I do empathise, but only because I remember how things were for me as a kid (just as FB was rising to prominence). My parents did not let me on the site until I

I do empathise, but only because I remember how things were for me as a kid (just as FB was rising to prominence). My parents did not let me on the site until I was 13, but pretty much everyone else was there since at least the middle of primary school. I was really introverted and socially awkward at that age, so I found it difficult to be excluded in this way. When I did finally get access to social platforms in general, my social wellbeing was an order of magnitude better, started making more friends, not being left out of events because I didn't have an account (this happened even with some family as well). Until then I would never hear about things until right before they were happening, and people asked if I was going. So while FB is an overgrown monster today, it's far more than large marketing departments gone mad. There is a real social cost to not being on these platforms. (Also, good on you for not giving in. Because regardless of how I felt at the time, I'm glad my parents did force me to wait. It's probably not healthy to plug children into gigantic ML manipulation engines.)