I was in France the other month and in Saumur next to the Loire River I had a drink at an outside area (a "bar" which was an old coach). The entire crowd was sitting chatting with each other, and I did not see a single phone out. Nobody was taking selfies or posing, and the teenagers were sat looking at the river and the cat they found next to it. I think it's very different culturally from elsewhere.

The same was true down near Biscarrosse, where a beach visit and walk through the town just had people and families enjoying life without phones. Same true down into Spain, as we drove down all of France into Spain to get the fery back to the UK.

Back in the UK and everyone is glued to their phones.

I even visited a McDonalds in France, where families were eating together and talking and not a single phone was seen. I was amazed. I was also amazed at the value and how you were served at your table, and how a drink inside the restaurant arrived in a plastic cup, and how the fries were in a reusable plastic sheath. In the UK it's all disposable waste for cups and fries (very short-sighted).

Astoundingly, I survived my childhood and teenage years without social media. I went out on my bike, or stayed at home and read a book and/or learned to play an instrument, or listened to music. Social media isn't solving a problem - it is creating a dependency.

Play video games, read a book, be bored and come up with their own games. These are all fine. Social media is absolutely not more valuable than that.

> Today's kids are discouraged from walking around unsupervised, discouraged from partying together, discouraged from fighting and pranks.

In France?

> what are kids supposed to do all day?

Pretty much every school (and in one instance, town [1]) where this has happened has seen positive results.

We have a legitimate problem with the incompetence of governments in designing these age gates. (My personal preference: massive penalties, like $100k per violation and jail time for executives who order and employees who faciliate systematic violation, for social media companies who let kids on.) But the cause is correct. The evidence points in one direction for kids (note: I believe it's mixed for teenagers; the American literature tends to cliff around 14, where we also find massive public support for bans).

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/25/realestate/ireland-cell-p...

Just the other evening there was a group of teenagers in the park across the road from my house... playing french boulles, chatting and playing Beatles songs and other great music loudly. There is hope.

> Honest question, what are kids supposed to do all day? We're taking away social media but it's not like we're rebuilding anything.

The worry that kids have nothing to do at all except social media means things went really bad. They can do all the things kids did before social media. Literally all of them are available and present in their rooms and outside.

>Today's kids are discouraged from walking around unsupervised, discouraged from partying together,

Not true in France.

> discouraged from fighting and pranks.

As they should be.

> Phone-free lifestyles require a society-wide infrastructure, and we don't have that.

We literally have that.

This is France, not America

Create the demand and supply will follow...

Not that I agree with the premise that there isn't anything to do. Even if were to limit the scope to just your examples, printing presses are still around, and those screens can be used as digital alternatives.

The only missing input from society here is that it actually need to put real effort into raising its young.

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