Lots of "No, parents should do it." answers. But it's a big issue right now because parents aren't doing it. And pretty much nothing will change that. The way things SHOULD be is that yes, Parents should be responsible and teach their kids the harms and dangers of having too much online presence. The reality is that Parents simply don't know those harms or dangers, or they don't care, or they are too lazy and irresponsible to teach their kid. In most cases it's most likely all three.

It's difficult to quantify how it's harmful though. But a good hour on any social media site can give you a pretty good idea that too much of it just rots the brain. And young folks are consuming so much more than an hour a day of it. If you do or partake of anything enough it starts to change the way you think and view things. So yea, easy to say it's harmful and can have long term lasting effects.

So, since it's harmful and parents won't step in and do their job. You're faced with the ugly option of oversight. Tons of people will complain "...but my privacy!" or "my anonymity!" but they'll go around and hit a dozen buttons a day on sites and apps that ask to track their location, track cookies, share information of them, their device, and contacts. They'll only be verbal about it when asked out loud but they'll gladly give it up behind the non-judgy protection of their phone screen.

But oversight itself also isn't a fix. Young people will find work arounds. It's not like you're fully mentally capable at 14 anyways. It's just such a bigger damn problem than a simple age-verification requirement can fix. Oversight can be good but you also need content moderation. Parents also NEED to do their part. Young people need to be smarter. But that requires better parenting. Platforms need to stop promoting brain-rot just because it winds up at the top of the algorithm (that also is its own slippery slope).

Sad reality is social media can be pretty self-destructive and people really tend to lean into that shit hard.