Australia’s social media age ban to protect kids predicted to go global

Leading American child safety experts have called Australia’s looming social media age limit the “most monumental*” step yet toward protecting kids online. They urged other countries to follow, to help reduce the power of the global tech giants.

Jonathan Haidt and Ravi Iyer predicted the groundbreaking federal laws would be adopted around the globe and debunked* misinterpretations of the policy from critics including the social media giants themselves.

In a joint essay, The Anxious Generation author and psychologist* Dr Haidt and Psychology of Technology Institute manager and psychologist Dr Iyer praised Australia’s leadership in raising the social media age limit from 13 to 16.

“Australia is giving a gift to its parents and teens, and the benefits will soon spread globally,” they wrote.

“Their new Age Limit Policy for Account Creation is the most monumental step yet taken in the international movement to protect kids from the industrial scale harms caused by social media companies.”

Australia’s leading effort to protect children from harm, sparked by News Corp’s Let Them Be Kids campaign, was being closely watched as a test case by countries around the world, they said.

“Australia has bravely been the first, risking criticism and punishment from powerful companies,” Dr Haidt and Dr Iyer said.

“But if other countries quickly follow, then their collective action will shift the power dynamic*.”

The leading child safety advocates* said children would get back countless hours of childhood once freed from the grips of social media.

They also dismissed claims, including from YouTube, that children would be blocked from accessing educational videos used by teachers.

Under the changes, kids would still be able to search for specific videos and information but would not have an account where they could fall prey to harmful and manipulative* algorithms*.

“What’s new is that some of the most powerful companies in the world are, for the first time, forbidden from entering into a business relationship with children, a relationship that internal documents show is designed to foster addiction by using children’s personal data to keep them ‘engaged’,” they said.

“Australia’s families and children will be better off because of this policy, and other countries will follow suit.”

The pair said the transition would likely be difficult in the first few weeks but said, as with phone-free school trials, children would adapt quickly.

“Without action, we leave yet another generation to grow up under the rule of a handful of tech companies whose business models depend on capturing as much of children’s time and attention as possible,” the co-authors said.

“We still hope these companies will someday redesign their platforms to make them safe for teens. But they have repeatedly refused to make meaningful changes, even as they know or believe that their products are causing harm to children.”

The legislation is due to come into effect in December.

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GLOSSARY

• monumental: huge, something very big or having enormous importance or value
• debunked: discredited, showed something to be untrue
• psychologist: someone who studies the human mind and tries to explain why people behave in the way that they do
• manipulative: controlling, deliberating forcing or persuading others to act in a certain way
• power dynamic: the relationship between people or people and organisations and how authority and influence is divided between them
• advocates: people who publicly support or suggest an idea, development or way of doing something
• algorithms: series of mathematical steps, especially in a computer program, which will give you answers to problems or questions but also learn to serve certain content to users including children based on past user habits

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QUICK QUIZ

1. What will be Australia’s new minimum age for social media account creation when the changes come into effect?
2. What is the name of the federal government’s social media policy?
3. In what other scenario have kids been able to adapt quickly to a change in policy?
4. What is a misinterpretation of the policy by critics including the social media companies themselves?
5. When is the legislation due to come into effect?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Social media ban gift
In the article, a psychologist states that “Australia is giving a gift to its parents and teens” by introducing this new legislation raising the social media age from 13 to 16 years old.

Draw a gift box with a specific present coming out of the box, then list all the advantages that psychologists think will be gifted to children and teens once freed from accessing social media.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
What are the meaningful changes that tech giants have been asked to make by governments around the world to ensure children remain safe? List some of the key items below and state why they haven’t been enforced to do so.

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Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Exercise the body and the mind
Exercise is not only important for the body, but it’s a lot of fun as well. Let’s bring more screen-free exercise into classroom learning by creating a VCOP PE game.

You can add a VCOP challenge to pretty much any game, and it’s a great way to encourage the teacher to let the class play more games.

Here is an example to get you started, then you create one of your own.

VCOP dodgeball
The normal rules of dodgeball apply. Two teams throw soft balls at each other and if you get hit, you have to sit out. The team who knocks out all the players on the other team, wins.

VCOP challenge: when you get eliminated, collect a mini-whiteboard and a basic clause from the sidelines. Up-level the sentence (make it better) by adding VCOP. When you show the teacher your completed sentence, you can return to the game.

Play for a set amount of time and the team with the most players left on the court wins.

Support: use the “Up-Level It” card set – players have to complete one card from the set instead of completing all VCOP challenges.

What can you come up with?