Technology

It's complicated. The current state of the internet is dominated by corporate interests towards maximal profit, and that's driving the way websites and services are structured towards very toxic and addictive patterns. This is bigger than just "social media."

However, as a queer person, I will say that if I didn't have the ability to access the Internet and talk to other queer people without my parents knowing, I would be dead. There are lots of abused kids who lack any other outlets to seek help, talk to people and realize their problems, or otherwise find relief for the crushing weight of familial abuse.

Navigating this issue will require grace, awareness and a willingness to actually address core problems and not just symptoms. It doesn't help that there is an increasing uptick of purity culture and "for the children" legislation that will curtail people's privacy, ability to use the internet and be used to push queer people and their art or narratives off of the stage.

Requiring age verification reduces anonymity and makes it certain that some people will be unable to use the internet safely. Yes, it's important in some cases, but it's also a cost to that.

There's also the fact that western society has systemically ruined all third spaces and other places for children to exist in that isn't their home or school. It used to be that it was possible for kids and teens to spend time at malls, or just wandering around a neighborhood. There were lots of places where they were implicitly allowed to be- but those are overwhelmingly being closed, commericalized or subject to the rising tide of moral panic and paranoia that drives people to call the cops on any group of unknown children they see on their street.

Police violence and severity of response has also heightened, so things that used to be minor, almost expected misdemeanors for children wandering around now carry the literal risk of death.

So children are increasingly isolated, locked down in a context where they cannot explore the world or their own sense of self outside the hovering presence of authority- so they turn to the internet. Cutting that off will have repercussions. Social media wouldn't be so addictive for kids if they had other venues to engage with other people their age that weren't subject to the constant scrutiny of adults.

Without those spaces, they have to turn to the only remaining outlet. This article is woefully inadequate to answer the fundamental, core problems that produce the symptoms we are seeing; and, it's implementation will not rectify the actual problem. It will only add additional stress to the system and produce a greater need to seek out even less safe locations for the people it ostensibly wishes to protect.