The New South Wales (NSW) government is considering banning children under 16 from using social media to combat online harm.
This comes amid rising evidence about the negative impacts of social media and electronic devices on Australian children and young people.
At present, popular internet platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have a minimum age requirement of 13.
However, NSW Premier Chris Minns believed children should be at least 16 to be allowed to use social media.
“That isn’t old enough when you consider what you are exposed to as a result of being on social media.”
“The truth is everybody’s had enough and we’re seeing the long-term effects–at best, just wasting hours and hours on devices and at worst, doing serious psychological damage.”
While the premier said he would introduce a policy that would be enforceable at the state level, he preferred a national approach to raising the minimum age for social media users.
Negative Impacts of Social Media on Children
A 2017 study into revenge porn (pdf) by RMIT University showed that nearly one in three Australians aged 16 to 19 years was subject to image-based sexual abuse.At the same time, they were more likely to experience image-based abuse from known people, such as friends or family members, than from intimate partners or ex-partners.
“This was particularly true for the distribution of nude or sexual images without consent where 30 percent of those aged 16 to 19 said it was a partner or ex-partner, while 64 percent said it was another known person,” the report said.
Of the victims who had experienced threats to distribute an image, 80 percent were under high levels of psychological distress, including moderate to severe depression and anxiety disorder.
The figure was lower for other victims of image-based abuse, including people whose images were distributed (75 percent) and those whose images were taken without their consent (67 percent).
Specifically, 54 percent of the people surveyed said they felt like wasting time by playing a game or watching a post or a video on social media.
Around 46 percent reported feeling eye strain, headaches or physical discomfort from being online too long.
One in four (27 percent) suffered from sleep deprivation, while 17 percent experienced cyberbullying.
It is worth noting that over one in three young people (37 percent) said they could not stop using social media or were using it too much.
NSW Social Media Summit
Amid a push to lift the minimum age for social media users, the NSW government announced that it would organise a summit to address social media’s harm to children and young people.The summit was scheduled to take place in October 2024 and would bring together policymakers, academics, and representatives of major social media platforms.
Mr. Minns said the biggest issue for parents nowadays was kids’ exposure to portable devices and social media.
“I’m convinced we need more conversations and solutions for parents, schools and communities about how to manage this,” he said.
“This summit will bring together experts and parents alike to talk about what more we can do to protect the wellbeing of our children.”
In the past year, the NSW government has implemented a number of measures to tackle online harm to young people, including a mobile phone ban in all public schools in October 2023, 250 extra school counsellors and a $2.5 million research fund to investigate the impact of excessive screen time.
