Children don't need social media, just as they don't need tobacco or alcohol. As long as all your friends are off social media, you'll be fine. It's when there's a choice that you get the FOMO situation that makes it more or less impossible for parents to dissuade their children from using social media.
Luckily with Elon doing crazy things to X, NYC has divorced a bunch of public services from it.
But not enough
I kind of feel like Elon was actually right that Twitter has become the "public square", but I disagree violently that he should be the one to control and steward it. We need a non-government controlled, non-corporate/profit-driven Twitter. The fediverse is okay but the UX needs to be completely frictionless so everyone can use it (also my mum).