The teen mental illness epidemic began around 2012

GROUP A - growing population, roughly same number of "top" universities, resulting in ridiculous competition and pressure to succeed. Getting into Harvard 2012 Getting into Harvard 1972.

GROUP B - working class. super hard. income barely grows but rents and costs grow faster. You're squeezed between two walls and it gets tighter each year. You work more only to stay afloat. Eventually you can only work 24hrs a day. Feels like my parents' life in 1980.

GROUP C - already doing well because dad is a CEO. But because of income earning potential inequality, the top 0.01% makes 20x as much as 0.1%, hence brutal pressure to make it into upper-upper-echelon. Cry me a river, i get it.

GROUP D - Immigrant. immigration is harder. lines are longer. there is nationalism and racism. You work hard, but feel trapped by the system, even if you're doing OK income-wise.

GROUP E...F...G...

It feels a little "anarchist" to say "down with all social media! it's most likely a total net negative! nobody should be allowed to enjoy it because it isn't inclusive of those who might be left out!"

To degenerate a society, strip off traditions that have been formed over centuries collectively, including people with far greater minds than most of us and make everyone more individualistic.

[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2020/09/10/religious-be...

One of the author's suggestions is a strengthening of COPPA:

> Second, Congress should toughen the 1998 Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. An early version of the legislation proposed 16 as the age at which children should legally be allowed to give away their data and their privacy. Unfortunately, e-commerce companies lobbied successfully to have the age of “internet adulthood” set instead at 13. Now, more than two decades later, today’s 13-year-olds are not doing well. Federal law is outdated and inadequate. The age should be raised. More power should be given to parents, less to companies.

I don't think it takes a genius to see that this suggestion would have virtually no effect on the problems the author is trying to address. These COPPA age limits are impossible to enforce, raising it would only mean more kids lying about their age when making accounts on websites, or just getting parental consent. And even if it were possible to enforce, how does it address social media causing mental illness?

One of the author's other suggestions is to pass a version of the UK's Age Appropriate Design Code(!!!!)

California passed its own version of this law in September 2022. It has already been commented on and critiqued extensively on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32587592 Dear California: How Can I Comply with Your New Age-Appropriate Design Code?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32646043 Age Verification Providers Say Don’t Worry About California Design Code; You’ll Just Have To Scan Your Face For Every Website You Visit

Putting aside the main subject of the OP, it is important to remain vigilant and watchful for legislation that will hamper privacy on the internet in the name of "saving the children". I myself can agree that "social media" is a contributor to increased social discord and depression, but these problems affect everyone, not just teenagers. And I think the root cause is, of course, the design of these sites; the way they crudely attempt to quantify "likes", the way they use metrics like the "like" and the "view" as the sole guiding principle behind their design philosophy, rather than productive and humanistic conversation. It is the way these platforms lie to the user, presenting content as if it is the user's hidden inner desires discovered by an external algorithm, when in reality it is the user being shaped by the platform, not the other way around. The way these platforms prioritize content meant to inflame, to provoke, to get "engagement".

This is the real problem of social media, the product itself, the structure of it. But those with power in our society are addicted to it, and instead propose all kinds of useless "safeguards" like age gates and ID checks that only serve to increase the power of these platforms as surveillance tools. The mantra of each side of the aisle is, "if only we were the ones in charge of moderation." I think it is clear to see that this is a naive and unconsidered approach.