I think the best thing most parents could do is ban the Internet from their own life. I grew up in the 80s and I have watched the evolution of parenting since then. The world is measurably safer today than it was then. Stranger danger is vanishingly rare. What the hell happened? Fear happened. Things like 24 hour cable news accelerated it, and the Internet turbocharged it. We cannot untangle the horrors we are exposed to on the Internet with what real life dangers face us, we conflate them to the detriment of our children.

Maybe our children will figure it out as they become parents. I hope so.

When the dangers consist of invisible targeted manipulation of thought processes it's a whole different category of risks that kids (and most adults) are not equipped to handle. The effects are playing out around the world as we speak.

I don't know that universal tracking is the answer. I also don't think unrestricted access to children by manipulative predators (companies in this case) is the right answer. But then, I don't think they should have unrestricted access to adults either.

This is the only insightful comment in this entire thread but it will be ignored because people love a good moral panic.

Millennials having kids has turned them into their boomer parents, bringing out the pitchfork for whatever braindead hysteria was featured in CAPITAL LETTERS on the 6 oclock news that day.

The kids are going to be fine. None of the moral panics of previous generations are even talked about anymore, because it's all irrational kneejerk reactions to change ("this new music is different, it's destroying our kids!"). Social media doesn't even exist anymore, its just short form cable TV.

The adults on the other hand...that's the actual group we need to be worried about. They don't adapt like kids do.

The boomers mismanaged the entire developed world into a giant debt spiral and are collapsing every social welfare system their parents generation created.

The real question is: What institutions and assets the boomers created (like the internet) will the the millennials ruin with their poor governance?