Comment by betadeltic
3 days ago
A bit of an off-topic, as age checks are not solution to this, it's just the usual "think of the children" narrative.
However, there are publicists like Jonathan Haidt who have observed the link between kids mental health and use of social media. (among other things) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Anxious_Generation
Jonathan Haidt's book isn't taken seriously in academia. He also believes that social media turns kids transgender, and that may be part the reason that he's aggressively lobbying for bans enforced with mandatory age verification.
Both claims are probably true in the sense that social media is the main way that kids get exposed to broader society these days but not in the way that forcing kids off of social media will mean that they are no longer affected by the root causes.