Depression in girls has gone from 12 % to 26 % in the last 15 years and for those who use it 5+ hours a day it's close to 50%
In boys it has also caused an increase but not as drastic.
Honestly I think it's a good thing. Seeing kids in first grade already on their phones just seems unnatural to me. I don't think it's a healthy way to grow up.
We'll see if this has any positive effects.
Wow! Do you have any children of your own that you are raising? I bet not.
What do you do - wake up in the middle of the night and think about all these things you want to make our society worse? What's wrong with your thinking. Have you been dipping into the Fentanyl a little bit?
Social media sites is what is and has been ruining love relationships for years now. Most women hate men and they learn that crap on social media websites.
Do you know how many men just wish they could find an anti-feminist woman that he could settle down with and have his own little family to love and enjoy?
There are women's groups popping up almost everyday with a new cause to vilify men and withhold sex and having babies if they just do happen to be married to one.
Women are nutso because of social media sites and now you want girls to learn to hate men at an even younger age?
I think you need to do your homework before coming here with your far fetched ideas!
Just calm down would ja?
I think it's a fantastic idea; perhaps the UK could adopt it. The late 1990s and early 2000s were my childhood/teenage years. I didn't suffer from not using social media all day; on the contrary, it encouraged me to go out and interact with others and build meaningful relationships.
Hmmm... on one hand social media seems to do more bad than good, and it allows for child molesters/pedos to easily groom people under 18.
But at the same time, it's not like you magically become an adult from age 17 to age 18 either. And it's not good to shelter kids all the way up till they turn 18. Because then they'll be thrown into deep water with no experience.
So in the end I guess it would be best to allows teens under 18 to use social media but with parents supervision.
And I know you said "under 16," but where I live "under 18" is usually the rule since age 18 is seen as the ultimate milestone where I live.
I've been randomly getting Australia news on youtube and I am pretty confident in thinking they are very authoritarian.
Weird banning's across the board, weird restrictions, arresting people for harmless media posts, encouraging people to smoke, taking away people's careers.
No way was this action to have a positive effect on teens, for sure was done to create more censorship over there.
It's crazy I am watching their own news which you would think would try to put their actions in good light but not once has it made me think anything but yikes that's umm a bit dictatory.
Honestly I think they are hoping this will make social media sites leave trying to market in their country so they can cut everyone off from it in the long run, therefore control all the media themselves. It's smart if so. And again very dictator.
But hey that's a conspiracy, but it wouldn't shock me at all with all I've seen.
You do realize voting numbers matter not if a society is imposing authoritarian tactics?
How does it not effect adults? Don't they need to prove they aren't under 16?
And how does it not effect adults to be? And how does it not effect adults if those social media sites decide to up and leave?
There is many angles to this.
The current gov't is Socialist Left and genuinely is trying to create an Orwellian Ministry of Truth with all that implies. I hope that will be an election issue in 2025 and at this point it is almost certain they will go into minority gov't - that is lack a majority in either house of parliament.
I'm interested in your perspective we are authoritarian and dictatorial. Would you mind expanding on that please?
@RavVid Sorry for the later reply.
You see it's interesting you say they are left because I've see their news cover some American news about Harris and Trump, it's very much in favor of Trump not Harris. Which would of led me to believe they are right winged.
Again I know nothing despite from what I've seen in their news channels.
Mostly it's just about what I've already said, I am sure there is some minor stuff that I am forgetting that also felt controlling and censorship. Tbh I thought the whole right winged was, because yeah Harris sucks but I thought there would be a more outward look on it like there is here in England.
Anyway the thing about banning Vapes suddenly, making vape stores redundant losing their jobs and that was extreme. And not only that, but then made it so you could only get vape stuff now from a doctor and only if you prove that you need 20 nic liquid. Which defeats the whole purpose, as your supposed to come down nic liquid as you vape, but you can't now the doctor won't give you less %. Meanwhile smoking is legal and sold in stores.
They've also been telling people vapes just as bad, or worse somehow and aren't needed. Yet vaping is statically proven to reduce smokers and including reducing those who quit all together with vaping and smoking.
They arrested a woman bit back for saying something on facebook which honestly was daft, and pretty sure it was home arrest with guns and all rather than a simple we need to talk to you it could of at least been that. You can find memes more worse than what she said.
And yeah she was an idiot, but are people arrested for been idiots?
Now the banning of social media for teens another extreme act, and a breach in privacy. It's one after another really. I wonder what's next, somehow I don't feel like it will be long before they come with something else to ban, but I don't know.
Probably you are seeing Sky/Fox which is to the right but the rest of the media is to the left - very much a cheers squad for Labor and the Greens. Just as well there is a counter view.
If the woman arrested was in respect of covid19 then I do remember it. It was extraordinarily heavy handed under emergency powers. I am not going to attempt to justify it. I will note it was a Labor/socialist gov't that was really responsible for this..
I see that as the key. Socialists want conformance to their views and are coercive about it. Federal Labor/socialist tried to introduce a bill that would have established a Ministry Of Truth with a gov't body establishing what was truth and what was misinformation.
The Left is still smarting over a referendum being rejected by all states and 60% of the people. (They couldn't even get all their people to vote in favor). Which was due to divisive misinformation according to them. So clearly socialists don't want that to happen again and are attempting to take forward steps.
Now a Ministry Of Truth is truly scary. Already we have to be careful with comments that might have a cultural component but are highly tolerant of one group shutting down another with police assistance.
Similarly I found a woman in England being arrested for silent thought (i. e silent prayer) quite repugnant.
I don't find restricting social media for under 16's scary, though I'd think 18 is a better divide since we regard that as the adulthood threshold. Approx 50% of adolescents experience cyber bullying and in some cases suicide does occur. So I think there is a case.
Not that it gets suddenly more genteel over 18 :)
No problem with a non-immediate response; it is Christmas. I was suffering from the heat & hangover yesterday.
@RavVid Sky Australia was one of them, that's intriguing so your sky is right winged.
Ours is more neutral to maybe a bit left.
Yeah people here get arrested for weird things all the time that the cops think they can it never works out well for them, the cases either get dropped or sued.
Oh a pro-lifer who got arrested? Well there is a law about not been able to harass someone who enters an abortion clinic basically, so they probably took it as that. But clearly it wasn't harassment if she never said anything or did anything to someone.
If I had to guess it's not a law that's as defined and taught to cops, as pro-lifers are a niche thing over here and are seen as extremists in most cases.
It's not the opinion it self is extreme, but when it's 9/10 vote for abortion a reasonable person would accept they were out-voted because realistically ones who wouldn't are going to be more oppositional and extreme.
Many weird cases happen here and it's mostly always due to cops ignorance of the law rather than it been a problem with the law.
@RavVid As for the banning on under 16s on Media, I just dislike them involved in social media, personally I don't see any reason policing should come to social media sites and except for actual reports of you know the real bad stuff that can't be simply ignored.
It's restrictive, social media should be a market for a free thought with a personal blocking system.
That's what blocking is for, Oh look a guy called me a bad name I blocked him and we never spoke again well that was easy.
Now if that guy does decide to go out of his way create a new account to try say more to me then yeah I agree that's when legally I should be able to get help as that's harassment. But otherwise block and move on?
Cyber bullying can't happen if you block, also if I had to guess those who get cyber bullied, get bullied in school if not by the exact same culprits so shouldn't that therefore be on school or cops to do something about IRL than trying to restrict media. How is cyber bullying the problem? If that same bullying is happening regardless at their school all day?
And I still don't know how this effects ID online, because now if you need ID to create account that's another breach to privacy we don't need. Oh yeah Gag will need your ID now since you live in Australia got to make sure you aren't 15 lol.
Also going back to my point that what if Social-Media decides to pull of Australia if it makes such demands of vetting. It's all nonsense.
All good points and I certainly don't think there is an easy solution. Face to face bullying is indeed worse. It is worth remembering that we have to socialize children because they are little brutes.
I am not pretending this bill is well thought out either. What is social media for a start? Turns out it is what the Minister thinks and parliament approves. At least it is flexible :).
In some ways you can see this as another Labor effort to give a number each person in Australia - they tried to in the past and lost an election over it.
Quite possibly I might end up using VPN more along with all the little kiddies who will undoubtedly install it.. I wouldn't be too fazed if social media companies dd pull out of Australia but that is just me.
I'm
The silent prayer arrest was interesting as there is case on both sides. It is a public space and anybody is entitled to be there. Because a clinic is opened doesn't mean the public space around it becomes an ante room.
I imagine though some people were standing silent vigil and I think that would have been a better line than having silent thoughts.
Like you I am happy a suitable compromise was reached so I can get back to the football.
Opinion
26Opinion
The Labor gov't was clearing up for election. Their attempt to institute a Ministry Of Truth got more attention than this.
However much it pains me that a Social Left Marxist Prime Minister could ever do anything sensible (aside from changing mother on birth certificates to birth parent which moms greatly apprecated), I have to admit this is a good thing.
The Opposition and cross bench voted against but that is their job and they weren't very loud about it.
So kiddy time on social media is done and dusted. They'll have to do homework for entertainment instead.
Completely banning something is generally not a good idea. It causes people to find ways around it. Rather than a total ban, limiting social media to a certain number of hours per day, and maybe only at certain times (ex: not during school hours) would be a better idea.
I'm also in favor of kids not havi g their phones on them in school. When they enter school, their phone goes into an individual locked container, which they pick up when they leave. Only in an emergency can they access their phone during class.
m hopefully... the parents can also add one more thing, actually getting involved in their kids and teens lives , and actually supervising, getting to know them and educating/raising their own children... instead of wasting time being too involved on the same social media... lol
Amen to the full circle.
I can’t imagine it would have kept me off as a teen. I also think this is something that should have been up to parents and individual schools. Australia is also not my country/culture so I don’t mean to say it was a mistake, just that I would have chosen differently and have concerns.
It's not going to work, because in order for something like this to work as intended will require the complete co-operation of the social media and tech companies, and do you really think they will? Besides, any tech-savvy twelve year old will easily be able to work his or her way around this restriction. In other words, it's unenforceable. It's a stupid idea, one that's being promoted for its virtue-signalling value, and to keep the pearl-clutchers happy.
They're going to fine social media companies everytime a kid gets caught using it so they will force them to cooperate. That's the plan at least. In Norway they prohibit using phones at schools and that has had a positive impact as well. I think it's good to at least try things out and see what happens.
"... every time a kid gets caught..."
Assuming they will be caught, but even if they are, the giants like Twitter and TikTok will just ignore the fines and say, "Screw you Australia, we don't need you". Like Facebook did a couple of years ago.
And you know what? They'll be correct, because Australia in the grand scheme of things is a tiny market, not even close to China, India and the United States.
Tecnicly if you can control the hardware you can for all the non-tech savvy teens get them off social media. That would effectively end the relevance of the platform for the bulk of the culture.
You would need to require a protocol change at the low level indicating maturity level to the server and routers which would simply refuse access.
@RageBabe Which I think is similar to what Australia has already done regarding YouTube, where if you want to watch certain videos you have to verify your age, because they're age restricted. I never verify my age though, because I just get around that restriction by converting the video in question to an mp4 file and watching that. Works every time, and I don't even consider myself to be very "tech-savvy".
That's just going to spark the Streisand effect.
Ban social media for teenagers under 16 years of age and they'll reinforce the belief "all the cool stuff is locked behind a minimum age limit. I want to be an adult now, so i'll go and find a way to get into social media and feel like an adult gangster".
I think it fucks females up in particular... Let's see if it does anything good.
I think it's great and I hope the US follows suit. Social media has some horrible influences, and especially on girls and young women, and indirectly on boys and young men.
I just read the response from @sage2021 and I'm confused. She said a lot of things that are true about women but they make zero sense in the context of this question.
Its a great idea , children should not be involved in this stuff , too many have died , hopefully other countries will follow , I shudder when I see kids on screens.
I think its a terrible idea because of the privacy implications it has on the adults. Being able to speak anonymously in these ever increasingly tyrannical societies is very important.
I doubt it will work, but I like the general idea. Social media is destroying young people
I just posted about this. The government will say, "we're protecting the kids," then take away all your privacy and rights one-by-one. Sounds familiar.
I think it is, a good idea but I do not know how to enforce it.
Good job because you’ll never get out and play sports or do anything they’ll just be online all the time
Wise move. If parents won't do it someone is stepping up.
I think it’s a good thing. Social media is bad for the mental health.
Australia has a mental health issues almost as bad as America
Social media is literally psychological manipulation
Government has a role to play, but it shouldn't be to protect you from yourself.
And the kids have already figured out a way around it!
Fine in theory, but how would it be enforced?
Good, the conservatives were going for similar in the UK before they lost the election
It is barbaric, we should be controlling kids' lives less not more.
Not Australian so I don't have an opinion... prohibition usually does not work well.
I think it is a good idea.
Excellent! 👍👏👏
USA should do this as well.
Good. I wish it would go away everywhere.
They should probably raise it to 25.
I would vote in agreement
it's a good thing
Good more countries need to do that
Good.
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