That is an inherent problem with screens in general, especially mobile ones, as it is such a powerful attention grabing arena.

I'm trying to be pragmatic when I propose to curb the use of algorithm driven feeds and limit businesses to gather massive amounts of highly personal data thats is used to train algorithms to become even more effective attention grabbers.

There has to be limits to what a government can regulate or ban. Being social online should not be banned. Allowing companies to inject themselfs and interfere in our social interactions, gather almost unlimited data and use it to exploit our psychological quirks and weaknesses should be.

EDIT: And I agree that for the user, the ads are not the main problem. However, ads are the main incentive for businesses to do whatever they can to grab your attention, and this is a big problem.

Ads insensitive platforms to design a more and more addictive infinite feed. If they cannot profit from children scrolling endlessly, why would they want to enable children to scroll endlessly? If ads for children on social media are banned (somehow), kids' feeds will probably just become way more boring.

Exactly. If we want to get a grip on the most damaging effects of social media, we have to correctly identify the incentives that has put us in current mess we are in.

Every commercial social media platform that I know of earns money primarily by selling and displaying personalized and targeted ads – so that is where we should start. The 'targeted' part can be addressed by strengthening privacy regulations and enforcing them vigorously, and the 'ads' part can be attenuated by banning ads made for and shown to kids and young people.

I disagree. Just because some group doesn't get fed ads anymore, doesn't magically cause the social media platform to become any less addictive.