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Am I the only one who sees at least a hazy comparison between banning social media and banning vices like alcohol and tobacco?
Just for instance… over the past fifty–odd years, we’ve not only managed to restrict the age for purchasing alcohol and tobacco, we’ve also reached some level of comfort that such restrictions are more and more culturally acceptable, and even worth further pursuit.
Today, similar warning is posed by myriad age-restricted bans upon the usage of social media, even as weighed against its benefits… one Google search is all anyone needs to confirm the health concerns. And let’s set aside that any threat to the health of so-called “minors” might also be a threat to the health of so-called “adults” – we’ve apparently reached a comfort level on that, too, one that leaves the adults free to decide for themselves whether or not to damage their health.
Illicit drugs, pornography, firearms – all restricted, if not illegal. Even movie theatres, video games, and music releases can have age restrictions or purchase & supervision requirements. As for me (though not sure for you), I’ve known plenty of minors in my lifetime who were turned down when they asked adults to forgive such bans and let them purchase [ restricted Product X ]. The point just now is not enforcement, which in real consequence is hit-or-miss, but rather actuality, which by point of fact is cultural evidence that we’ve found actual reason and method in our past for imposing restrictions and bans.
As for the current hoo-haw… if it suggests anything, could it be simply that plenty of people have raised considerable concern? On its face, the mere call to ban social media seems grave enough to warrant a far more judicious – and far less rapid – pursuit of any usage, widespread or minimal, while we try to understand the longer-term consequences of social media, not to mention A.I. As much as the pace of e-culture has reduced our tolerance for waiting, it has also accelerated our lack of patience, which in turn has amplified our imprudence. Among these various cultural reductions, it’s that last one for me (though not sure for you) that really threatens our future.
Someone will argue that social media, and A.I. too, still have practical utility and that weighing this against any ban would short-change the deprived children and youth who use them. Yes, and a 12 year-old can’t just walk into the Motor Vehicles office and book a Road Test, yet driving too has great practical utility. Driving also presents a severe threat to public safety, even after motorists have earned their privilege by passing various licensing processes. Take issue as one may against protecting the duration or stringency of road safety and driver licensing, but for good reason, we do restrict its access.
So, as we halt a minor’s purchase of alcohol or tobacco, why not also a smart phone? Instead of banning social media or A.I., why not restrict the age for operating the devices and accounts we use to access them. How about restricting Rogers / Telus / Bell accounts to make it illegal for minors to be signed on as family members? As no responsible parent simply turns over their car keys to a 12 year-old, why hand them a restricted smart phone? That’s a cultural thing – a willingness to obey the law on account of respecting the reason behind it. Unless, of course, that’s a comfort level thing, and people just aren’t comfortable with it – and wouldn’t that tell us something more about what we value most?
Funny over the past ~10-12 millenia how human civilization managed to grow without electronic anything – even longer than that, if we start redefining “human civilization.” Funnier still how all that non-digital time finally landed us here, facing all this, just the same – did we follow some improper process along the way? Along that timeline, as social media and A.I. suddenly now present socio-economic threat, are we even capable of regulating or curtailing or halting their production and usage quickly enough? Are we even concerned enough to try? If no incentive to try outweighs the incentives to not try, at least not for the people who could try, then I’d say we definitely do and don’t know much about what we value most.
Do we value our health? As social media bears a documented health threat, why aren’t we flatly banning it all, for everyone? Or, if we won’t ban what’s addictive because its addictive, then at least we might regulate it because its addictive, and distorting, and hyper-personalized, and fatiguing, and algorithmic, and profitable. Regulate social media the way we regulate alcohol, or tax it the way we sin-tax alcohol and tobacco. Or at least license its proper usage… how ubiquitous would it be if access to social media were limited, even by dollar-cost? Wait, I forgot – it already is. So how important is any of this, as a health concern, when at least some people are evidently addicted? No problem – remember? Adults make their own decisions, plus bars and nightclubs seem to fare pretty well, and people still smoke too, if just a different shrub than before. Lucky for us, all that stuff is legal.
Bans and restrictions are no more effective in practice than their enforcement – in the world where I live, everyone who really wants to is able to smoke and drink and drive and shoot. But, as any of them might be held to account, well… that’s usually something after the fact, if even then. Lucky for us.
As for me though (not sure for you), rather than hassle everyone with bans and restrictions, rather than nag young people with “A.I. makes you lazy” or “Social media makes you ill,” I prefer to help them learn why “being lazy” or “being ill” is a worthwhile concern. I prefer to persuade people with more inclusive, longer-term responses, apart from whichever bans and restrictions might still get imposed. And I’d rather see us educating people about which choices we face, and which reasons underpin worthwhile debate, and which alternatives are available to those who want to live some better way than enduring threats to health and safety.
Create incentives that change behaviour – or hey, create disincentives that change behaviour, whichever – but create something more nuanced and imaginative than the decree of bans and restrictions, something more capable than getting peoples’ backs up. Unless, of course, we’re clearer now on what we value most.
The Rhetorical WHY 