Comment Re:Don't know about Australia (Score 1) 92
That's because the suburbs have basically spread us out to such a ridiculous degree that kids don't have a lot of opportunities to socialize.
I think you are missing important details here. Kids still have their chat groups and socialise over them, pretty much as they did before. The difference is just that these chat groups aren't tied to a social media platform any more.
Before the "ban" there was a lot of pressure for kids to be on one particular social media platform or another, depending where their friends were, in order to socialise with them, with the inevitable exposure to other content on those platforms unrelated to their social group. Since the "ban" there are definitely kids who still have social media on one platform or another, but the fragmentation means that the social media platforms no longer become the defacto common space.
Kids now use more specific apps (eg Whatsapp, Facebook messenger) for their shared social spaces.
The social spaces not only still exist, they are also more purely that, not co-opted by endless scrolls of algorithmically presented content and adverts or subjected to engagement mechanics (likes etc). The social spaces are just actual people talking to other people they know.
In that regard I think the "ban" has been relatively successful, different kids may still have accounts on different platforms and perhaps may still spend too much time on them, but generally kids aren't practically forced to be on a social media platform just in order to talk with their friends.