There are two kinds of freedom [0].
What we are missing in our society today is some essential negative
freedoms.
Most of us follow J.S. Mill's idea on restricting the influence of the
state. See the many comments in this thread decrying government
intervention to ban social media. That's a negative freedom, from
tyranny.
Mostly, we tend to emphasise positive freedoms, freedom to; run a
business, share speech, own technology. And that is good.
But there are negative freedoms, freedom from; coercion, the scourge
of drugs, poverty, censorship. Obviously many positive freedoms can be
expressed as negative ones, but how that logic is formulated in law
really matters.
Now the controversial bit:
What we are missing is laws that give people freedom from technology
The supposed "choice" to participate is not enough.
Like others here I've been a non participant in social media and
smartphones. I'm not a Luddite, I'm a computer scientist, but I
twigged this problem very early having dealt with addiction and
recognising how abuse is mediated by technology. I even wrote a book
about it [1].
The problem is, life is made very difficult for those who want to
exercise choice. Presently one must live as a second class citizen, in
what feels like racism and prejudice of technological snobbery. It is
utterly unnecessary.
Governments do not need to ban smartphones or social media for kids or
for anyone. Making this only about kids is a cop-out. It's
leveraging emotional messaging to side-step a bigger problem nobody
wants to face - that our whole society is under siege from technology
overuse. The more general problem is that we've entered a period of
technological over-reach. Kids don't just feel peer pressure to get a
smartphone and social media, they live in a society that wants to
mandate it.
Whether for kids or adults, we need to strongly protect the rights of
those who want a less technologically mediated (and encumbered - yes
it's not all "convenience") lifestyle. This needs us to maintain
plurality of access;
No services for government, schools, health available *only* on
proprietary and "smart" platforms. Requirement to maintain
traditional paper and interpersonal modes.
End the insanity of a "cashless society", and "smart societies"
that exclude basic human interaction and require and assume
smartphones with apps.
Strongly protect the rights of parents to choose how their kids use
technology, for example in schools, and the attitudes they are
raised with.
Governments can ensure negative freedoms without just banning stuff.
[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/liberty-positive-negative...
[1] https://digitalvegan.net/