Not sure why poeple don't just put the phone down? We really are the most sheltered gentle generation. Oh no, this app is taking up my time, we need to BAN IT.
Pretty sure too much gambling and too much alcohol is worse than watching too many short videos. So how can we say that spending time on figuring out how to block people from watching too many short videos is a better use of our time and resources than limiting gambling and drinking.
Not to mention this presupposes that social media addiction is rampant. But there isn't a scientific consensus on that. This lawsuit reads like scaremongering of the past around television and comic books. Instead of regulating content or user privacy we get these dog and pony shows.
I've missed critical final exams and flights literally scrolling Instagram. Mental health disorders exist, alas.
Make your bedroom a phone-free zone, charge it in the living room overnight, use the built in parenting and screentime controls that every modern phone OS has, don't let your kids stare at the screen all day. Etc.
This isn't rocket science. Self control is one of the most important things you need to learn. It sucks and it's hard but it's basic life stuff.
The only difference with social media addiction vs drugs/gambling is that it's not socially ostracized like other addictions so people ignore it.
I'm not addicted to alcohol or gambling, but I know that it takes significantly more willpower for those that are to just stop than it does for me to not have that chocolate bar at night.
There is a proportionality to it
You don't have infinite willpower. If humans had infinite willpower humanity would have worked itself to death long ago. There is a natural balance of willpower in your brain, it's called the dopaminergic system. If you have ADHD, you have much, much less willpower than a normal person because you literally lack the dopamine hormone in your prefrontal cortex. No amount of belief will magically create dopamine in your brain out of thin air.
And when the app is developed purposely to make people addict, that’s an issue.
You can’t just blame the user when their chance to have a normal app usage have been rigged.
Nobody is talking about banning anything, we’re talking specifically about holding social media companies accountable for marketing to children a product that is knowingly addictive and potentially harmful to their health.
Part of the issue with social media is that no reasonable parent lets their 12 year old watch porn or drink but Instagram and ticktock are on a lot more 12 year old’s phone’s than you realize. Social media has network effects and creates tremendous social pressure to not make your kid “different” when half the classroom is sharing TikToks.
I’m not conservative in the slightest but I see no reason to treat social media any differently than alcohol, tobacco or gambling. Available without restriction to adults but limited to children under a certain age.
That's similar to dumb ideas involving social pressure. When people have a tendency to be dumb about a thing we use the law to restrict the thing, apparently. But this involves, in effect, an authoritative declaration of "that's dumb" by law. I feel personally threatened, then, in activities such as my woodwork, which might have been an equally dumb obsession! I know nobody's at all likely to regulate woodwork, but that's only because it's relatively unpopular. I could imagine a parallel universe where woodwork (portable somehow) becomes a trend that makes a young person feel socially relevant, and then it gets regulated. I think I disapprove of this interference with people's dumb notions.