Often, decades pass between a harm appearing and societies fighting it. Scientists knew by the 1950s that smoking killed. The UK finally banned children under 16 from buying cigarettes in 1986. Now an international movement is belatedly forming to stop kids from ingesting another toxin: social media. After Australia’s pioneering ban on its usage by under-16s last year, countries including Indonesia, Switzerland, the Netherlands and France are considering bans for children. The case seems unarguable. Social media have worsened teens’ mental health, empowered criminals and shattered people’s concentration to the point of making the world stupider.
通常，從某種危害出現到社會開始應對，往往要經過幾十年。早在20世紀50年代，科學家們就已知吸菸致命，而英國直到1986年才禁止16歲以下兒童購買香菸。如今，一場國際運動終於姍姍來遲，旨在阻止孩子們接觸另一種「毒素」——社群媒體。在澳洲去年率先禁止16歲以下兒童使用社群媒體後，印度尼西亞、瑞士、荷蘭和法國等國也在考慮對兒童實施類似禁令。理由似乎無可辯駁：社群媒體加劇了青少年的心理健康問題，助長了犯罪活動，並讓人們的注意力更加分散，甚至讓世界變得更加愚蠢。