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Comment by terespuwash | Hacker News Reader

What a weird idea to isolate teens from a platform instead of regulating it. It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol. Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone be healthy in a connected world.

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> It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol

The comparison is wrong.

It would be more "It is like if children were forbidden to be in a smoker room, just because they are not the one consuming".

Yes they should be forbidden, because they do not need to smoke themselves to feel the negative effects.

Even without "porn", "murdering/violence" or other controversial content that can be found on social medias, just the negative effects of doomscrolling on the brain are harmful enough.

Their is plenty of studies that describe the effect it has on attention span, memory and cognitive capacity of kids.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=14350...

And lets face it: Over the last 10y, any attempt to regulate the platforms responsible of that failed miserably.

My comparison is about the alarmism and you are doing the same by equivaliting chatting with friends online to smoking which can give cancer.

We are ourselves now on a sort of social media platform which shows it’s possible to be responsible and use it wisely with a better design and more rules. Framing the decision in France like a fight against a nocive substance is lazy and avoid talking about nuanced regulation and digital literacy which are more effective approaches. There are studies showing that regulating adolescent social media use is better than a ban for example.

> There are studies showing that regulating adolescent social media use is better than a ban for example.

Not in disagreement. I believe that the ban is not even strictly applicable.

It will just lead to the redirection to a new platform that avoid the restrictions or any jurisdiction, which is worst.

The complete lack of will to tackle the problem by the main Mega networks (Meta, X, Tiktok, Snapchat, Telegram and even Youtube) is currently the main issues here.

For instance, enforcing a "report" to the consummer weekly with the effective time spend on scrolling to promote awareness and help to prevent addiction would already be a first good move. None of them implemented that effectively.

> It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol.

Errr... there are quite a few places where children aren't allowed to enter a bar, or can only go to them with parents if the establishment also serves food.

> Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone

It's not 100% clear to me this is true, it may be that the way social media operates is just bad for developing brains. Maybe all brains....

It would be nice to have good evidence one way or another though.

There are many things that can be changed to make the platforms more suitable to younger users. Just banning it instead of searching for a good balance won’t help the next generation to understand the world and take a part in it.

There are so many ways the platforms can be changed but France decided they've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.

Are there many things that could be changed without a) changing the fundamental nature of what social media is or b) keeping the harms that are being identified?

> Just banning it instead of searching for a good balance won’t help the next generation to understand the world and take a part in it.

I would dispute that you need to be anywhere near social media to take part in the world, in fact I'd go so far as to say it's the opposite. Social media is playing into isolation and anxiety for young people. Putting some distance between them and the social media companies is likely to be healthy.

We have not learnt anything from the war on drugs, even though many people compare social media to drugs.

That comparison is misguided. You can stop social media abruptly and not feel any withdrawal.

https://www.reddit.com/r/perth/comments/1pmvcml/my_14yo_is_l...

I think it depends on your definition of withdrawal, but it seems that some teens did experience something analagous to it here in Australia.

I think this counts in favour of the ban, myself.

Being discriminated against by the government sucks, and so does getting locked out of the main way the world communicates in the 21st century. I don't blame a 14 year old for not handling a violation of their rights in a mature manner.

Or, just hear me out, or it might be actual withdrawal symptoms as the source of dopamine spikes is withdrawn, which is what it seems to look like.

Or, just hear me out, this is what a moral panic looks like on social media.

I'm going to be honest: I don't believe the story, it reads exactly like what someone who banned their kids from video games, TV or texting would say 20 years ago, even if the kid didn't have what everyone, including you, is assuming is an "addiction", despite being wholly unqualified to diagnose such a thing, let alone over the internet through a 2nd hand story lol.

To quote the top replies to that thread:

> Ironic that OP turns to social media for support because her kid’s access to said support has been removed.

And

> We need to remember that this is the societal structure of their world and it is also the only one they have ever known - then in a single evening, it was gone. But also, not for everyone; so injustice is now mixed in to the equation.

> She's going to need time to adjust and she's also going to need ways to stay in contact with her friends, because at the end of the day that is what she is upset about: the loss of social contact.

I'd examine why you're so willing to believe what you read on social media despite the lack of real data and evidence towards the claims you're accepting at face value.

> Or, just hear me out, this is what a moral panic looks like on social media.

Could be, could be, except moral panics are usually absent evidence, whereas here we have meta's own researchers discovering and attempting to suppress the knowledge that people become addicted -

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/meta-researchers-private...

Or evidence that "Company documents cited in the complaint described several Meta officials acknowledging the company designed its products to exploit shortcomings in youthful psychology" -

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/nov/27/meta-inst...

There's also research into its mental health consequences (a single example of many pieces of research available) -

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36219756/

And legal opinions (the references on this one are good and contain further information on the poor mental health outcomes associated with youth social media use) -

https://law.stanford.edu/2024/05/20/social-media-addiction-a...

Not to mention ongoing courtcases etc.

Dismissing this as "moral panic" seems wrong with that background of well-grounded concern.

> To quote the top replies to that thread:

Those are neither the best nor the top replies, why did you feel the need to misrepresent that?

> I'd examine why you're so willing to believe what you read on social media despite the lack of real data and evidence towards the claims you're accepting at face value.

I'd examine why you're so keen to ignore the real data and evidence in favour of your moral panic theory.

It's certainly an interesting story. I'd still take it with a grain of salt, as often this kind of Reddit family story is closer to an exercise in creative writing than anything else, but that's besides the point.

I remember a communication by the World Health Organization that concluded that social media and video games are not addictive like drugs are, because they don't cause chemical withdrawal when immediately stopped. Maybe what this mother is actually witnessing is her daughter suddenly feeling socially excluded after having filled the void by social media until now?

Where exactly the line is between 'withdrawal' and anxiety caused by a sudden, non-voluntary change in habits, I'm not sure, but I'd say that the one looks very like a symptom of the other.

If we're willing to admit gambling to the list of things that can be addictive, then I'm not sure why other dopamine-related compulsive activities shouldn't be treated the same. Restlessness is well known as a gambling withdrawal symptom.

If everything that people do out of habit and like and you taking it away causes withdrawal, then .... What is the significance of this at this point?

I'm not sure that "everything that people do out of habit" is a reasonable summation of the category we're talking about. Perhaps I misworded my post above.

Gambling is known to be addictive and causes some symptoms of withdrawal when stopped suddenly, even though it is not a chemical dependency and doesn't involve introducing a chemical into the body.

So if we allow that one chemical-free activity can be addictive, I don't see a particular reason that we should exclude the possibility of other things working that way too.

I'm not saying the other poster is wrong that it could be "her daughter suddenly feeling socially excluded after having filled the void by social media", but I think it would be wrong to exclude the possibility that the removal of the dopamine rollercoaster of social media is causing anxiety directly in the way halting gambling does. And the description certainly comes across as someone who is going through a form of withdrawal - it's familiar to me as an ex smoker.

It's much easier to forbid something to a subset of the population than to the population at large.

Very off-topic, but war on drugs failed in NA, but is successful in East Asia. It really depends on government and how they handle it. I’m not American, but my understanding of war on drugs was also that it wasn’t just about drugs, might be wrong.

Yes, decriminalization and harm reduction seems to work in a few places where it has been implemented for ages now.

I mean, there are still many places in Europe where you can go to prison for years for smoking weed. The life ruined because you smoked an illegal plant in your own home.

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