Banning social media for under 16s

whistles

This came up on question time last night that Australia plans to ban the use of social media to those under 16.

I found an article on it.

I have to say when smart phones came out I assumed these would not be for anyone under 16. As adults we already know what content we can be exposed to, we already know we can be addicted to their use, the world has gone digital faster than anyone can keep up, and yet we expose all this to the next generation.

This isn't the same as no internet, this is no social media. Personally I have 7 friends on fb and I am actually considering deleting the account as it's full of advertising and time wasting rubbish.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gzd62g1r3o.amp

Rosie_Scope

Ooh that's interesting @whistles, I hadn't read about that yet.

I do worry about the effects of social media on young people. I was a teenager when the first social media sites were just becoming popular and I know how difficult and dangerous that was for some people even back then.

I can't imagine what it's like to have them there all through your early life.

I wonder how easy a total ban will be to police and enforce though. Hopefully more secure than those early social media sites where you could just lie about your age!

I'll have to have a deeper read about it after work and see how they're going to handle it.

Amaya_Ringo

The problem is that kids are more au fait with the technology than the people who want to legislate over it. I have no doubt there are positive aspects to social media as well, though I have not really seen them - I mostly don't use it because the number of platforms doesn't help my organisation and I can't keep up with them, plus most of the nasty and hateful things I see about people tend to pop up on the handful of feeds I do have.

I tend to feel like the internet was a great place before all the mainstream people took it over and filled it with all the unpleasant nonsense that we already have to deal with day in and day out. It was a nicer place when it was full of uncool, geekish people sharing uncool, geekish interests, as opposed to people pushing unrealistic body images and sharing divisive content :/

The one advantage to stopping kids accessing SM would be to cut down on online bullying. Being bullied in person is bad enough, but at least there is a chance to close a door and shut it out. It's so very difficult to do the same with online trolling or stalking attacks.

whistles

Social media started in 1997, that's not that long ago to discover it's damaging effect on people.

I am glad I wasn't influenced by it as a child. But I do think society is relying too much on being online and not enough time offline.

It's the next generation that will automatically grow up with phones to buy products, get on the bus, not use cash.

But it's sad to wasn't pushing a pram and being on the phone. How much interaction are children getting from a real person!