While the risks you bring up are valid, many of them are not new but amplifications of preexisting ones. In the past, children have largely managed to navigate these on their journey to adulthood. An unsolved problem with social media: it's an amplification of parking lot scuttlebutt. It will entice you to see catastrophe and share it with others. Perhaps despite your position on this, you are being affected more than you realize.
Another amplification is that many many parents haven't even solved this problem for themselves. How are they going to help their kids navigate social media use when they're pissing about on Instagram, and retweeting outrage garbage, etc.
Indeed, one generation breaking the loop can support the next. Perhaps the antidote to social media is regularly sharing with your children: it doesn't matter what Alice or Bob think of you, ignore them and do what you enjoy most with this gift of life.
I appreciate the sentiment, but question how realistic this is. Social media is where my kids interact with their peer group. By the time they hit their teens "sharing with dad" can't compete with that. I still try but I don't expect to have the power to break the cycle.
It's funny how I see parents complain about their children's social media use/phone addictions when I see them doing the exact same thing they're talking about before my eyes. Like you're literally playing on your phone right now and you tell me you don't like your kids doing that all the time - come on.
