Ok. Now, how do we counter this very same argument against tv and video games?
Children don't really watch TV (anecdotally). They watch YouTube, which is just as bad.
The key difference between television and video games of yore is the feedback loop. TV and video games were one shot deployed and then ratings were gathered after, averaging across the entire audience.
Now YT and video games don't have end states - same thing as social media. While you often won't have individual-centric recommendation algorithms in a video game, you have dark patterns and gambling mechanics in all the most popular games which is just as bad.
The argument really isn't that we need to ban children from social media, we need to guard their dopaminergic regulation the way we guard their physical and mental health... oh wait.
Ultimately its the responsibility of the parent (at least in the US). Parents who are aware of the pitfalls of high-dopamine-low-effort activities, poor diet, and low physical activity are going to guard against these things. The ones who don't will likely suffer later in life.
They're more boring than ever. Games people tend to be most addicted to appear to be glorified network social platforms, i.e. MMORPGs/LoL and the massive online communities extending them.
As I said, the most addicting draw is the social component surrounding the games. The co-operative/team-based format means there's a baseline level of coordination in the background.
Something can be said about competition itself, but games that are by design 1-vs-1 are nowhere near as popular. As goes for actual sports.
I literally don't understand how anyone can say that - there are more games of any genre than ever before. Yes if you only play CoD and nothing else it's all monetised and algorithm driven to hell. But for every CoD there are literally thousands of games that tell incredible and beautifully crafted stories. Thousands more where the focus is on gameplay. Endless remakes and reimaginings of older games with all their good and bad parts. Video games aren't just the top 3 best selling titles and it's weird to judge the whole industry that way. It's like saying that all movies are the same nowadays because Marvel films have turned into a more-of-the-same gloop.
The fact that non-predatory games do exist is hardly relevant if what people are actually playing most of the time are indeed endless, dark pattern ridden grinds if not outright no-win casinos of which mobile gaming consists almost exclusively.
Whole industry needn't be banned, but a lot of its practices absolutely have to be at least regulated.
Matchmaking in multi-player games and level scaling in single-player games are somewhat like an individual-centric recommendation algorithm providing you with a constant stream of games that are just hard enough to be engaging and keep you hooked, or at least trying to.