Society works on averages. Most people being ready little adults at 16 doesn't mean everyone is.
Edit: yeah, look at the downvotes. How are you all doing with that self-regulation?
But on average they don't.
> Society works on averages.
Right. So setting the rules around the outliers is wrong. Glad you're clear on that.
> Most people being ready little adults at 16 doesn't mean everyone is.
You don't have to be a completely self-sufficient adult to handle the freaking Internet.
I wasn’t allowed to have a personal device or unsupervised internet access until I graduated.
My parents forced me to go to a school with a summer work program. I was yeeted to university by my wing clipping abusers THREE DAYS AFTER GRADUATION.
Rural, miles from the nearest town of 1200 so I didn’t have access to the resources needed to change any aspect of this.
I was deeply hampered by this, and despite being one of the salutatorians of my graduating class (we had ties due to AP), I crashed out of that university after a semester.
And if the person is high energy, then that energy needs to be channeled.
You can also ask if the rate of this occurrence is increasing or decreasing.
(a) Quote from TFA is about using internet. GP talks about "didn’t have any freedom or autonomy" which I don't take quite as literally as you do, because they also mention "I saw this a lot in college". So it would have been quite regular level of (over)controlling, instead of locking them in and not letting them leave the house except for school.
(b) I am not advocating anything as a solution. I am pointing out that the simple cause and effect presented by GP might be more complicated.