What a weird argument in the context of this bill. "If I'm too strict my child will resent me therefore I will vote so that my opinion can be enforced on everyone by the government and I can be my child's buddy".

Must be interesting with other "sinful" activities, "I'd totally let you do cocain but shoot the government won't let me!".

There is a place between a micro-managing helicopter parent and laissez-faire - your parenting should be in that place. And while it'd be awesome to be your kids' best friend forever it's more important that they learn boundaries, self-control and how to human. You can impart self-control without opening every door and, given how psychologically exploitative a lot of the internet and advertising is, it's hardly a fair fight to just let them sink or swim.

Guidance is a responsibility of parenthood.

My parents were pretty strict with me as a kid, and I missed out on a lot of things that my peers got to do. I did resent them, somewhat, at the time, but by my mid-20s I was able to recognize that they were just doing their best and, like literally all parents, were making things up as they went along.

When I went to college I was fine. I developed a new social circle quickly, and didn't end up becoming a drunk or a druggie. Sure, I did many of the things my parents never would allow me to do, but it was fine.

I totally get that some people end up in a worse place than I did, but that's not an excuse for blanket governmental bans on things. But I would absolutely 100% support any parent that decides to deny their children any and all access to social media. That shit is cancer, and IMO is worse for developing brains than nicotine or alcohol.

I hesitate to present such a hard line on social media, when I'm kinda "whatever" on teens seeing some porn. The problem is that I see what social media does to adults with fully-developed brains, and I start to feel like social media is akin to heroin: no amount of it is safe, for anyone.

A more relaxed view might be to give teens access to social media, but only in a supervised setting. Parents should be monitoring what goes on with their social media accounts, and have frank (but calm and non-judgemental) discussions with the kid whenever anything concerning comes up. Also parents need to find a way to impress upon their kids that social media is not real life, and that people present whatever slice of their lives (often an unrealistic rosy picture) they decide to paint. And then there's all the misinformation and echo chambers, and... ugh, yeah, no, just don't let kids on social media.