On the question of whether to legislate the ban, I'm a no. On the question of whether parents should implement it, I'm a yes. My niece and her husband have a one year old that is allowed zero screen time. They are willing and able to forego the high tech baby sitting, and are talking about continuing until at least the pre-teens. I think that if they could go even further, say live for the next decade with the Amish, it would be even better.
If a kid was raised with his family in a dome where no technology later than 1900 were permitted (perhaps with an emergency medicine exception) and the kid wasn't released into the world until 13, I think on average they'd be mentally healthier and have a happier life.
That is extremely short-sighted to assume that because a few anecdotes on “how to parent” will fix the problem. I recommend you go out in public and observe the reality in various states and in various demographics and you’ll quickly see that the parents are just as addicted as the kids. They won’t know how to parent this away without legislation.
Just go into the classroom and witness children and their six-seveeen.
This is 100% like smoking except worse, because entire population of children are being deprived of their attention span. They just learn how to peddle useless products onto their peers without brain development to understand the consequence.
I feel the same way about a smoking. I'm opposed to both smoking and a ban on smoking. It's not because I don't think an effective ban would be healthful, but because I believe that the concentrated power needed for it is a greater danger. It's the same argument that I believe supports the first amendment: people saying evil shitty false things is a lesser evil than the power needed to stop them from saying them.
And suppose no one banned smoking, and smoking was still allowed on airplanes and most restaurants had smoking sections would we be better off? I’m sure all the people who died of throat cancer would tell you otherwise.
Your niece and her husband are one in a thousand parents. Very few have the fortitude to do it. Not a good outlook for the future if we depend on the virtue of parents.
I concur with this. I’d even be okay with government-sponsored PSAs about social media use as long as it’s based on sound research. But a ban is a hard no due to the First Amendment.
If a kid was raised with his family in a dome where no technology later than 1900 were permitted (perhaps with an emergency medicine exception) and the kid wasn't released into the world until 13, I think on average they'd be mentally healthier and have a happier life.