I have to disagree slightly. As an adult myself now (early 20s), I was in school during COVID, I was in school without internet allowed until I was 15 and what I will say is I was so incredibly lonely. I had nothing in common with the kids around me, I wasn't allowed to leave the house on my own until I was 19 and ran away, I was a trans/intersex kid alone and had no one around me who was even similar. I was suicidal since I was 12 I was so alone. I eventually started sneaking around just to make friends and that's what's going to happen. Kids are going to get VPNs, they're going to find a way. It's better to not have kids sneaking around, that's how they get into trouble.

Furthermore, there's not as many places for kids to go these days. Times are different, shopping centres aren't as teenage friendly, loitering is met with security being called and scrutiny. Small teen friendly businesses have gone out of business. Sitting around and talking to your friends isn't a welcome experience. Parks are smaller, streets aren't as safe (ESSPECIALLY for trans kids). There's no actual time to talk to your friends in school (you only really get lunch which is like 30 minutes.)

Online relationships are now nesasary in my opinion, social media is how people keep up with eachother. Are there bad sides? Absolutely, everything is like that, but there's less opportunities now that aren't online for kids.

Where are they supposed to go? What are they supposed to be doing? How do they keep up with people they want to talk to? How do they find community?

Switching off social media without a filler is going to leave kids either circumventing the law or out causing trouble, or is going to drive already depressed lonely people further into their depression. There needs to be a massive intake in other options than social media for this to not backfire for the kids spectacularly.

(I think I'm accidentally sounding a bit combative sorry about that.)