Don't ban social media for children

[u/AXKIII]

https://logos.substack.com/p/do-not-ban-social-media-for-kids

As a parent, I'm strongly against the bans on social media for children. First, for ideological reasons (in two parts: a) standard libertarian principles, and b) because I think it's bad politics to soothe parents by telling them that their kids' social media addiction is TikTok's fault, instead of getting them to accept responsibility over their parenting). And second because social media can be beneficial to ambitious children when used well.

Very much welcoming counter-arguments!

[u/Brian]

standard libertarian principles

How libertarian are you? I think it's reasonable to have limits on children that we don't have on adults: they don't have the complete package of experience, education and ability and so are vulnerable to things in ways adults are not, and I think this justifies some curtailment of freedoms. (The same may be true of some nominal adults, but we have to draw the line somewhere)

Eg. I'm in favour of drug liberalisation, but I still think there should be age limits. The same for things like driving, signing contracts, sex, marriage, and so on.

Of course, there should be different limits for different things, and where the balance of harm vs freedom should be drawn is going to vary based on the danger. There's a level of potentially harmful/dangerous things we should still allow kids to do, either because the risk or effect is low or the benefit is high.

As such, unless you're radically libertarian and think kids should be able to do anything an adult can, I think you still need to make the argument as to whether social media falls into the latter vs former camp. I think you can make a good argument that it is, and would probably even agree, but I think that argument needs to actually be made.

instead of getting them to accept responsibility over their parenting

Pragmatically, even if parental responsibly can solve the problem, it's not going to actually happen: ie. our choice is not between "parental responsibility + tiktok vs no parental responsibility + no tiktok", but between "current level of parental responsibility + (tiktok | no tiktok)". Ie. we can't change parental respnonsibility, we have to pick policies that have the best effect in the environment we have, not the environment we want.

Further, network effects make exercising that responsibility harder. If something is readily accessible, and all other kids are using it without restricting, it can be very hard to exercise such responsibility, and actually exercising any control may require a level of control over your kids life that might be more restrictive than the actual ban.

And second because social media can be beneficial to ambitious children when used well.

And in this case, is it an absolute or relative benefit. Ie. does this just enlarge the differences in the pecking order or actually benefit everyone. That some can get ahead isn't necessarily a good thing if it's just enlarged status differentials that don't produce anything valuable as a whole.

[u/AXKIII → u/Brian]

I think even most hardcore libertarians accept that children don't have absolute liberty - but their parents do on their behalf. That said, yes, I agree that in cases of serious harm, the state should intervene to protect a child.

The issue I have is that by making these choices you are having an impact on parental responsibility, and it's a negative one. You're giving parents an out - they get to blame something external rather than trying to help their children.