The case for banning children from social media
I just don&#x27;t see any alternatives to banning social media, perhaps even up to the age of 18. The dopaminergic effects are not dissimilar to drugs and social media is just as addictive.<p>It&#x27;s not clear how you could effectively regulate this stuff - especially in our highly polarised political climate. The right will immediately target &quot;wokeness&quot;, and the left will immediately target &quot;hate speech&quot;. And the kids will be totally forgotten about.<p>That&#x27;s why I think, don&#x27;t bother trying to regulate social media. Just ban it for under 18s when they&#x27;re most vulnerable.<p>I don&#x27;t relish this solution either. When I was 13, I was on forums making online friends. I loved it. But it was clearly different back then, before smartphones, before content-creators, when the internet was mostly nerds.<p>(I don&#x27;t use social media, but I do use YouTube. I was amazed how quickly, after watching one fitness video, it immediately started showing videos of the most ripped, steroid-abusing bodybuilders, and how I could achieve their &quot;amazing&quot; physiques. Then videos started popping up about all types of performance-enhancing drugs. SARMs, trenbolone - it was crazy how quickly it devolved to this)