For a more fair comparison to liquor stores and adult movie theaters: it would be requiring people to be 18 to sign up for internet service, which is how it already works.
Parents are buying the alcohol from the liquor store (internet service, which kids cannot buy themselves) and giving it to their kids.
If you don't approve of the alcohol you're giving to your kids then stop giving it to them (it is legal in my state for parents to buy alcohol for their kids).
So what if other kids are drinking too and it would be socially a pain for the kid? That's always been true of having a parent with stricter rules.
When I was a kid in the 90s my parents limited how much TV we could watch.
I knew other kids who could only use the family computer for a limited time and while their parents were in the room.
I sympathize with parents who do want to provide internet service to their kids and want better parental control software.
But making the internet worse for everyone is not the way. Discord has already had a partner leak IDs before. [1]
I like the alcohol comparison it's interesting in how accurate it is and yet society does it.
I also think it's obvious your comparisons of parents limiting time of things like this in the 90s is not apples to apples.
Being the person to start a new trend (in your local bubble) is non-trivial and hard to explain to a child growing up around nearly all their peers having access.
Doubly so if it's something that (I think science supports this?) is far more addicting than it was in the past.
I'm not saying folks get a free pass but I'm not sure we had a global drug crisis that 90% of the population was participating in before which from your analogy is what's happening.
Thanks again for the alcohol comparison I'm going to phrase it like that in my head to hopefully get all of my brain on board with the seriousness of the topic for my kids :)
For a 90% global drug crisis comparison: Also when I was a kid my parents generally didn't let us eat sugar. They were fine if we ate sugar at a friends but they didn't themselves buy sugary cereals or ice cream or candy or soft drinks (except for special occasions like birthdays).
As a kid I hated it and it made me feel like my family was weird. I can only think of one friend growing up that didn't have soft drinks in their house and his mom was a registered dietician. I'll have to ask my folks sometime if they fielded complaints from other parents.
And, yes, the comparison of today to the 90s is not apples to apples. There are legitimate safety reasons why kids today need cell phones. In the 90s there were pay phones everywhere and that is no longer true.
But I assume parental controls on today's cell phones let parents block all apps but Contacts/Dialing/Messaging if they want to.
Parents are buying the alcohol from the liquor store (internet service, which kids cannot buy themselves) and giving it to their kids.
If you don't approve of the alcohol you're giving to your kids then stop giving it to them (it is legal in my state for parents to buy alcohol for their kids). So what if other kids are drinking too and it would be socially a pain for the kid? That's always been true of having a parent with stricter rules.
When I was a kid in the 90s my parents limited how much TV we could watch. I knew other kids who could only use the family computer for a limited time and while their parents were in the room.
I sympathize with parents who do want to provide internet service to their kids and want better parental control software.
But making the internet worse for everyone is not the way. Discord has already had a partner leak IDs before. [1]
[1] https://discord.com/press-releases/update-on-security-incide...