>In large part that's because, if they'd done so, the kids would've been socially isolated from their peers, at least the most normal ones with the most normal parents, which are the kinds of friends most other normal parents want their kids to have.

I never had any of the popular social medias when I was growing up, and I wasn’t isolated from anybody aside from the one bloke who insisted on doing all his texting via instagram. I’m in uni now and people kind of laugh when I ask them for a phone number, but if anything it’s improved my social status.

>And also, giving kids social media interaction devices is a convenient form of babysitting. It reduces up-front effort of parenting.

This is the real issue to me. Parents are overworked and exhausted because you can’t support a family on one salary, so there’s no more stay-at-home parents. I was extremely lucky in that my mom’s firm got bought out when I was in 5th grade and she retired on the severance package. Parenting is a full time job and society needs to treat it like one. If stay-at-home parents got a salary from the government, 90% of what’s wrong with kids would be solved (and the falling birthrate issue too).

Hard disagree. It’s the “phone kids” with behavior issues and their parents are usually similar. It’s time to get serious about stupid people being stupid and not calling it “normal”.