Surely, children are watching lectures on quantum physics on YouTube and not that retard Mr. Beast.

I laugh out loud👍. As always, you're a little harsh, but with tears in your eyes, being a parent, I say you're right. Yes, my child, scrolling through short YouTube videos turns into a zombie, watching all the nonsense that is posted there. He watches everything, and it really pisses me off. I'm at war with him, banning time and websites at the router level, explaining to him all his future and his present, and what can and should be done now. This, of course, does not help much, but "water sharpens stone." I will follow and explain.
But he goes outside, and then his parents turn into the "ancestors" of those who bother them and teach them how to live, and they start discussing everything that their little heads have managed to remember in these 15-second videos.
You're right; I'm scared for my children, because there are soulless social networks and there are those who don't care about their children, but this generation will have to live or survive among those who now live on these social networks, in a place where no one cares about gambling addiction, and on the age of the interlocutor, and in general on everything that surrounds him.