Who are the trained professionals prescribing and dosing out smartphones and social media? Like, I get your analogy, but they are so dissimilar in practice that it just ends up reading naive.
Some people seek out their own drugs to harmlessly fill a void of boredom, or to be a social tool, or for entertainment after a hard days work. Some of those people who innocently tried to use a tool to alter their brain chemistry for the better eventually abused drugs to their detriment.
Some people seek out their social media experiances to harmlessly fill a void of boredom, or to be a social tool, or for entertainment after a hard days work. Some of those people who innocently tried to use a tool to alter their brain chemistry for the better eventually abused social media to their detriment.
But you can also go to the Apple Store and a trained professional will sell you an iPhone if you want to get on TikTok to make new friends because you are lonely.
By that analogy, most drugs are not suitable for children, and for the ones that are it's never good to allow a child to self-medicate. It's always an adult giving ibuprofen to a child when he has a fever, not giving the child a 100 pill bottle and telling him to go play.
As a blanket rule, I wouldn't let children use drugs or social media on a regular basis. Certainly not at will.
But I also think total abstinence doesn't always work for everyone. There can be some exceptions. A child with cancer should have access to medicinal cannabis if it's appropriate for their condition for example. Some children may benefit from LSD/MDMA/mushroom assisted therapy. But active kids shouldn't be labeled as ADHD and medicated. And the occasional sip of wine at dinner with parents might help kids learn to respect alcohol and not go overboard when they go to college.
Drugs are tools.
Both can be used or abused.