I saw this article, which made me think about it…
Kids under 16 to be banned from social media after Senate passes world-first laws
Seeing what kind of brainrot kids are watching, makes me think it’s a good idea. I wouldn’t say all content is bad, but most kids will get hooked on trash content that is intentionally designed to grab their attention.
What would be an effective way to enforce a restriction with the fewest possible side effects? And who should be the one enforcing that restriction in your opinion?
I don’t think anyone should use social media with an engagement algorithm, no matter what age
I’d like the age raised fron 16 to 75, I’m 58.
Nobody should use today’s social media
All prohibitions do is create a space where kids are doing it, but without any discussion about the risks. It’s the abstainance only education model, or the “war on drugs” model.
It doesn’t work, especially when the “authorities” are doing it anyway, and they’re not even quiet about it.
Yes it’s a cancerous plague on society. It creates a false sense on identity and want. Young peoples minds are constantly bombarded by people telling them how they should think, feel and look
Australia did it somewhat right by banning minors until they are 16. However I feel this may create a stronger desire for some to join much like teens drinking and smoking bud cause it’s forbidden. At 16 you’ll only create a stronger desire to join. As such I feel like it should be pushed back to 20, you’re no longer a teen and as a young adult the temptation to join and let your mind be swayed by bull shit may be less prevalent
Wow. These comments are really interesting. And they make me feel old.
A lot of them revolve around some version of the old trope of “everyone else is doing it” regarding access which I refuse to believe even the younger people on here think is a legit argument. Seriously. There’s also no shortage of comments that reinforce the idea that SM is kindof an addiction with the lengths some suggest be gone to for access or that access is some kind of right or necessity.
Generations past got by fine without all the tech and modern versions of SM, so we can dispose of all the drama surrounding any negative effects of limiting access. That’s strictly a social problem of haves/have nots. Being of an age to have kids myself and friends with kids I see all levels of social media access for both kids and adults. For some, it’s pretty much an addiction. They can’t keep their faces out of their phones watching tiktoks, shorts, snaps, or whatever. Their day revolves around that content.
A couple friends’ kids went down the rabbit hole and have had unfettered access to the internet for years. They all want their own channels, to be YT creators, buy shit like Stanley mugs, and do all the stuff they saw online, and all while being under 18. There have already been problems with inappropriate images and texts, adults online, and law enforcement. It’s a mess. Probably the more extreme end of things.
Others just stare at their phone all the time. Put it down for a minute, pick it right back up.
Our kids, who do have some social media access, complain that hanging out with their friends with more access to SM can often devolve into people just staring at their phones. Nobody wants to do anything else except watch “brain rot.” Their words, not mine. Seems to be a growing awareness among zoomers and later about SM and some of the problems with it. We have conversations (not us talking AT them) about all the stuff online, SM, etc. and the good/bad about it all.
Anyway, overall SM is a net negative. It seems to be more of a contradiction in terms, “social” media prevents actual social interaction with real people. The making of regulations limiting access is going to be incredibly difficult to effectively apply. Anyone who has tried to take an ipad away from a 4 year old is going to know that trying to do the same to kids and teens thanks to new laws is going to be a pain in the ass. I think most will attempt to work around it, which is disappointing in a lot of ways because parents don’t want to do the hard things - and it’s gonna be really hard seeing as the cat’s been out of the bag for a long time.
No, generations past did not get by fine without social media. They just had no solution to various problems. Two classic ones are eating disorders and marginalized minorities.
I don’t think social media has solved any of that, has it? Nice job taking what I said and twisting it completely out of context.
In real terms, I have no idea if this is a good move or a bad one. We’ll know more in five years once the Aussie nerds can publish on the effects. I can’t think of a compelling reason not to try it though.
Social media use is bad for everyone. Tech companies have spent billions of dollars refining and optimizing their platforms to maximize engagement and usage at the expense of all other considerations.
I’ve been researching the mental health effects of social media for an unrelated project I am working on. From an incomplete read of the research, social media use has a strong correlation with mental health issues. I haven’t encountered anything peer reviewed that proposes a specific relationship between the two, but my personal (somewhat well informed) guess is that someone will find a link eventually. That’s just where the research I’ve read seems to be headed.
I’d guess they probably have a symbiotic relationship. (Certain kinds of) Mentally ill folks use social media more than others, why or if that is anything more than a red herring is still to be determined, but I have read coverage of other research that suggests that social media might be destroying attention spans (though I haven’t read that research myself yet).
Getting the political system involved in this effort is probably undesirable simply because elected officials seem to have entirely abandoned any pretense of using science to inform policy and are basically puppets for the oligarchy. Voting against the interests of their donors is unlikely.
I don’t understand. Are you honestly claiming that you don’t see any possible value in social media for teenagers? We could talk about people with eating disorders. We could talk about marginalized minorities who can find support in distant communities because where they live is ultra-conservative. We don’t have to work hard to think of those examples, they’re well documented, they’re very real.
Of course you could argue that the harms outweigh the benefits, but to pretend that there are no benefits is just mind boggling.
What I’m saying is that we don’t know the full scope of how social media affects developing minds. The harm might outweigh the benefits or not, we just don’t know yet. I will be very interested to see the academic research on the effects the ban in Australia has on Australian children.
Social media has benefits for adults and children, but the ways in which these platforms influence thought and behavior creates significant problems. As an example consider Elon Musk’s purchase of twitter and the subsequent effects it had on the American election and culture. On the one hand that is the reality we all live in and learning to adapt and compensate is a critical skill to teach our children, on the other there is no reason that things must be the way they are now.
If I could speak to a policy maker I would encourage them not to ban social media use for kids, for no other reason than bans (usually) don’t work to address the problem they set out to solve and are easily circumvented online by motivated individuals. If lawmakers were interested in addressing the safety of children online, regulating social platforms would be a better starting point. Unfortunately though, tech companies have a lot more money to lobby against those kinds of initiatives than teenagers and the adults interested in protecting them.
Platforms could address the issues that lead to harm and create a beneficial tool for it’s users, however there is little incentive for them to do so because the current system exists as the result of their efforts to maximize profit and furthers other agendas. (I don’t mean that in a cynical anti-capitalist way, just that it is the nature of the way social media companies are structured and funded.) The research suggests that we might need to reevaluate how we integrate social media into our lives and build these platforms.
If nothing else barring children from using social media will present us an opportunity to get a better understanding of how social media effects them.
Fine both the parent and the social media company for every offense.
IMO, even if it’s “banned”/“prohibited” or whatever, kids will do whatever they have to do to enable them to do what they want to do. If they want to use social media, then they’ll lie, cheat or otherwise manipulate the system into getting access.
With all that being said, maybe regulate social media for kids so that adults don’t have enough access to prey on them. Beyond that, as long as they’re not posting gore, or nudes or something equally inappropriate, let them do what they want.
Patents would be so familiar with this conundrum. Eventually you need to let your kids learn their own lessons and do as they wish. Your choice is whether you want to support your kid in what they want to do, or if you’re going to try to impose rules on them, which has a nontrivial chance of alienating them, and they tell you nothing about their decisions, and won’t come to you for help or guidance when things get rough.
As a son who was repeatedly alienated and is now estranged, I lived on the other side of such a situation. My story is my own, and I won’t assume anyone else’s situation.
If you’re facing this decision as a parent, please be understanding and accepting of what your child decides, then stand by in case things go sideways. If your child in that scenario, I’m so very sorry for what’s happening, and how these things inevitably end. Take care of yourself.
Your story seems to have far more going on than social media, and I question how it conflates something as extreme as estrangement with rules being imposed specifically regarding the subject at hand. Because there would be some serious personal issues on your end if you were abandoning family due to their limiting your social media access.
Yeah, kids can find their way around a lot of things if they really want. A parent’s job is to limit everyday harm within reason, and prevent the directly harmful ones like drinking and driving or whatever. Yeah, kids need rules too, you can’t not have them. Within reason.
As a parent there are a lot of ways you can prevent social media use, and with modern tech it’s pretty easy - along with multiple honest discussions about why social media use can have negative effects on people, and the fact that yes, they will indeed be given access to social media at some legit point that isn’t stupid like “When you are 18…”
Unfortunately there is no way to sufficiently regulate social media to prevent the access you describe. The corpos don’t want it because it would place the cost of designing, monitoring, and responsibility for such a system on them. People don’t want government interference in free speech and always bring up slippery slope arguments. And there would always be those, kids and content makers, trying to find their way around the rules. So it’s up to parents to, y’know, make rules and be parents.
Email is social media. Zoom is social media. Suicide hotlines are social media. Kids absolutely need social media. Communication is a human right. Taking away the right to communicate means isolating children from support. How’s this supposed to go for depressed, neurodivergent, or queer kids. This law gives abusive parents more control over their victims.
Yes, but leave them the SMSs
It identifies the problem correctly - social media is absolutely a major harm to kids’ well-being. However, banning kids from using social media is not the solution. Actually regulating social media platforms and decentralizing them to disincentivize their predatory behaviors is a better and more practical avenue. That would also address the concerns of kids losing the ability to participate in communities or to have support (especially for LGBT kids).
Should anyone use social media as it exists today? Is it really social media anymore? Does that mask really cover all the horribleness
What should it be called? Agreed that the vast majority of it is a dumpster fire of lies and brain rot, but what would you rename it?
I don’t see it getting better before it gets much worse. Exploitation is the closest legal term. This is something we have literally never seen before as a species. It’s like naming a whole new animal or landmark - nothing to be done in haste. So much of the discussion is useless because it’s been framed in the favor of our abusers. In almost every facet, from the server to your phone - it’s just trying to suck every bit of labor it can to feed the cycle.
I think kids should be aborted
There is no real need to regulate kids on devices … leave that up to the parents to figure out.
What we need is to regulate every major corporately owned social media company. Regulate and control them like they do for newspapers, magazines or television. Put them under complete regulatory control across the board so that we can regain some normalcy in public perception of reality and politics everywhere.
It’s a pipe dream I know … but in the meantime, no matter what anyone says or does … if social media companies are not regulated, everything and everyone is going to hell in a hand basket.
