[terespuwash]

What a weird idea to isolate teens from a platform instead of regulating it. It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol. Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone be healthy in a connected world.

[adev_]

> It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol

The comparison is wrong.

It would be more "It is like if children were forbidden to be in a smoker room, just because they are not the one consuming".

Yes they should be forbidden, because they do not need to smoke themselves to feel the negative effects.

Even without "porn", "murdering/violence" or other controversial content that can be found on social medias, just the negative effects of doomscrolling on the brain are harmful enough.

Their is plenty of studies that describe the effect it has on attention span, memory and cognitive capacity of kids.

https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation?paperid=14350...

And lets face it: Over the last 10y, any attempt to regulate the platforms responsible of that failed miserably.

[terespuwash]

My comparison is about the alarmism and you are doing the same by equivaliting chatting with friends online to smoking which can give cancer.

We are ourselves now on a sort of social media platform which shows it’s possible to be responsible and use it wisely with a better design and more rules. Framing the decision in France like a fight against a nocive substance is lazy and avoid talking about nuanced regulation and digital literacy which are more effective approaches. There are studies showing that regulating adolescent social media use is better than a ban for example.

[Nursie]

> It’s like if children were forbidden to drink a soda at a bar because they also sell alcohol.

Errr... there are quite a few places where children aren't allowed to enter a bar, or can only go to them with parents if the establishment also serves food.

> Enforcing platform’s safety and educating users (young and old) would be much better to help everyone

It's not 100% clear to me this is true, it may be that the way social media operates is just bad for developing brains. Maybe all brains....

It would be nice to have good evidence one way or another though.

[terespuwash]

There are many things that can be changed to make the platforms more suitable to younger users. Just banning it instead of searching for a good balance won’t help the next generation to understand the world and take a part in it.

There are so many ways the platforms can be changed but France decided they've tried nothing and they're all out of ideas.

[johnisgood]

We have not learnt anything from the war on drugs, even though many people compare social media to drugs.

[tokioyoyo]

Very off-topic, but war on drugs failed in NA, but is successful in East Asia. It really depends on government and how they handle it. I’m not American, but my understanding of war on drugs was also that it wasn’t just about drugs, might be wrong.

[thrance]

That comparison is misguided. You can stop social media abruptly and not feel any withdrawal.

[gjadi]

It's much easier to forbid something to a subset of the population than to the population at large.