Displacement, Not Platforms, Drives Harm

The harms attributed to social media may come less from the platforms themselves and more from what they replace — sleep, unmediated social interaction, and sustained attention. If true, blunt policies that ban platform access (e.g., under‑16 bans in Australia and parts of Europe) risk misdiagnosing the problem and replacing one set of harms with another. — Shifts the policy question from banning apps to protecting displaced activities (sleep regulation, attention supports, bullying prevention), which changes regulatory targets and intervention design internationally.