Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge
For many years now, a group of researchers and activists have warned about the potential dangers of children using social networks. The warnings resonated with me emotionally, since so many people I know — young and old — have struggled with their own relationships to apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. It seems logical that what many people experience as a kind of icky feeling after too much scrolling manifests as something much more serious in others — particularly in young people.
Anxiety over this state of affairs has contributed to a significant uptick this year in state-level regulation aimed at getting kids off their phones. (...
