Just turn it off. You will get a short period of withdrawal then you'll get the world as it is. I did, and while I miss some stuff, I'm better off. Don't blame "I'm hooked". It's down to you.
The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play because the real world was not built for dreaming and play, but for commerce and every square inch of the planet needs to be either a parking lot or a business. And that's even if they could go places, but they can't because everything is a car ride away and they can't drive. They can't even get on a bicycle and go exploring because one of their miserable nosey neighbors will call the police or Child Protective Services if they see an unaccompanied kid roaming around. From the moment they enter school, they're told that the world is coming to an end due to climate change, and they're all gonna die.
And the world is awful for young adults/old teenagers. There are almost no jobs available that pay even close to what it would take to barely move out of their parents' basements. They know that they will never own a home, nor have any kind of financial security, and that the world is deliberately set up to allow a handful of people to sponge up everything, so why even bother? And if they do manage to get a job that lets them barely pay rent, they had to move to an unfamiliar, lonely city to take the job, leaving all their friends behind.
It's no wonder everyone is addicted to their phones and the fantasy worlds of games and social media. The real world is pretty awful for a lot of people.
Does this reflect your actual life experiences or an invention? Because a lot of htis sounds like made-up whingeing.
> The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play ...
We can discuss the merits child boredom vs. child abuse if you wish because I can certainly do that. Your all-stations broadcast of failure and despair is boring. Stop it.
I hope I’m communicating this clearly, I’m not advocating for any political side, or “think of the children“ moralizing, nor do I have a practical plan to offer. I’m just depressed with how bad kids have it and how few adults really care.
I've become better at it and is always reminded of the quiet summers when i was a child, the beautiful boredom and fantasy of "some part of my life that happened a long time ago", or running around without a cellphone, just being completely present and "away" from others in good and healthy sense like a rite de passage.
When i see nieces in family everyone under the age of 20 is always inside of cyberspace, never present in the here and now, and while being hypersocial is normal for a teen, it's to an extreme degree for everyone including the smallest ones.