New York City proudly proclaimed this week that it is the first city in the U.S. to issue an advisory officially designating social media as a health hazard, and illustrated its achievement with head-exploding nanny state (nanny city?) overreach in a “health advisory.”

What the document mostly demonstrates is the culture’s flat learning curve regarding unstoppable cultural developments. In earlier generations, it was dime novels, dancing, jazz, rock-n-roll, TV and rap lyrics that communities sought to ban to protect the young. Now it’s social media. These are desperation screams in the dark. It is amusing, I must say, to see a far-left East Coast city government like New York’s take this course: traditionally it has been conservatives and their church-going contingent in Middle America who have advocated radical steps to”save the children.” “A pool table, don’t you understand?”

This latest example fits snugly into the Ethics Alarms category recently discussed here, in which “advocating or worse, insisting upon impossible, impractical ‘ideal’ solutions to ethics problems” is condemned as “not only foolish and useless, but unethical.” The shorthand name for this phenomenon, stubbornly defying reality, is “The Imagine Principle.”

The advisory is ridiculously long, but here are some examples of what NYC’s Commissioner of Health and Mental Hygiene is telling people:

• “On May 23, 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General issued Social Media and Youth Mental Health: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory, which found that “the current body of evidence indicates that while social media may have benefits for some children and adolescents, there are ample indicators that social media can also have a profound risk of harm to the mental health and well-being of children and adolescents. At this time, we do not yet have enough evidence to determine if social media is sufficiently safe for children and adolescents.”

Comment: Junk science is being cited to justify junk policies.

• “On June 8, 2023, NYC hosted a convening titled New York City’s Role in the National Crisis of Social Media and Youth Mental Health in which over 150 participants from government, academia, advocacy, health care, community services, and youth and families shared their experiences and their solutions for mitigating the negative impact of social media on youth mental health. NYC youth attested that social media was negatively impacting their self-esteem, social relationships and ability to manage their time effectively, and asked for more support…

Comment: Right. “NYC youth” were selected because they would validate the objective of the meeting.

• “Parents and caregivers are encouraged to delay giving children access to a smartphone, or similar device that can access social media, until at least age 14, and then reassess based on the current evidence of harms and the child’s strengths and needs.
  b. When children begin to travel more independently in NYC, caregivers are encouraged to start them with a phone that does not have the ability to access social media.”

Comment: Impossible! If a single kid in a peer group has access to social media via a smartphone, and that is inevitable, then every kid will have access to social media.

• “Young people are encouraged to develop healthy habits around social media use, which may include: Sharing concerns related to social media and mental health with adults, including when facing threatening situations; Limiting social media use to set time frames; Monitoring emotions during social media use, and making a plan to focus social media use on those activities that bring positive emotions, such as communicating with friends or participating in communities with shared interests; and
  Changing settings on social media, such as turning off notifications, increasing privacy settings or following accounts that bring feelings of joy, hope and connection.”

Comment: Sure. because children always pay attention to what adults tell them. This is nonsense.

• “Federal and state policymakers should consider building on existing legislative proposals to further protect children and youth from predatory practices by social media companies.”

Comment: In other words, let’s censor speech on social media, just in tome for the 2024 election.

Children are depressed and anxious? Maybe NYC’s schools shouldn’t be teaching the white kids that they belong to an evil race and should look forward to being discriminated against for what people like them did generations ago. Maybe non-white kids shouldn’t be taught that they face a lifetime of hate and bigotry from a racist society. Maybe public officials and other demagogues shouldn’t convince students that the Earth is doomed by climate change, and that they are in mortal peril every day in school because a maniac wielding a “weapon of war” is likely to burst into classrooms and begin murdering everyone.

Children are lacking in joy and hope? Maybe it would be a good idea not to terrify them about dying from the Wuhan virus and its progeny and to condemn parents for forcing them to wear useless masks that impede their breathing, speaking and social interactions so they can signal to the world that they are good, loyal progressives.

Most of all, maybe children would be healthier, happier and more hopeful if their governments didn’t demonstrate routinely, as with this advisory, that they can look forward to a lifetime of bureaucrats meddling in their daily life and personal liberties.