I am writing this with my 14-year-old son Alexander, following his dramatic exit from his bedroom to inform me that yet again, another country had decided to ban social media for adolescents. This came especially now, just after finishing exams, in that slightly strange liminal phase for adolescence, when time suddenly expands and contracts at once. When you are not quite studying anymore, but not yet sure what to do with all the hours. Suddenly he was confronted with the terrifying prospect of having free time.

"This is so unfair, Mum. I want to write about this."

Now, when a teenager voluntarily wants to write something that is not a homework assignment, you seize the moment. So, I told him to put his thoughts on paper, we can discuss them, and we write this piece together. After all, his voice matters most in such discussion. It is his generation that will have to live with these decisions for a few years. My generation has already survived dial-up internet, MSN Messenger and the trauma of accidentally disconnecting the family phone line every time we logged on.

For many people my age, who remember life before Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the idea of a social media ban sound strangely comforting. It is no longer just Mum saying, "Put the phone down." Now the state gets to be the bad cop too.

But before we collectively celebrate the return of children to the outdoors, hopeful to see them flocking to libraries, it might be worth pausing to consider the wider implications. The issue deserves more than headlines and moral panic. It deserves a proper social impact assessment that considers not only the potential benefits but also the unintended consequences.

I am neither a neuroscientist nor a psychologist. My professional expertise does not extend to the functioning of the adolescent brain. Like many parents, my scientific contribution to the debate usually consists of informing my son that too much screen time will "fry your brain". But apparently, there are hints of truths in that. The phenomenon now popularly known as "brain rot" has become part of everyday vocabulary. The term refers both to the endless stream of low-quality online content and to the feeling that one's brain has somehow turned to mush after spending three hours watching videos of dancing cats and hopping baby goats.  While "brain rot" is not a medical diagnosis, the concerns behind it are real. Research increasingly suggests that excessive screen use can affect attention spans, concentration, memory, emotional regulation and sleep quality. The developing brain is particularly vulnerable because the area responsible for self-control and decision-making, the prefrontal cortex, is still under construction throughout adolescence. In other words, we hand teenagers devices specifically designed to keep them engaged, then act surprised when they struggle to put them down.

It is easy yet unfair, to simply play the blame game on the younger generation. What I do know is that Alexander's generation has grown up immersed in digital technology from infancy. They were the first generation whose lives were documented online from day one. In some cases, before day one. Ultrasound scans were posted on social media long before they had any say in the matter.

Unlike us, they have never known a world without the internet. They communicate with friends online, collaborate on school assignments online, learn online, game online and occasionally, between scrolling sessions, discover world events online too. Their lives are not neatly divided into "real" and "virtual". For them, both spaces are real and deeply interconnected.

Alexander's main argument throughout our conversation was surprisingly simple.

"There is always FOMO, Mum."

For those of us who cannot speak fluent teenager, FOMO means "Fear of Missing Out".  Missing the latest meme. Missing the football banter in the class group chat. Missing the recent influencer's post that everyone is talking about. Missing discussions about current affairs that increasingly unfold online before they ever appear in traditional media.

To many adults, this may sound trivial. To teenagers, it can feel existential. Adolescence has always been about belonging. The difference is that today's social spaces are no longer confined to playgrounds, village squares or school corridors. They exist online too.

Alexander went on to write his thoughts:

A few weeks ago, I was informed, quite astonishingly through social media reels, that politicians had once again decided what is best for young people. This time, it was social media. Lately, Kier Starmer's ban made it more threatening and closer to home compared to the recent Australia ban, especially if other European countries including Malta might follow the ban. The main question is, is this ban saving kids or punishing them?

Adults often talk about social media as if it is purely harmful, but for many teenagers like us, it is where friendships happen, where communities are formed and where conversations take place. Taking it away is not as simple as switching off an app.

The argument for a ban sounds simple enough. Social media can be addictive. I do see the benefit in this discussion. We are not passive to all this. Myself and my peers are aware how much we are exposed to cyberbullying, gambling, unrealistic lifestyles, misinformation, and content that nobody really needs to see. There, I understand why adults are worried. What I don't understand is why the solution always seems to be taking things away.

Imagine being a teenager with a medical or mental condition and never meeting anyone else who shares your experience. Imagine having a speech impairment, severe social anxiety, or finding face-to-face conversations difficult. For some young people, social media is not replacing real-life friendships; it is the only realistic way to create them in the first place. A ban risks cutting off what can sometimes be a support.

Of course, social media companies are not innocent. Their platforms are designed to keep us scrolling. They make money from our attention, and they are very good at getting it. If governments introduce stricter rules, many of these companies could face huge fines and financial penalties.

But perhaps the bigger question is whether banning social media teaches responsibility or simply avoids teaching it. There is also something slightly strange about adults blaming social media for everything while many of them spend half their days staring at their own phones.

Learning how to use technology safely is essential. One day we will become adults, enter workplaces, attend university, and manage our own lives. At some point we need to learn how to navigate the online world rather than simply being protected from it. Because sometimes, when adults say they want to "save the children", what they really seem to mean is that they would rather make decisions for us than listen to what we have to say. And if there is one thing social media has taught my generation, it is that everyone has an opinion. Including us.

Both Alexander and I eventually found common ground. The debate around social media bans tends to place people into two opposing camps. On one side are those convinced that social media is actively destroying an entire generation, one reel at a time. On the other are those who argue that banning it is unrealistic, heavy-handed, and likely to be as successful as telling teenagers not to eat pizza. As Alexander pointed out several times, the truth, as usual, sits somewhere in the middle.

By this point in our conversation, however, we had both become distracted by the mention of the word pizza. Demonstrating our shared attention-span issues, we promptly paused debating and ordered one. Somewhere between choosing toppings and arguing over whether pineapple belongs on pizza, we swerved again our conversation on the real issue of the reel culture. It is not clear-cut good or entirely bad. It is whether young people are being given the skills to use it responsibly. The challenge lies in learning how to manage it before it starts managing us.

This is a lesson that applies equally to teenagers, adults, and especially older individuals, particularly recent retirees, who often have the greatest amount of free time and may find themselves spending hours scrolling aimlessly. Without the structure of work, hours can easily disappear into endless scrolling, moving from one video, post or comment thread to the next. Social media addiction, it turns out, is not a problem confined to the young.

As a parent, I understand the temptation of simple solutions. A ban sounds wonderfully straightforward. The reality, however, is that raising digitally literate young people is much harder than passing legislation. And perhaps that is the uncomfortable truth. The problem is not only what teenagers are doing on their phones. It is also what the rest of us are modelling every day.

And so, after much debate and one large pizza, we found ourselves exactly where we had started. The issue is complex.  Alexander remains sceptical of restrictions. I remain cautious about unlimited access. Somewhere between his teenage certainty and my parental concern lies the real conversation. What we do agree on is this: our discussion managed to achieve something social media rarely does. It got us both off our phones for an entire afternoon.