The U.K. continues on its mission to control young people’s lives. After outlawing smoking for all individuals born in 2009 or later, last week, the government announced a social media ban for children under 16.

These reforms are both well-meaning. There is increasing evidence that social media use is incredibly harmful for children, leading to reduced cognitive ability, mental health issues, and near-constant distraction. A video of a British pupil who said she would “stare at a wall” if the ban went into effect has gone viral, because it’s true. Many children simply don’t know what to do with themselves if they don’t have a smartphone with them at all times.

But this ban is more than just a question of children’s mental health. Britons are essentially revealing that they don’t have enough confidence in their ability to make decisions for themselves. Thus, they offload that decision to the government.

The Western tradition has historically understood that freedom comes with the moral responsibility to choose the right thing. Freedom asks that free individuals take up the mantle of choice for themselves. It’s a heavy burden, but a deeply necessary one. The responsibility of choice is meant to habituate good moral conduct. It turns boys into men and men into citizens.

When you give up your freedom to the state, you are also ceding that duty of choice. Now, the U.K. government has the power to decide not just how exactly to deal with wrongdoing, but what exactly counts as wrongdoing. We have already seen how the U.K. will weaponize legislation in the name of minimizing harm, in the form of their hate crime laws that punish a lack of political correctness.

This is not just a story of social media and cigarettes. When parents across the country sigh in relief, they unknowingly reveal their refusal to responsibly govern their own children. When the nanny state tells individuals exactly how to behave, it expands its tentacles into every part of Britons’ lives.