MAKE SOCIAL MEDIA UNCOOL
A grassroots movement in the United Kingdom, formed on WhatsApp groups, has encouraged parents grouped by school classes across the country to delay smartphone use until secondary school.
Australia has passed legislation that will ban under-16s from having social media accounts by the end of this year, a law that could be copied elsewhere. And UK policy experts say that the country won’t back down from fining tech firms that breach its new Online Safety Act despite Trump’s recent tariff melee.
Meanwhile, several US states are enacting laws to push for phone-free schools. And a trial begins Monday that could force Meta to divest Instagram, following Federal Trade Commission allegations of illegal acquisitions.
Device makers could do more here too. Parental control settings on iPhones and Android phones are notoriously complicated, with options scattered across different menus and unclear technical terminology. Apple and Alphabet could streamline all that with a dedicated app instead of burying options in screen-time menus where they’re easily circumvented.
But if they don’t, the option of removing phones and social media from kids is becoming more plausible, even if the idea of tearing anyone away from their tiny screens is still hard to imagine. It may be the only alternative to help future generations break the cycle of nonstop scrolling.
Silicon Valley won’t save kids from products designed to be addictive, so perhaps the goal should be to make social media as uncool for kids as cigarettes became in the 90s and 2000s. When parents, schools and eventually teens themselves reject these platforms, Big Tech will have no choice but to adapt.
