I think growing up with a smartphone in your hand makes you extremely well attuned to presentation and sensing how every little data point will be perceived by others. Maybe you need that to navigate today. But I think that acute awareness also comes with a sense that there are currents dragging and pulling at you, which older generations are less perceptive of, and perhaps less vulnerable to.

We now have a generation who had to form their sense of self in a world where they are surrounded by sophisticated social media algorithms. They didn't get to form a sense of self offline, and only then hit the information superhighway where you pick out the perfect TOOL-song for your MySpace.

They had to swim or sink - and they're really good swimmers now, but perhaps on some level they accurately feel like they were robbed of a choice of sorts.

You'll never know who you would have been without the smartphone.

There's always been something like the internet though. When I was growing up there was a lot of concern around video games, for example. Growing up I even knew a few guys who were arguably addicted to video games and did nothing else when they weren't in school but play video games. Video games are also designed to be addictive and can often have harmful content – this is the main reason parents wanted certain video games banned in the 90s.

Again, I'm not against sensible limits on children. I do understand that a child cannot have 100% agency over their own actions. But blanket bans on "harmful" videos games like GTA or apps like TikTok seems silly because it limits the actions of adults under the assumption that the government knows what's best for you and your family.

What the government could do is implement age restrictions and age-based content filters. Mandate that companies provide parents with the tools to restrict usage and fine companies that fail do to this. But otherwise just let people do what they want. Tiktok is a great app enjoyed by millions. I don't know why we have to ruin that because a small percentage of people can't control their usage.