The ban we have on gambling seems weak. From trading card games to loot boxes to those arcade games that look to be skill based but are entirely up to chance, children are allowed to do all. The rules feel very inconsistent to the point that they appear arbitrary in nature.

Agreed, the gaming industry has done it's damndest to undermine the restrictions of gambling.

There's a pretty clear difference between gambling and "gambling": whether you're winning money.

Gambling is outright banned for a majority of regions in the US, not just kids. I don't think they are equally bad, just different bad. Gambling is addictive, and it destroys people. Social media is addictive and socially toxic, on the whole it erodes the very fabric of a society.

>Social media is addictive and socially toxic, on the whole it erodes the very fabric of a society.

It's interesting how every generation seems to decry new forms of media as eroding the fabric of society. They said it about video games, television, music, movies, etc. I'm sure we're right this time, though.

… we’ve been right. Television, music, video games, movies, etc., have decimated social capital and communication in the western world. It is not uncommon to “hang out” with people who are your “friends” without ever interacting with them in any meaningful way because everyone is focused on, e.g., a television. That’s assuming everyone isn’t too busy playing video games to leave their houses.

Whether you agree or not that they’re “eroding the very fabric of a society” (I would argue they are), it should be acknowledged that almost all the downsides predicted have come to pass, and life has gone on not because these things didn’t happen, but in spite of them having happened.

People are interacting through online games quite often though. You can't throw them all in one basket. You can make friends / longer term connections that way (I did) or keep in touch with people you don't live near to.

That's not community, though. You're not inhabiting the same space, share the same problems and try to work them out them together. You're not helping each other out if someone falls into trouble.

It's up to you what you build that way. You can build a real community, you can build a shallow friend group, the medium doesn't have to limit it. My boss met his wife in a MUD.

You can meet your wife on a Tinder, via ads posted in newspaper or on a cruise. It does not mean that those are communities.

You can do all of those things sans inhabit the same space with people you meet online. I met my 2 girlfriends online and we support each other through everything even though we aren't in the same place most of the time. I'm part of a niche group on reddit that supports each other emotionally in a way I've struggled to find in physical spaces. I still meet up with people in physical space, but I absolutely get meaningful social connection from online spaces.

Television clearly did something pretty significant to society. Cable news makes the country more polarized, that we didn’t do anything about it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a problem. We just missed and now the problem is baked into the status quo.

Video games are typically fiction, so the ability to pass propaganda through them is usually a little more limited. It isn’t impossible, just different.

Social media is a pretty bad news source for contentious issues. We should be pretty alarmed that people are getting their news there.

It seems that all data on the subject of social media point emphatically to, Yes! It's terrible for adolescents[0] (and probably society writ large?).

[0] https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/

Apples-to-oranges comparison.

Plenty has been written already on the ravaging effects of social media on society and it's pretty plain to see.

https://www.mcleanhospital.org/essential/it-or-not-social-me...

> Rates of sexual activity have been in decline for years, but the drop is most pronounced for adults under age 25 (Gen Z).

> For Gen Z, a rise in sexlessness has coincided with a decline in mental health.

> Sexual activity can boost mood and relieve stress and may serve as a protective factor against anxiety and depressive disorders.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-myths-sex/2022... missing-out-the-benefits-sex

Yeah, none of those are comparable. TV never lead to children bullying each other anonymously which then leads to kids committing suicide.

Social media isn't new. It's over 20 years old by now. If you count things like forums you're looking at 30+ years old.

Not anymore. A 2018 Supreme Court decision opened the floodgates to legalized sports gambling, much of it online. The only states with existing bans are Hawaii and Utah, which combined have only 5 million residents.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiat...

This is just blatantly not true, anyone who has tried to gamble on sports can tell you that companies go to quite incredible lengths to make sure that nobody outside of the few jurisdictions where they're legal can gamble online. I live in Nebraska, and I have to go travel across to Iowa before I can do anything.

True, it's state by state, but a lot of states allow it. And even if you're not in the right state you can always go to sites from other countries (e.g. betonline.ag)

Oof.