Why don't we just put everyone in a box after they are born and feed them through a straw like a hamster so they can't possibly ever harm themselves? People need to take responsibility for themselves.
Do you think cigarettes and alcohol should be legal for sale to children? What about advertising specifically targeted at getting kids interested and hooked on cigarettes? What about child labor? Why not let just parents decide what's right for their kids?
There's some behaviors of corporations interacting with children that are correctly regulated in the interest of the broader society we live in. It is completely valid to argue that social media specifically isn't harmful enough to regulate, but your comment amounts to snark that implies nothing should be regulated which is a pretty extreme Anarcho-capitalist position to blanket take.
Oddly enough, in most states it's legal for a parent to furnish alcohol to a minor.
I remember being given a glass of wine or a beer occasionally growing up. I think this is something that my parents did to discourage underage drinking my making it boring (which worked, at least for me).
Okay but then you'd actually have to prove that advertising and social media rises to the same level of consistent harm with reliably addictive mechanisms as cigarettes and alcohol. You'd have to do, like, medical science and stuff, not just vague surveys that some teens get slightly lower self esteem peppered with a few irrelevant "I quit Facebook and I feel better now" anecdotes.
A lot of people were so sure and so vocal that violent video games cause violent behavior, a "just so" theory that no one bothered to prove. History loves to rhyme.
This work has been done and suppressed by the companies themselves (see multiple whistleblowers). Nobody else is in a position to access the data to do the studies.
> 1. Do you think cigarettes and alcohol should be legal for sale to children?
Yes. But age limits on them should still exist but be lowered (to say 13). Parents need to teach their kids how to responsibly enjoy vices. In general I think all vice laws should be purged from the books.
> 2. What about advertising specifically targeted at getting kids interested and hooked on cigarettes?
I'm okay with some limits on addictive advertising but I largely think it is parents responsibility to teach their kids how to properly evaluate purchases and understand what addiction is so they can avoid it.
> 3. What about child labor?
Depends on age, but I'm OK with kids working as young as thirteen in many capacities. Even younger kids can work in some more limited jobs.
> 4. Why not let just parents decide what's right for their kids?
Parents should be deciding what is right for their kids... they are _their_ kids. The government is too far abstracted away from families to know what is best for a kid.
Age 13? You can’t tell my 12yo what to do. I have every right to let them work in the coal mines. It builds character. /s
Labor laws are ruining this country (Ron Swanson, parks&rec)
It's my job to not shit in the pool. And, it's your job to avoid it if I do shit in the pool.
The idea that people can do whatever they want and the consequences are 100%, completely on the heads of other people to deal with is a hilariously juvenile view of personal responsibility.
And if someone intentionally "shits in the pool" repeatedly, they should expect legal action to be taken against them. At a minimum, being forbidden from coming back.
Kids are using phones and tablets as part of school learning programmes/homework. Additionally, my children (under 10yo) use them for educational apps, language lessons, reading library ebooks and doing word puzzles like Quordle.
Because they're different ages and with different interests, they often use them in place of TV also when they can't agree on what to watch.
I have to ask, how is it better to restrict children (not everything you can do with a smartphone is tied to social media) than the corporations that target them, that intentionally create addictive experiences?
Could you define addictive experience? When does an experience cross that (apparently bright?) line?
I ask because it looks to me like every restaurant, bar, food producer, video game company, social media company, hotel, cinematic universe, book series author, and basically any consumer product or service is optimizing for repeat business.
You're not wrong. Lots of companies do such optimizations. And some of them are creating virtually identical problems for parents and children.
But one way to tell they're going too far is when they explicitly call out these actions on investor calls, on official blog posts, ex-employees speaking out...
Many adults can't keep themselves from the addiction. How do we expect parents to keep their kids from it?
Or, to put it another way, I'm sure the median parent would have much less luck keeping their kids away from social media than they do with porn.