This piece started from a simple observation: every generation has the same panic about new media, but we never ask why the panic is so predictable. The Australia ban is just the latest iteration. Before TikTok it was video games, before that MTV, before that TV. We keep regulating the technology without examining the incentive structure underneath. What interested me was the recursive problem—the very capacities you'd need to see this pattern (sustained attention, ability to connect dots over time) are what get degraded by the pattern itself. I'm not arguing for or against the ban. I'm arguing we're having the wrong conversation. And that might not be an accident. Curious what patterns others are seeing that I missed.

This article is asking interesting questions but the proposed answers don’t seem to be based on either research or personal knowledge of the media that are being compared. I remember vividly the conversations about TV consumption that was happening in the 80s and it really was an entirely different conversation than the one now about social media. While many parents may have worried about their kids watching too much TV, the hysteria about MTV really only came from the far right fringe. MTV was only on cable and most people did not have cable. It just wasn’t seen as this grave threat because most kids just didn’t have access to it. Even when Tipper Gore managed to work up a frenzy over NWA, rap was only just starting to get mainstream and her explicit warning labels probably did more to promote their record than anything. Video games in the 80s were expensive and had to be purchased. Media consumption had barriers to access. Anyone who wanted to control their media could. TV time could be easily regulated, especially because many (most?) households only had one television.

The widespread and constant accessibility of social media today isn’t merely a sidenote to a larger argument; it is the main issue, which makes it a fundamentally different concern than the ones expressed about TV and MTV in the 80s. Social media is ubiquitous and it is accessible outside of the home, which makes it very difficult for parents to regulate their kids’ use of it. Even if your own kid doesn’t have a phone, chances are their friends do.

The social media ban raises very concerning questions about government intervention, no doubt. But I do think the problem social media presents is a novel one; it’s not a rehashing of the 80s conversation.