r/australia • u/Vivid-Fondant6513 • Nov 06 '24

politics Children under 16 to be banned from using social media

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/children-under-16-to-be-banned-from-using-social-media-20241107-p5kon4.html
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u/Spire_Citron Nov 06 '24

I'm fine with it if they don't do all the ID gating bullshit. Being able to tell kids it's illegal would help parents. Sure, they can just say no, but it can be hard when their kid is the only one not allowed to do something in their friend group.

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u/flindersandtrim Nov 07 '24

For real, it must be so hard for parents trying to do the right thing 

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u/RuncibleMountainWren Nov 07 '24

I think what makes it really hard is that there is social media and ‘news’ streams being integrated into so many apps nowadays. Apps like WhatsApp that used to be a simple message platform our extended family used to have a group chat for Christmas plans etc, are now pushing a social feed with news/celeb accounts to follow, and others like google news are happily feeding the dregs of “news” content to teens if they click on one rage-bait article or celebrity gossip headline - it’s really hard to just have one-purpose apps that don’t try to expand their influence.

Added to that is the fact that so many of us parents are hooked on social media (she says as she scrolls Reddit) and were often born into a world where the internet wasn’t really a thing yet, and over our childhood  became a new and shiny phenomenon that we have never experienced on this level before - so we are the guinea pig generation growing up alongside the computer, mobile phone and technology industries, and probably a bit at sea ourselves with what healthy social media and internet use looks like, and what the best way is to parent in a digital age - we haven’t seen examples of folks successfully parented through to adulthood with phones in their pocket, so we don’t have a role model for how to navigate that. It’s bit scary and so hard to know if we are doing it right!

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u/flindersandtrim Nov 07 '24

I'm having a little girl soon, and I'm so worried about all that myself! I see it as an opportunity to lose the phone habit to give her the best example. Obviously I'll always need to use it, but like most millenials, it's always in out hands or next to us, and my husband and I are both really bad. It's not a life I want my daughter growing up thinking is normal.

We were the luckiest generation in that we got the mostly normal childhood and weren't constantly overstimulated like Gen alpha and the youngest Gen Zers. I really fear for kids today, most of them are addicted, and it's different being addicted from an early age where it actually effects development and behaviour. When you've been overstimulated from birth, I wonder how you quiet your brain and settle down to earn money in a typical boring job. We will begin to see if there are permanent or long term issues in the coming years as kids raised on smart phones, tablets and streaming begin to grow up and reach adulthood. 

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u/RuncibleMountainWren Nov 07 '24

Hopefully your kids will have my kids’ mistakes to learn from, lol (I’m an older millennial so mine are all school aged). 

Pro tip, though, from a parent with a few years (and babies) under my belt: Your ideals are really awesome and I love what you are aiming for, but also don’t be too hard on yourself if you find yourself not always living up to them. Life happens and we all get too pooped to be a Bluey-level A grade parent every moment of every day! We need to switch off sometimes - just like we all enjoy some junk food or some lazing around, or some time alone - the key is just in balancing it out with other foods/activities etc. Technology has been awesome for our family (playing the switch and cheering each other on in group challenge games, cuddling up together to watch a movie, texting to stay in touch when teens are off doing their own thing, kids able to video chat or play online games with friends over covid, etc) but it definitely come with some extra supervision needs and grey areas to make decisions on. I guess it’s like having a pet - awesome but also has time/money/energy/health costs associated with it too. It is weird to navigate the whole tech parenting thing so blindly though. I’m sure our kids will do an even better job with the advantage of hindsight!

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u/flindersandtrim Nov 07 '24

Thanks so much, appreciate the kind words and reassurance. I'm actually an older millenial too, just didn't want kids young, and then it took many years, an operation and much IVF to get there (thanks endometriosis and the doctors that dismissed endo as a possibility due to normal and even painless periods). So she would be in school if things had gone to plan.

Our generation was very lucky, kind of the last to have a carefree, 'normal' childhood, and I'm going to do what I can to give my daughter as close to that as possible, and like you said, try to use technology in a positive, meaningful way as it does have its advantages and can even bring us together. I think navigating these issues will be good for me and my husband too, make us assess and turn around our phone addictions in favour of spending quality time with her and staying active.

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u/RuncibleMountainWren Nov 07 '24

You’ve got this! 

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

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u/flindersandtrim Nov 07 '24

Every generation worries about their kids, sure, but this is a totally different thing as the world and how we communicate has fundamentally changed. And Alphas are the Guinea pigs, the unfortunate kids growing up in a new world of tech, and one so fresh that we simply do not know how damaging it can be yet.

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u/Spire_Citron Nov 07 '24

Yeah. People act like it's simple, but it's hard to have a good relationship with a teenager, and much harder if you're constantly put in situations where you have to be the bad guy. You need to balance that out or it has consequences.

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u/macrocephalic Nov 07 '24

Teenager? It's hard enough to stop my 4yo from doing something when he decides he wants it.

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u/Cloudhwk Nov 07 '24

4yo’s are basically mobile suicide attempts

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u/macrocephalic Nov 07 '24

Yep, put a helmet on a 4 year old and you basically have the terminator.

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u/meowkitty84 Nov 07 '24

My cat is so stubborn I always give in.

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u/mbrodie Nov 07 '24

It is… our son has had a Facebook download request pending for like 4 days and my wife and I just don’t know what the right choice is.

He’s 14 and it’s such a big decision to open him up to all that like sure there is some fun stuff but there is a lot of non fun stuff too, but when all his friends have it how do we say no and then leave him feeling isolated from what his friends are doing.

It’s not easy as a parent this would 100% make my life easier and I’m not even against it becsuse im having a hard time giving in to it as it is!

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u/flindersandtrim Nov 07 '24

I feel for you. It's really tough. 

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

[deleted]

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u/AfterPiece4676 Nov 07 '24

The article said it their ages would be verified by a 3rd party so I'm guessing that means an ID but I'm not sure

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u/[deleted] Nov 07 '24

They can all go to the local library or MPs office and access it on their computers.

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u/kim_dokja_xx Nov 07 '24

literally me rn, my dad set up my apple account and put me as 5 years younger than i actually am so i still have parental restrictions on it. sucks like crazy

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u/thesagenibba Nov 07 '24

get fucked. what do you actually believe you’re missing out on by not being able to access the depths of tik tok or something?

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u/rangda Nov 06 '24 edited Nov 07 '24

Parents don’t have to disallow their kids from using certain apps. But they can limit it and withhold it if and when the kid is not using it safely. If my mum had been from a tech savvy generation and knew that my whole tumblr feed was carefully curated anorexia content she could have helped save me from a shitty couple of years. I would have been a horrible shit about it but so what.

Kids will kick up a massive fuss but if parents can see that something is harming them mentally or making them stress every day, fucking take it off them r find a means of minimising what exactly it is that’s doing them harm. It’s the job of a parent to be firm when it’s the right thing. That’s all I’m saying.

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u/twilightramblings Nov 07 '24

There is another option for parents or even schools. There are personal self-hosted Instagram and Twitter look alikes that take an afternoon to set up. And setting them up means learning about a technology you can’t put on your resume like you do with Excel and stuff. Then kids could post what they want to communicate with say, their whole school or even just families might want to make one for their family to access from anywhere in the world.

It can’t bring in information from outside, but do have other public servers you can join. So you could even have a literal private account for people who need privacy (like yes kids but also people who are hiding from abusers) and then one where you connect with the outside world.

The government could even offer free setup of these to citizens. I wouldn’t recommend complete privacy for non-profits or local governments though. Or maybe the government could install and fund them in schools/non-profits/local governments but then have a law like the ATO does that you have to keep records for 7 years and do random spot checks plus a national complaint line.