Comment by tsoukase
2 days ago
Social media, at least, are reaching the state the smoking had in the 80's when it started to be banned. After an era of praising (00's) scepticism followed (10's) until an underage ban comes (20's). Maybe in the 30's they will be banned in public spaces!
The problem of identifying a value for each person is very difficult. But government's role stops there. Until the teenager's screen more factors stay in the middle (parents, peers, criminals). I am curious how it turns out eventually. As a parent, I have already banned SM for my children, so not "affected" by the new policy.
Ban in public spaces might not make sense since there isn't a proximity hazard like smoke. But I can imagine after kids are banned from social media and we see how this was an obviously positive effect on their mental health, we will begin to acknowledge that this stuff is toxic for adults as well.
We could start to ban many of the mechanisms social media companies have deployed over the last 10 years. Infinite scrolling, algorithmic feeds of "creator" content, AI generated ragebait from bot accounts, etc. I'd love to see social media reverted back to when it was just holiday photos from your friends.