therefore not particularly adverse to government regulation in cases where I think it makes sense).