Oscar frames parental responsibility and distraction as reasons for a blanket ban, but prohibition is a blunt instrument that bypasses the core issue. Banning access ignores how heavily modern youth rely on digital spaces for peer connection, self-expression, and mental health support. Government mandates shouldn't replace parenting or personal digital literacy; instead of cutting teenagers off from vital communities, our focus should be on building healthier online environments, teaching critical media skills, and empowering parents to guide usage rather than forcing a total lockout.

Oscar tries to offload the entire debate onto parental discipline and youth crime, but that creates a false equivalence. Conflating social media access with broader societal issues like vaping or delinquency ignores the specific, systemic architecture of modern platforms designed to capture attention and manipulate engagement. Prohibition is a blunt tool, but leaving millions of adolescents exposed to unregulated algorithmic feedback loops under a vague "parental responsibility" standard is an abdication of systemic protection. Parents cannot realistically monitor or out-engineer algorithmic feeds specifically engineered by billion-dollar corporations to hook developing brains. Instead of hiding behind an idealized view of enforcement, the focus must shift to structural guardrails, privacy defaults, and age-appropriate design mandates that protect minors without requiring a total blackout.