This sounds like a “guns don’t kill people, people do” argument. (Edit: I am not rcme, although I saw they posted along the same lines a couple of posts below.) We know that children crave validation and group belonging. They cannot avoid social media in general or anything that looks like one (from Tiktok to multi-player online games) if they have any kind of access to it.
> It's possible to use a smartphone without social media.
It’s possible if you are mature enough to restrain yourself, or if your phone is completely locked down. The average adult does not look mature enough.
> It's possible to set up a child's smartphone in such a way that their access to social media is limited if not totally removed.
Limitation does not change anything. The same issues will show up the second there is anything that can be used to exchange messages. Hell, people used to do it in Pokémon Go with their pokémons’ nicknames.
On top of that, you assume that the average parent is competent enough to do it, and that the average child is incompetent enough to not get the password or work around the lock. Both assumptions seem very flawed to me. Again, the pull is huge. I’ve done much more complicated than avoiding parental controls at that age with a much lower motivation.
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