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Comment by CaliforniaKarl | Hacker News Reader

In the US, we restrict driving to around age 16, alcohol consumption to 18, voting to 18, and tobacco consumption to 21. Then there are industry-applied age ratings, like the MPA’s PG-13, R, and NC-17 ratings. Barbiturates and amphetamines we’re once available without a prescription.

There’s official/unofficial wiggle room, but there are limits. For example, if you live on a farm, you may be driving on the farm before you have a license to drive on public roads.

I could see mobile-phone ownership becoming similarly-restricted.

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>In the US, we restrict ... alcohol consumption to 18

isn't it 21 all over the US? it was changed to cut drunk driving in the late 70s at the federal level, tied to highway funds, so the states needed to cave

Not only that, but at least in my home state you can buy tobacco at 18. Maybe the person you replied to got the two mixed up?

It sucks because they could be pocket-sized bicycles for the mind rather than addicting ad-driven bullshit surveillance slot machines that maximize attention. Humanity had a choice and chose poorly.

Banning smartphones in general would be more akin to banning kids from riding in cars (not driving them) or being around alcohol (even in their own home)

To say nothing of the inconsistency of those bans. You can vote, enlist in the army, and take on life-altering student loans... but smoke a cigarette? No way!

Also, isn't it the sale and purchase of alcohol that is banned for underage persons, not the consumption? That is, if parents want to give their kids alcohol, that's not illegal.

Banning smartphones in general would be more akin to banning kids from riding in cars (not driving them)

How so? I don't see you make an argument for why your simile would be more accurate, and I fear I lack the imagination to conjure up what back-seat phoning would look like.

Well, I had to carry my phone everywhere just so my mom could call me to check up on me. It is a good enough reason against the ban... to me.

Correlating smartphone ownership with mental health issues - without diving into how they actually use them - would be like correlating kids simply sitting in a car with them not being able to drive it safely. Or, to use another of my examples, it would be like correlating cigarette possession with cancer rates. Yes, you'll probably see some correlation, unsurprisingly, but it doesn't give any information on causation.

Driving is restricted because of responsibility (same way marriage and contracts in general require someone legally responsible)

Porn, alcohol, tobacco and gambling is cultural/religious, the same way The Prohibition happened in the US, or all alcohol and gambling is banned in hard Islamic countries and adult women are mandatory veiled.

It's pretty interesting to see where a smartphone ban would fit as a category.

I think alcohol and tobacco used to be banned for cultural reasons but there’s pretty clear research now pointing to bad outcomes for early drug use. 21 is still high so some of the cultural element remains but I wouldn’t consider those two entirely ungrounded in reason.

> there’s pretty clear research now pointing to bad outcomes for early drug use

I wasn't aware. Or more specifically, I thought it wouldn't ethically be possible to do that research while it's legally forbidden.

I assumed We'd be bound to look at cases pathologic enough to warrant intervention, and the researchers tracking back the root cause at drug ingestion. While a useful approach, it would tell us nothing about all the other cases that weren't pathological.

On tobacco specifically I think most long term effects disappear in smoker below 25 ? Not arguing that kids should smoke, but like coming at th French situation, it looks like there is a dose where the effects on kids will be negligible.

PS: even for people withing the legal smoking range, studies on drugs still tend to focus on patients that had to enter the medical system

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10798824/

If you have any good study that encompasses a wider range I'd love to read it.

The negative outcomes aren’t health outcomes as in lung sickness. Instead early consumption correlates with increased likelihood of future addiction.

I’ll see if I can find some studies but it might be some weeks before I get back to this post.

Addiction is difficult to properly evaluate IMHO.

For instance alcohol addiction is extremely destructive at pathological levels, and we have a flurry of studies coming to a "no safe dose" conclusion. But we also have plenty of evidence on what happens when outright banning alcohol at large scale and it's not great either.

I'm not sure we have a good model or understanding yet of what it actually means to have addictive substances around and their social effects.

I don't think that's true. We have thousands of years of experience. Not everything needs the perfect study taken in the perfect lab conditions for folks to make conclusions which are useful for operating in the real world.

Kids can / often use other family members' smartphones / tablets (I assume it's the majority of cases). How can the law prevent this if parents do nothing about this?

The same way that the law prevents kids drinking their parents’ alcohol - it doesn’t. But having it be illegal sends a signal, even though it’s possible to circumvent it, and also allows prosecution if warranted.

That'd put it in the same basket as alcohol and tobacco. Although the pro/con of owning a mobile are a lot less clear than those two and banning phones in that way is probably a mistake.

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