[km3k]

I don't get why a lot of this discussion assumes children can't communicate with peers without social media. Calling and texting are still a thing. So is coordinating during school to plan meetups after school. Besides, I think very few people are saying children should have a total ban on all forms of social media and communication. We need to find methods to restrict/reduce social media and then ease those restrictions as the children mature, with a focus to minimize the negative aspects of social media usage and still allow communication with peers.

For example, when our children were small, we didn't allow phones or social media, but allowed them to text/call friends with our phones. As they got older, we introduced Google Voice via family desktop computers so they had their own number for texts/calls, but given that it was on a desktop computer, it had limited usage. After that, we introduced a family smartphone that was shared among our younger children so they could text and have some limited social media, mainly group chat apps based on their clubs/sports. Once they became teenagers, we allow them their own phone, but still had restrictions on apps installed, types of websites available and time spent. Gradually over time, we introduce new apps, discuss app usage and review how things are going with the goal of increased independence over time.

For managing restrictions, we've used a lot of things, but never found a perfect solution. Bark works pretty well for signalling us of potential problems while giving our children a level of privacy. I use a Firewalla router to manage home internet access restrictions and Google Family Link to manage mobile devices. Both are mainly used to restrict time-based access (no middle of the night access) and for temporary restrictions to allow us to focus on things like homework and family events.

I can see why a lot of parents put no restrictions up or just ban too much. It takes a lot of work to create a nuanced set of restrictions that gradually give more independence as the child matures. Unfortunately, we've seen friends of our children who have had a lot of issues due to totally unrestricted internet access. We need to find and foster more middle grounds for easing children into social media and related technologies. Neither full unrestricted access nor total bans are helpful.