Children's excessive fascination with social networks worries adults around the world. In Australia, they decided to act radically and plan to pass a bill aimed at banning social networks for children under 16. Are such bans really necessary and what impact social networks actually have, investigated Focus.
For systematic violations of the age limit for access to social networks in Australia, a separate bill has proposed fines for social media platforms in the tens of millions of dollars. The document has already received bipartisan support and, if adopted, will come into force in a year. If the document is adopted, it will become one of the strictest controls introduced in the world to date. But will such restrictions be beneficial and what are the alternatives?
“First swallow”: banning TikTok and Instagram
Abroad, discussions are ongoing on restricting virtual space for children and adolescents. In particular, a new bill has been prepared in Australia. If adopted, children under the age of 16 in the country will be prohibited from using social networks, writes Reuters.
The bill places the onus of ensuring protection on social media platforms, not children and parents. The bill would impose fines of up to A$50 million ($32.2 million) on platform companies found to have failed to take “reasonable steps to prevent accounts from being created by users who are underage.”
The list of banned services has not been published, but it is expected to include TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram and Snapchat. Instead, children will have access to messaging, online games, and services related to health and education.
The Australian government says it has prepared “the world’s leading social media reform.” “This reform is about protecting young people and letting parents know we support them,” said Australia's Communications Minister Michelle Rowland.
The Australian government says it has prepared “the world's leading social media reform”
Discussion: protection against lies or restriction of the right to information?
The Australian government says that for many young people, social media can be harmful. According to Michelle Rowland, almost two-thirds of Australians aged 14 to 17 view extremely harmful content online, including drug abuse, suicide or self-harm.
Also pushing for restrictions are complaints from parents about the pressure their children face online, as well as several high-profile cases of children committing suicide as a result of online bullying.
Interestingly, there is no unanimous opinion on the ban on social media, neither among users nor among experts.
“Unfortunately, the times when we considered the Internet exclusively a source of scientific, business, cognitive and entertainment information have passed very quickly,” agrees psychologist Natalia Plokhotnychenko. “Today, anything can be dumped on the Internet with almost impunity, because anyone who knows how to press a button can do it. There is a lot of unverified information, outright lies, absolutely disgusting videos on the Internet, and all this finds its consumer. And children and teenagers get hooked on all this and stare at smartphone screens day and night.”
Instead, psychologist Alexandra Alekseeva believes that banning social networks actually means banning information and communication. Today, a huge part of our lives has flowed online: there people meet, communicate, study, order goods and services, and even play sports. Therefore, banning social networks essentially means ignoring a large part of reality: a child simply will not have the opportunity to adapt to the world in which he has to live. In addition, everything that is forbidden becomes extremely attractive. But if you allow it, but establish rules of behavior, the problem enters a natural course and becomes safe.
Disadvantages of social networks: loss of communication skills and weak development of cognitive abilities
“Children communicate with each other less and less,” shares Natalia Plokhotnychenko's observations. “They seem to go to school in a group, for example, but everyone is looking at their phone. They can even walk past an absolutely gorgeous puddle without any interest. TikTok videos are more attractive. In fact, it would be nice to limit the time spent on social networks, but this requires a lot of resources. Of course, it is easier to ban them, and I don't see anything wrong with this ban.”
Social networks are not absolute evil, they have both pros and cons. In the networks, you can find like-minded people who will be “on the same wavelength”, as well as face harassment, bullying and persecution
According to the psychologist, from birth a child learns something at every moment: to walk, talk, play, read, communicate with peers. And giving a baby a tablet or smartphone from birth is not the best solution. A child can quite safely go through all his stages of development and get access to social networks at 16, or even at 18 years old – it will definitely not harm him, says the expert.
Of course, social networks are not absolute evil, they have both pros and cons, adds Natalia Plokhotnychenko. In the networks, you can find like-minded people who will be “on the same wavelength”, as well as face harassment, bullying and persecution.
“I would also include the following point as a minus: videos on the Internet are most often not prone to discussion and dialogue, as happens, say, after reading a book, — says the psychologist. – For example, the animated series Skibidi Toilet is currently popular among children, the main characters of which are heads sticking out of toilets. Discussing the plot of such series is quite problematic. The maximum: “You saw?” — “Yes, I saw”. Such truncated communication “about nothing” ultimately leads to the loss of communication skills and generally to the weak development of cognitive abilities. It is not surprising that modern young people often cannot express their opinions even at the age of 18-20 — they simply do not have the practice”.
Create a “separate world” for children: possible, but pointless
According to psychologists, the consequences of restricting children's access to social networks can have both positive and negative effects. Therefore, some experts are inclined to create certain restrictions for users of a certain age without completely banning access to networks.
“I am for safety, but prohibitions never solve the problem,” says psychologist Alexandra Alekseeva. “There should be rules and reasonable restrictions so that children do not have access to porn, the darknet, or engage in cyberbullying. Of course, it is easier to ban everything in one fell swoop, but then the danger increases in the medium term. If a child does not encounter all this before the age of 16, then after 16 the flow of information can literally “knock her off her feet.” An analogy can be drawn with the so-called sexual education, when a girl is told from childhood that sex is shameful and scary. Accordingly, she has no idea how to protect herself, and as a result she goes to treat sexually transmitted diseases and have an abortion.”
If a child does not encounter social networks before the age of 16, after 16 the flow of information can literally “knock down”
Several large countries have previously considered restricting the use of social networks. Last year, France proposed banning social networks for people under 15, but then changed its mind. And in the US, for several years now, technology companies have been required to obtain parental consent to access various data of children under 13.
However, only Australia has dared to take radical measures so far. It is a separate continent, far from the others, and perhaps it will even be possible to create its own “separate world” there. However, psychologists say that a separate world can be made of anything, the question is – why?”This is a completely artificial construction, which they are going to support with millions of fines, and this tension will have to be dealt with constantly, – says Alexandra Alekseeva. — But why this dispute with reality? In order for children to be well, we need not to shut them out of the world, but to gradually include them in everything that is in this world”.
According to the psychologist, today's problems of children and adolescents are caused not by the presence of computers, but by the desire of parents to replace their participation in the child's life with gadgets. When children do not receive parental attention, the computer becomes the center of their universe. Children are evolutionarily oriented towards learning about the world. And if parents want to protect them from “surrogate” virtuality, they will have to become more interesting to their children than it is. But how many people have such skills and such resources?
Adults calm their anxiety with bans, but it would be too naive to assume that as soon as social networks are banned, they will immediately start reading books
“Trying to repair one thing, people often break another,” Alexandra Alekseeva concluded. “For example, in an effort to increase the birth rate, they ban abortions, and then get a surge in mortality after criminal abortions. Or, deciding to “make the population healthier,” they introduce a prohibition law, and get an increase in illegal alcohol sales and an increase in poisonings by surrogates. Their In turn, banning social networks may well lead to more frequent cases of maternal burnout. Our life is not black and white, you can't simply “designate” something black, ban it and thus solve the problem. Life is much more complicated. And if we want to raise a generation of spiritually rich, intellectually developed people who regulate their emotions normally, we don't need to ban anything. Adults calm their anxiety with bans, but it would be too naive to think that as soon as social networks are banned, they will immediately start reading books. It doesn't work that way.”