>I don’t use TikTok and it’s no skin off of my back if it gets banned. Banned or not, though, I don’t see a reason to ban it only for children. It doesn’t seem to be more harmful for them. They don’t seem to be using it lots more than adults.
>If you’re going to ban TikTok because it’s harmful or for geopolitical reasons, fine. But ban it universally; if we’re not willing to do that, stop pretending that a child-only ban is principled. A child-only ban is what you do when you want to do something but can’t think of anything better to do, and you don’t want to impact voters.
There are now enough statistics to prove that social media has a negative impact on the mental health of users, especially children and adolescents. Even Meta has kept a study on this topic under wraps. What OP is doing here is putting adults and children on the same level and saying that what applies to children must also apply to adults. The difference, however, is that we as adults have a responsibility toward children. Children enjoy special protection in society and, for good reason, are subject to limited criminal liability. We do this because we assume that children belong to a vulnerable and easily influenced group, and lack the mental and moral maturity to adequately assess their actions. We assume that adults have the necessary mental and moral maturity to adequately assess the consequences of their own actions, which is why they are granted more rights but also more responsibilities than children. OP does not reveal any contradiction or other ‘gotcha’ moment here, unless he generally takes issue with the relationship of responsibility between adults and adolescents.