> In particular, for marginalized teens, social media represents a unique avenue to connect with teens in similar situations, which provides a significant support network.

Thank you for bringing this up. I was one of those 'marginalised' kids who didn't relate to my real life surroundings so much. The internet was like an escape for me, where I was able to meet many close friends with similar interests on social medias like Twitter and Discord. Not to mention, free internet access in general taught so much about the world, developed my passions and helped determine what I'm now studying and planning to pursue as a career.

If social media was banned when I was younger, it would have made me worse off for sure. And if there were internet/device restrictions more broadly, like I'm often seeing suggested, it would have been absolutely devastating for me. My life would have turned out completely different, in a bad way.

On a site like HN, I would have expected there to be much more people who also had the same experience as younger me with the internet and social media. But for some reason, most of the dominant sentiment here seems to consider social media as a cancer, with no nuance. I'm not sure why they do, but I wish that these people would consider the experiences of people like me.

It seems plausible that social media is part-cause, part-symptom of a larger shift away from "real" socialisation. I don't have any scientific evidence for it, so feel free to debate. In general in doesn't seem like a controversial opinion to notice that how we are, socially, has changed over time, probably not for the better. It might be that it's hard to pin down one major cause, because the whole system is moving in tandem.

> I have tried to find good scientific evidence that shows that social media is a net negative for kids and or adults. I have been unable to do so.

The author mentioned by GP is currently working on a similar questions collecting, reviewing and categorizing known literature in these open access documents [1][2]. I suggest you take a look if you are interested in the topic.

> For example, Hacker News is the only social media that I use, and I feel that I use it very differently than folks that use Instagram, for example. Can they be effectively conflated?

Well, I would say no. But to have a meaningful discussion we need to first agree on what is meant here with "social media". Clearly, this law has been passed with the intent to affect Meta / ByteDance / Reddit and similar companies with a business model that hinges on capturing as much attention of their users as possible, which is very different from HackerNews. Most accusations to social media begin bad are towards of the former type.

> but I would be very curious to see a scientific justification for banning it for kids under 16.

From [1], it seems to me that there is a non-negligible amount of literature that has been accumulating, that could be used to justify the ban. Though, Australia is not a technocracy (I hope), so I would say that there is also a certain degree of "purely social" reasons why they might want to curb the access of social media companies to their youth.

[1]: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w-HOfseF2wF9YIpXwUUtP65-...

[2] : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vVAtMCQnz8WVxtSNQev_e1cG...

> I have tried to find good scientific evidence that shows that social media is a net negative for kids and or adults. I have been unable to do so.

> For example, Hacker News is the only social media that I use

Try spending an hour a day on tiktok (average tiktok user screen time) and 30 min a day on instagram (average ig user screen time) for a year and report back. This shit is crack cocaine for kids

> I have tried to find good scientific evidence that shows that social media is a net negative for kids and or adults. I have been unable to do so.

Facebook knows Instagram is toxic for teen girls, company documents show (wsj.com)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28523688

Facebook proven to negatively impact mental health (tau.ac.il)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32938622

Testimony to House committee by former Facebook executive Tim Kendall (house.gov)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24579498

The difficulty is co-ordination. My job as a "responsible parent" is much more difficult if I have to fight prevailing social norms and my kids perceive they are being excluded from conversations and arbitrarily cut off from their peers.

The social media ban is similar to the logic behind gaming limits in China. The idea is that while the controls themselves are easily circumvented, it gives everyone an excuse to do the right thing.

Parents don't have infinite "control tokens". I only have time & energy to put my foot down about a limited number of things. It is much easier to establish conventions around responsible behaviour if the whole community is behind it.

I am OK with this ban for the same reason I'm OK with tobacco sellers being not allowed to sell to under 18s.

How does a parent compete with trillion dollar corporations that hire psychologist, cognitive scientists, and neuroscientists to make their apps highly addictive?

Being honest here because just telling parents to deal with a societal ill seems very shortsighted and comes from an immense place of priviledge.

I’m sure the same argument was made about tobacco? If you want your children to not smoke tobacco, just be a better parent. How dare the state prevent children from purchasing tobacco? The state is not your parent!

For network effect products (social media, drugs, and alcohol), the easiest solution is in fact to use the government to ban the sale of said products to minors. It’s a coordination problem that’s bigger than the family unit.

On the surface it seems very similar to a book he previously worked on, The Coddling of the American Mind, which is also full of poorly researched pop science that confirms biases people already had.

Kind of an "airport book"

Just like "the science" about brain development ages.

Is this just your opinion, or is there a scientific retort I can read?

I guess it will become self-fulfilling if everyone denies that there are privacy friendly options. Legislatures globally are starting to take this seriously so chances are it's happening one way or another.

What do you even mean by "work". You live in a fantasy land if you think the government will say we expect outcomes A, B and C from this law and will repeal or adjust it if all outcomes aren't met in 3 years. It's either a power grab or lobbying as others have suggested.

SERIOUSLY! Is anyone claiming that childhood depression and suicide will go down to some range after this law is put in effect? Of course not. Will grades go up? "Government says I can't use social media, guess I'll study, go to sleep on time, and become a productive worker." - Average Australian kid? Will the number of sextortion caused suicides (in the <16 bracket) go back to 0 from 1 to the glory days of 2021 when social media didn't exist (nope, because he was 17 when he died and that was last year). Will the number of girls being sextorted for cash decrease? (reading this [1] you can just ask and they'll tell you, that's great, also it's the general sentiment between students that social media should be banned, another big win! Isn't it convenient when reality bends to ideology.) How exactly can you measure this? Is there a counter of the number of <16s who have seen porn/gore on social media and became too misogynistic or too autistic (or too much of a gay, trans, pedophile, brainrotted, degenerate, debauched, profligate, libertine, licentious, effeminate, wanton, vicious, perverse, recreant, lascivious, unrīht sodomite) for the government's taste? Anything more than a vague sense that cyberbulling will go down and irlbullying will go up a bit? probably Who knows, who cares! We allegedly have vague public sentiment! So grab away!

It's blindingly obvious that this ban can't and won't change <16s habits past switching from their favorite app to whatever their friends are using now.

[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/australian-father-of-te...

What is the acceptance criteria for this test case?

It will not work and this is exactly why it will be copied.

Most countries ban guns for everyone, with that being the primary reason. It is not a fragile argument, it is simply a different weighting of values.

When I say “ban”, I mean “heavily restrict and track”, which is how I gather we are using the term “ban” in this context as well.

Well, "ban guns for everyone because some bad guy might get his hands on one" has always been the law in my country, and it has worked out extremely well. There has never been a mass shooting here, ever.