A while back, I asked my two teenage boys what’s actually on their phones. What apps are kids using these days, really? It wasn’t some sit-down conversation; it just came up, the way most useful information from teenagers does.
Here’s roughly what I got back: TikTok, YouTube, Spotify, Instagram, Snapchat, Roblox, whatever mobile game is the flavour of the week (maybe some Clash-style thing), a banking app, the weather app, ChatGPT, and a fake betting app where you pick winners on sports games against your friends, bragging rights only, no real money involved.
None of it surprised me much. Turns out it’s close to the national average, too. YouTube’s apparently sitting around 92 percent of teens, TikTok’s close to two-thirds. We’re not raising outliers here, just the median household.
The big names didn’t tell me much I didn’t already know. The smaller ones did. A banking app means they are moving their own money around, even if it’s just allowance money. The weather app means they are at least checking before leaving the house.
ChatGPT, sitting there, used like a search engine, without a second thought, that one stuck with me. The others don’t really change how a kid thinks day to day. That one might.
That list felt honest. I don’t think it was the whole picture, though.
Most downloads need my okay first, since their phones are mostly tied to mine. What I actually got back wasn’t “everything on my phone,” it was “everything you’ve already said yes to.” Different question, much easier to answer.
Going through their phones myself isn’t something I do, and I’m not about to start. Past whatever’s already on the approved list, I genuinely have no idea what else might be sitting there. That’s the gap this list can’t close.
Take the betting app. I checked it out myself before deciding it could stay. No real money changes hands, it’s just picking winners against your friends for bragging rights. For example, picking how many times Donald Trump was shown on camera at the NBA Finals. Mostly harmless, as far as I can tell.
But it’s also not “social media” in any sense anyone would recognize. That turned out to matter more than I expected.
A few weeks after that conversation, Ottawa introduced the Safe Social Media Act, the bill that would ban social media for anyone under 16. Nobody really seems to know yet how this is going to work in practice, or even get enforced, but it reminded me of that whole conversation with my kids.
Here’s what it covers, on paper anyway. Traditional social media, livestreaming, and platforms built around user-shared content. Companies can apply for exemptions if they build in age verification and other safeguards.
Gaming and AI chatbots are carved out completely. Roblox is untouched. ChatGPT is untouched. And that betting app, not being social media by any definition Ottawa’s using, is untouched too.
Three of the eleven things on my kids’ list, unaffected, on a technicality that happens to cover the parts I find most interesting.
Even what is covered isn’t changing soon. The commission responsible for enforcing this needs about 18 months just to stand up, then it has to work out compliance, complaints, and what age verification actually looks like at scale. Realistically, we’re years out before TikTok or Instagram look any different for a 14-year-old in Canada.
So would a ban change anything in my house? Not really, and not for a long time, even where it applies. The stuff actually shaping how my kids spend their time and think about money, attention, and who they’re talking to, ChatGPT, Roblox, that betting app, was never on Ottawa’s list to begin with.
That list my kids gave me will keep changing anyway. Roblox, the betting app, whatever game takes over next month, it all rotates regardless of what any bill says. Figuring out what’s actually going on is still my job, not a commission’s.
Ban or no ban, I’m still the only app review board that matters in this house.
