Somebody has to step in, so the government did. There has to be a place where the ‘it’s not my job’ for accountability hits a wall and it is done.
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How Apple is Helping Apps Comply With Australia's Social Media Ban for Kids
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Yes, age 32 is when the brain's development transitions from adolescent to adult model.
See: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/five-ages-human-brain
We've had a few decades with electronic devices, games, and now social media, for entertainment. But far too many parents use these as babysitters, especially single parents. Just hand a device to a kid to shut them up.
I applaud Australia's hard stance. It is a necessary course correction, and the only way to force people to take a hard look at this and make the changes in their own lives.
We already see this common sense with smoking and alcohol consumption. Even swearing. The vast majority of parents restrict their children's access or usage, for good reason. But social media and digital devices have a permanent impact on developing brains, so access must now be restricted.
Let's see other countries do this.
Have you actually tried it? Parental controls, or even just plain parenting, is only as good as what the other parents do at your kids school, which is mostly nothing. Do you want a badly adjusted kid because they're on social media, or a badly adjusted kid because they're the only one not on social media? These garbage billionaires put parents and kids in pretty impossible positions and maybe it's time somebody stepped in to break the cycle. It's not like they'll ever do it themselves.
We should regulate social media rather than access to social media. Putting caution tape on the problem does not solve the problem.
Again, you’re moving away from my original point. ‘Hard working parents’ does not enter the argument. Any parent who buys anything for their child is the first line of responsibility for the actions after. They make a choice, they take ownership over it.
You’re correct about these social media companies, they don’t give a hoot about you, me, or any minor that uses their services: all they care about is profit. But if parents refuse to enable the very first line of defence, which are the controls on said device, then you're literally handing the reins over to these companies. This, combined with a lack of education, is essentially teaching young people that reality is parallel to an online presence.
The harsh truth is, many parents don't want to make this decision because they don't want to be seen as "the bad guy". It has nothing to do with being busy, time, lack of knowledge.
Absolutely government overreach is not a substitute for good parenting. Certain things have age limits if 18 and 21 for specific reasons. And even those are soft because it’s easy to get around them.
So it’s better for good parenting than a nanny state.
The ban on YouTube is a little silly. Plenty of kids use it for tutorials, revision or run their own channels. Banning comments for under 16s and all content for under-10s wouldn’t go amiss though.
This said the government should also go one further and make it a crime punishable by an on the spot fine for letting a child under 12 use a phone or tablet in public.
None of us had them as kids and we turned out alright.
This said the government should also go one further and make it a crime punishable by an on the spot fine for letting a child under 12 use a phone or tablet in public.
None of us had them as kids and we turned out alright.
A great observation, and quite heartbreaking in some instances. I work for a public service and I can't tell you how often every single day I see a parent shove a phone or tablet in front of a child's face. They're not learning to observe the work around them and communicate spontaneously, which is having a harmful impact on development.
Hell, guns laws dont keep guns out of the hands of criminals, do they?but yeah let’s go from the ridiculous to the sublime because alcohol and tobacco laws are 100% effective in keeping tobacco and liquor out of the hands of minors.
I agree with the fact that parents need the tools. Screen Time is trivially easy for kids to bypass for many functions and way too buggy. It’s hard to balance the benefits of the device with the negatives when the tools don’t work.
That's a matter of perspective.
Why would an innocent citizen need an automatic rifle?
Maybe not an automatic rifle but there is a thing called the second amendment.
to a certain point. Government should make sure schools are safe, cell phones are safe, food is safe etc. it’s up to parents to parent
'Parents' are not the problem. You cannot say the problem is caused by a class of people that includes almost everyone eventually. You might as well say 'people are the problem' and you would somewhat be right.
The problem is game theory. Where individual self-interest causes harm to the entire group. Individually, parents want their kids to be happy. When they think their kid is excluded, their instinct is to let their kid have a little extra access. But every parent feels similar pressure because they see all the other parents appearing to cave (even if perhaps they aren't). Therefore massive numbers of parents cave to whatever their kids feel pressured into doing, which only makes it harder for those that don't.
Governments need step in when game theory predicts collective self-interest for individuals will produce huge society-wide problems that aren't just going to fix themselves by some sort of epiphany by the entire population all at once.
Definitely prefer what California has been trying to do with codifying parental controls over handing my ID to social media companies (especially Discord with their MASSIVE data leaks)
In general I would agree to let parents parent, but there is a limit. Even great parents have limitations when there is overwhelming pressure from the environment. They can't hover over their developing kids 24/7 making all their decisions for them. The only other possibility is to leave the environment completely in search of a better one. But that is impractical for many reasons not to mention that a better environment may not exist. And when that extreme environmental pressure is extremely destructive, that's when the parent truly needs help.
This is likely a law initiated by parents themselves (possibly in response to research done by those like Jonathan Haidt). Some changes have to be made together in order to be practical.
I agree with the purpose of Australia's law in principle, but you shouldn't have to give your ID to companies with obviously flawed data practices.
You said it there yourself: "maybe not", meaning that some people will. So the question still stands on why anyone would need to buy one.
We're not discussing a requirement, we're discussing a right. Just because weapons are available to the general public does not mean you have to own one.
Protection/home security is the usual argument, but this fails to account for high percentage of accidental shootings/deaths (I believe it's over 80%). "Be responsible: get a gun cabinet or lock it up" - I doubt the average person who wants to rob your TV is going to stand around waiting for you to unlock the safe.
The problem is that people wish to bend this amendment to their own interests. But if the constitution were written today, it would no doubt be very different and it would be interesting to see how people would react to modern takes on smart devices and young people.
I don't know that any parent wants to buy a phone for their kids. Every parent I know has dreaded the time when all their kids' friends get phones. On paper the choice seems simple - don't buy them the bad thing. But the reality of it is way more complex. Phones are the way the world works. I've been resisting one particular social media company for years until it become completely untenable because everyone around me was using it and I was missing out on important stuff.
You watch kids grow up and you ban their phone apps and suddenly they're not getting invited to parties because they're not on the groups. No amount of parental control setting is going to make other people's kids change their behaviour and go back to inviting kids using word of mouth. You cannot make 'parents' as a class change their behaviour. You can only make individual parents changes their behaviour, and when they do, they will lose out.
That is why a government body is the only way this can be fixed.
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Popular maybe in that it had more supporters than the Voice.
But it's does also have a sizable number of people who are concerned, especially if you step outside the Daily Telegraph/Herald Sun crowd. Some of the concerns about how this was rammed through parliament in a single day, with 1 hour of senate committee oversight that igored everyone.
Firstly, I am in the camp that even the busiest parents won't give children cars and say "you can drive unsupervised but only on the main roads" then put in photo-ID checks at all the side streets to make sure only adults enter. Why not "dumb phones to 16"?
Secondly I believe that this is false safety for lazy parents. The kid will still be blasted by toxic algorithms when they hit 16, except now without resiliance. Wouldn't a safer way have been the harder path, making Zuck and Musk and the rest behave better? If something goes wrong and the kid bypassing the ban gets into trouble, this then makes them less likely to ask a trusted adult for help.
It is a game of whack-a-mole, already U16s are moving to other platforms.
The scope creep is quite concerning too, with some platforms being added barely a week out, and we know as Inman-Grant and Wells have both said that search engines and more are in the aim in tranche 2.
The videos, and posts, and other toxic stuff is still there, still readable, but only to people who don't sign in. Where there were parental controls for those who cared to raise their children and not have Albo, Inman-Grant, and Wells do it, they now have nothing.
This was rushed legislation, this is open-ended legislation, this is bad legislation.
I totally agree with everything you say, and would just add that parents need to be part of this process.
Gun laws vastly reduce gun crime dude. The more illegal you make guns in a place the less people there are able to do bad things with guns. It’s pretty clear cut.
Banning kids from smoking and drinking vastly reduces their health impacts on children as compared with allowing international corporations to advertise tobacco and alcohol at them. Would be kinda crazy to argue otherwise.
Banning kids from social media will reduce the negative impacts of social media on kids. The vast majority of parents agree on this.
So on one side you have the wellbeing of kids and by extension that of their parents, families, friends and society at large.
On the other side you’ve got the profits of gun manufacturers, tobacco companies, the alcohol industry, and tech billionaires.
It’s really not a tough choice for me tbh
Dude the point is any criminal can get a fun but law abiding citizens are not that entitled. Drinking and driving is against the law and yet.
Hyoothetical, the same as this law.
And I fully support these laws, in spite of the fact that under 21 still can smoke and drink. Because these laws stop something that is outside the control of the parents.
I disagree.
It’s government overreach.