If anything, a 16+ cutoff is still quite conservative. These platforms deliberately target developing reward systems and social comparison in the brain, and there is growing evidence (summarized well in the book “The Anxious Generation”) that the risk profile changes meaningfully only in the late teens, so pushing first exposure from 11–13 to 16 gives kids a better chance of resisting those algorithms.

Banning under‑16s from highly optimised, social feeds is also not the same as stopping them from talking to each other; you can still have calls, SMS, WhatsApp, group chats, email and offline social life. In my own case I’ve been social‑media‑free for about four years while still talking to friends and family regularly through these channels.

As someone who grew up all over the world and never stayed in one country for more than five years, I’m 35 and still in touch with close friends around the world purely through direct communication, which has also made it obvious how distorted social media’s notion of “friends” is. Once you leave, you quickly see who actually reciprocates effort instead of passively consuming a curated feed of your life.

You are right that bans don’t fix the deeper structural issues of commercial platforms or information asymmetries, but that’s not an argument against shielding children while we work on those deeper problems. In practice, a simple, blanket rule is often the only thing enforceable at scale that doesn’t depend on every parent being highly technically and psychologically literate.

In that sense, an under‑16 ban is not perfect and does not “solve the problem itself,” but it is still the right move compared to the current situation of throwing undeveloped brains into systems explicitly tuned to hijack their focus. The consequences of which we are only beginning to see now... the issue is tremendous.

Not to mention, if companies can’t hire the talent they need in the US, they won’t just “make do” with whoever’s available... they’ll move operations elsewhere, which means fewer opportunities for the very people immigration restrictions are supposed to help.

This is how I know this comment was written by an AI.

>the majority of patients regained some sight, with some advancing from legally blind to low vision.

Labor opposition is also going to be a nightmare. Just as Uber faced resistance from taxi unions and legislators sympathetic to workers who saw their jobs threatened, Tesla will likely face significant opposition from drivers in the gig economy, who rely on ride-hailing platforms like Uber and Lyft. Governments may be pressured to protect those jobs, especially in regions where automation is seen as a threat to employment.

Talk about jumping to conclusions.

>These facilities, equipment and other infrastructure that emit methane at high rates span central Asia, the Middle East and the southwestern United States.

What I am curious about is how do we actually hold these large scale emitters accountable and enact change? It's not enough to simply know about the problem.