While fighting against regulation of social media, tech billionaires shield their own children
In November, Kim van Sparrentak, a Green Party lawmaker from the Netherlands, grabbed her headphones and headed for the exit of the European Parliament building. Moments earlier, she had participated in a heated debate over whether to bar young teenagers in Europe from social media platforms.
Then a statement on a podcast she was listening to stopped her cold.
It was a message from Meta opposing the social media ban proposal, Ms. van Sparrentak said in an interview. That she was hearing it on a favorite podcast threw her. “I thought there was something wrong with me,” she added.
Ms. Van Sparrentak, who has become a thorn in the side of U.S. tech giants, was in fact a prime target in the industry’s latest high-stakes lobbying efforts.
American tech companies, including Meta and Google, have tangled with regulators and lawmakers for years over data privacy, competition and artificial intelligence complaints. Now they face a new challenge: governments looking to block millions of teenagers from social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and TikTok. They call the apps addictive and harmful, and some have tied excessive screen time to depression and suicide among adolescents.
Silicon Valley is fighting back. In the E.U., the Americans have spent vast sums in the past year on splashy billboard ads, courting on-the-fence politicians and bulking up their ranks of lobbyists. Their playbook is being closely watched in areas around the world that are weighing similar crackdowns, from New Delhi to Nebraska.
Ms. Van Sparrentak has also been glued to a seminal trial in Los Angeles over whether Instagram and YouTube are effectively “digital casinos.” Lawyers for the plaintiff are echoing points raised in Europe: that these platforms are engineered to hook young users through features like infinite scrolling, likes and auto-recommendations. Mark Zuckerberg of Meta forcefully rejected the accusations on the stand this week.
Since December, when Australia introduced the world’s first social media ban for teenagers under 16, several Asian nations have announced similar measures. France, Germany, Spain, Britain and Denmark have all said they plan to unveil their own versions of the policy within months.
The argument over how to pry youngsters from their smartphones isn’t limited to Europe. Eight U.S. states have introduced similar legislation.
How the tech industry has battled such measures in the E.U. could provide a blueprint for its battles elsewhere, including in the U.S.
Tech giants calculate that new regulations in the E.U.’s 27 countries could ripple across their global operations — for now, and for generations to come. Success in persuading politicians to reject these bans, the thinking goes, could have a meaningful effect on their bottom line. [Continue reading…]
Despite building an increasingly screen-focused world, billionaire tech leaders are keeping their own children away from the tech they helped create.
As far back as 2010, Apple cofounder Steve Jobs told a New York Times reporter his kids had never used an iPad and that, “We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Since then, the trend of Silicon Valley billionaires keeping their families away from technology has become even more pronounced, thanks in part to the rise of social media and short-form video.
Excessive device use among children has become more common in recent years as busy parents turn to screens to find some peace. The trend has accelerated so much that some young children accustomed to extensive screen time are dubbed “iPad kids.” On average, children in the U.S. ages 8 to 18 spend 7.5 hours per day watching or using screens, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
YouTube cofounder Steve Chen said at a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business last year that he wouldn’t want his kids consuming only short-form content, noting that it might be better to limit kids to videos longer than 15 minutes.
“Shorter-form content equates to shorter attention spans,” he said.
At the 2024 Aspen Ideas Festival, early Facebook investor and billionaire Peter Thiel joined Chen among the ranks of tech leaders who are setting strict limits on screens. Thiel said he only lets his two young children use screens for an hour-and-a-half per week, a revelation that prompted audible gasps from the audience.
Other tech CEOs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Snap’s Evan Spiegel, and Tesla’s Elon Musk, have also spoken about limiting their children’s access to devices. Gates has said he did not give his children smartphones until age 14 and banned phones at the dinner table entirely. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel, in 2018, said he limits his child to the same 1.5 hours per week of screen time as Thiel. And finally, Musk, who bought the social media company X, formerly Twitter, in 2022, said it “might’ve been a mistake” to not set any rules on social media for his children. [Continue reading…]