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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   21511 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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If operating systems are so bad for 17 year olds, why don't parents just take their kids' phones away?

I think the idea is that

  1. The operating system would keep track of users' ages;

  2. This would facilitate porn sites keeping minors out; and

  3. It would also facilitate social media bans for people under whatever age is deemed appropriate.

Anyway, I think there are two answers to your question.

The first is that phones serve various positive purposes, such as being able to call the authorities in an emergency; being able to use the map function to avoid getting lost; and so on. Age verification (if it worked) would allow young people to retain phones for these positive purposes while locking them out of porn sites, etc.

The other issue is that with respect to social media, online games, and so forth, there is kind of a collective action problem. It's difficult to tell your children they can't use some popular social media site if all their friends at school are using it. Even if most of the parents would prefer to keep their kids off of social media, few parents want to be the first one to do it. A blanket rule, for example, that nobody under 16 can use Facebook, would solve this collective action problem.

Anyway, I agree that there is a huge potential cost to age verification, which is that it will undermine anonymity. As someone who has politically unpopular views, that doesn't thrill me.

and so forth, there is kind of a collective action problem. It's difficult to tell your children they can't use some popular social media site if all their friends at school are using it. Even if most of the parents would prefer to keep their kids off of social media, few parents want to be the first one to do it. A blanket rule, for example, that nobody under 16 can use Facebook, would solve this collective action problem.

This narrative is about as compelling to me as there being a deep state conspiracy to destroy privacy. A better narrative is that individual parents feel they would be individually better off if they took their individual kids' phone away, but they feel too weak to do that. So they want the government to discipline their kids for them. Normal people can't identify collective action problems well, it's too complex of a scenario. A well documented collective action problem is credentialism, and people can't grasp it because they just see that they would be better off personally if they consumed more education. Since collective action problems are complex, they also require solid documentation to prove. Bryan Caplan produced this for credentialism, but the data on teenage phone usage doesn't prove a collective action problem. It argues, poorly, that teenagers are individually better off when their individual social media usage is reduced. So the question of „why not parent“ must be answered individualistically. My guess is that individual parents feel weaker than in the past.

Just because parents don't know what a collective action problem is doesn't mean they can't identify one. Not everyone works off of formal logic, parents can recognize that instagram is bad for kids at the same time as kids being socially isolated by being the only one not on instagram is bad for kids.

I have a previous thread about very conservative parents being better at their jobs, and my sources overemphasized discipline as a factor. Lots of the commentary was basically about how 'discipline' meant setting limits on social media. Plausibly your theory about parents feeling disempowered is supported therein; but short of spreading the folkways of the rightmost 10-20% or so of the population more broadly(and I have another thread about that), the best way to solve this specific problem of teen social media use is to make a law against it. They won't follow it voluntarily but it will let their parents enforce it.

Of course, I would prefer to be a selective libertarian and empower the rightmost 10-20% of the population by not doing anything to prevent the rest of it from self destructing. This is not out of a general commitment to freedom. But it's entirely understandable to me why social media bans that nobody knows how to enforce would be welcomed by parents.

Normal people can't identify collective action problems well, it's too complex of a scenario.

I disagree with this. Maybe normal people are unfamiliar with game theory; the prisoner's dilemma; nash equilibria; and so on. But definitely a lot of the time they can intuitively sense that there are situations where it would be good if everyone would agree to some X, but in the absence of an agreement, they feel pressured to go along with the crowd.

Since collective action problems are complex, they also require solid documentation to prove.

I disagree with this as well. Sometimes collective action problems are relatively straightforward and sometimes common sense is more than sufficient to recognize that one exists.

but the data on teenage phone usage doesn't prove a collective action problem.

I'm not familiar with any formal research, however I'm pretty confident just based on general observations and common sense. Above, you asked why parents don't simply take their children's phones away. I am quite confident that -- part of -- the answer to this question is that parents don't want their children to be the weirdo in class who doesn't have a phone; who's out of the loop; etc.

I'm pretty confident just based on general observations and common sense.

Common sense in this case is a hammer you got from slate star codex, for which everything is a nail. My common sense says the hammer is a specialty one and it doesn't fit all but a few nails. Alas, rationalists are always trying to use it anyway. Collective action this, game theory that, moloch thing there, prisoner's dilemma here.

I am quite confident that -- part of -- the answer to this question is that parents don't want their children to be the weirdo in class who doesn't have a phone; who's out of the loop; etc.

I don't think parents implementing common sense social media controls to their under-16 children would make them the weird kid in class. It would not amount to completely depriving them of a phone or the ability to text friends.

But definitely a lot of the time they can intuitively sense that there are situations where it would be good if everyone would agree to some X, but in the absence of an agreement, they feel pressured to go along with the crowd.

Except they fail to do this in the most important cases. Probably because their heuristic is asking whether the thing is individually good. They don't think teen phone usage is individually good, the mainstream argument is not collective action problem, it is individual parenting problem.

What are the common sense social media controls you're thinking of, exactly?

As far as I can guess at teen mindsets, having a dumb phone that is not designed to have apps in 2026 is exactly the kind of thing that would make a kid the weird kid in class.

What are the common sense social media controls you're thinking of, exactly?

Parental controls? Time limits? The main harm is scrolling for too long.

the data on teenage phone usage doesn't prove a collective action problem

Why doesn't it? I guess I have to go dig it up, but there's literally surveys with teenagers where they're asked if they think they'd be better off with no social media but don't want to stop using social media if everyone else is still on it.

Literally the definition of a collective action problem.

Why doesn't it?

Because it only argues, poorly, that teenagers are individually better off when their individual social media usage is reduced.

but there's literally surveys with teenagers where they're asked if they think they'd be better off with no social media but don't want to stop using social media if everyone else is still on it.

I haven't seen this, I don't recall Jonathan Haidt talking about it. I'm mostly thinking of his work on the topic.

Literally the definition of a collective action problem.

Allowing teens aged 16 to 19 on social media while demanding photo ID from anyone to use any device doesn't appear to solve that problem.

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