I think you're saying that instead of regulating the experience for kids, parents should keep their kids away from that class of product entirely. In essence, treat all social media as adult-only products.
The biggest difficulty is coordinating this approach with other parents and institutions - it is punishing to be the only kid without a smartphone when peers (and increasingly, institutions) require you to have one to participate.
But that issue aside - it is still strange to allow for this class of products tailored to kids but parents are just supposed to universally agree should not be bought. There is clearly a society-wide issue here that we've left for individuals to solve. Predictably, it is not going well.
it is still strange to allow for this class of products tailored to kids but parents are just supposed to universally agree should not be bought
The US is all about freedom. We also allow people to smoke even though smoking kills more than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. That's weird...but we still allow it. Conversely, I would expect the EU to implement the kind of legislation you're advocating for.
The biggest difficulty is coordinating this approach with other parents and institutions - it is punishing to be the only kid without a smartphone when peers (and increasingly, institutions) require you to have one to participate.
But that issue aside - it is still strange to allow for this class of products tailored to kids but parents are just supposed to universally agree should not be bought. There is clearly a society-wide issue here that we've left for individuals to solve. Predictably, it is not going well.