All over the world, young and old people are increasingly recognizing the negative impacts that social media have on teenagers. Almost half of teenagers in the United States claim these platforms damage people of their age; Parents are even more worried. While several United States have the legislation introduced To safeguard children online, a national ban seems far away.
Australia, on the contrary, traced its ban: Annabel West, a lawyer and mother in Adelaide, read Jonathan Haidt’s book The anxious generationAnd he told his husband, the premier of South Australia Peter Malinauskas, who had to do something. He proposed the legislation in his small state and quickly gained support throughout the country. A few months later, the ban on social media was signed in law, making Australia the first country in the world to make such a move.
“The parents want their children outside their phones and on the Footy field,” said Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at Australian Broadcasting Corporation Last autumn after the national ban. “Me too.”
The legislation saw a clamor support between Australian parents and legislators. He passed to Parliament with a vast majority bipartisan; 77 percent of Australians support the ban. Perhaps it is not surprising that it is less popular among technological companies, which can face fines if they cannot keep children out of their platforms – and with the teenagers themselves.
“At the beginning it seemed like a good idea, but over time I became more and more against it,” says Elena Mitrevska, an eighteen year old who lives in Melbourne. “Honestly I think he is removing the spaces for the connection and the community.”
More than most teenagers, Mitrevska has a say on how the provisions of the bill on social media take shape in real life. He is a member of the Safety Youth Council, a group of 17 Australians, aged between 13 and 24, who advise the country’s hexafety office, which will enforce the new legislation when it will come into force in December. They have not voted on the bill, but now they have a contribution on how it will be implemented. (Mitrevska and the other teenagers mentioned in this article are expressing their opinions, not the opinions of the Council or the Commissioner for Youth of Safedy.)
Like other members of the Council, Mitrevska believes that social media can be harmful to young people, especially in terms of compelling design and shared graphic material in online communities. But it fears that an absolute ban will not come to the root of the problem. “It seems to me really dishonest to remove entire spaces online for young people, compared to speaking and trying to solve those particular problems,” he says. “It really seems an attempt to bury the head of young people in the sand.”
Australian regulators disagree. They believe that the ban will give adults the opportunity to teach children a little literacy on the internet one against one before being completely immersed in social media. The goal is to improve the results of mental health while entering technological companies to verify the age of its users.
“We are aware that delaying children’s access to social media accounts will not solve everything, but will introduce some friction in a system that previously had nobody had any,” says the Commissioner of Safety Julie Inman Grant to Wired via E -mail. He underlined that it is designed to allow parents to establish the basic rules, “giving them a precious time to help their children develop resilience, critical thinking and digital literacy they need”.
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