Commentary
Earlier this year, the controversial Kids Off Social Media Act (KOSMA)
passed the Senate Commerce Committee. Proponents of the bill say barring kids under 13 and limiting algorithm-based advertising for those under 17 will protect children online. Opponents claim that the law would restrict the constitutional rights of children to engage in speech online and necessitate dangerous data-gathering by big tech companies.
But KOSMA’s biggest problem isn’t its goals—it’s how it achieves them. Reducing the influence of social media in kids’ lives is good, but we can’t expect sweeping, government-imposed restrictions to accomplish this. KOSMA won’t stop kids from wanting to be online, and tech-savvy youngsters tend to get what they want.
Instead, parents need to make their children want the real world again.
Few could deny the negative impacts of social media on Generation Z and Generation Alpha. I should know. As someone who barely remembers a time before cell phones, I can attest that the hunk of silica and plastic I carry in my pocket runs my life. The urge to constantly check LinkedIn, Snapchat, Instagram, X, Reddit, and YouTube at every break in the day is pernicious and
well-documented. We’ve all been doing a little “brain rotting” lately.
But along with our attention spans, social media killed the “
third place.” Consider the sitcom
Seinfeld, for example. The characters go to work and hang out at their homes, but the coffee shop is the most iconic set piece. This place, which isn’t work and isn’t home, is where the characters habitually go to interact with their community. They meet love interests and tell stories in an intimate,
face-to-face setting.
The third place is a foreign concept to Gen Z and below. There’s no need to hang around the local diner to see what your friends are up to—check Instagram. Looking to meet a gal or guy on a Friday night? Forget the bar—just buy extra likes on Hinge. Exciting news shared with friends is met with a “thumbs up” emoji rather than a high five or a hug.
Social media’s assassination of the third place has led to
many young people feeling isolated. KOSMA is right to try to address this, but the way is not broad bans crafted at the federal level. Critics are right to point out that the law would require either massive data gathering or be completely unenforceable. In fact, even with stringent age verification tools, kids would still circumnavigate the controls. The iron law of technology is that if kids want to access something, they will.
KOSMA isn’t a total waste—signaling is important. It’s great to see public figures drawing attention to the dangers of these platforms. But, as in every other area of life, the government is a poor substitute for a parent. Families are the building blocks of a democracy, the most basic political unit, and so it falls to families to revive the third place and put social media in the backseat. Because kids will be on social media if they want to be, we have to make them not want it.
Parents who aren’t interested in raising comment-section gremlins or vapid influencer-obsessors should make an effort to show their kids the third place. Enroll them in an after-school club or sport. Encourage them to join a church youth group or have a weekly game night. Perhaps most importantly, do not ban them from social media. The Streisand Effect, in which censoring a thing drums up interest, is real and will only fuel their desire to become terminally online.
Of course, this will look different for each family. Some children have more addictive personalities; others are naturally homebodies. That’s why the government can’t legislate this issue, especially on a national scale. Everyone finds their way to their third place in a different way, and KOSMA can’t effectively show everyone that path. It can only increase the scope of government bureaucracy and meddling in complex social issues. It’s good for officials to use their bully pulpit to draw attention to this issue, but it’s time for parents to step up and force their iPad kids to “touch grass.”
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
