Jade Varney: B416 advisor voices concerns with the impact of social media on mental health

There's growing concerns about the impact of social media on young people, with advocates calling for tighter regulations.

Politicians have voiced support for a teen social media ban in line with Australia, but experts say more needs to be done in this area.

B416 advisor Jade Varney says education is important, but the technology's gone too far to let young people use it without a proper intervention. 

"These technology platforms have been engineered to intercept our control functions in our brains, and a young person relying on the knowledge they've been taught in school just may not be enough at this current stage."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks AB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Back in twenty twenty one, then fifteen year old Jade
Varney joined me on the show.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Now.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
At the time, Jade had started a petition to improve
youth mental health services and bravely shared her own mental
health journey and recovery from an eating disorder. Jade is
now a youth advisor for the Before Sixteen Movement, and
she has shared a message to adults and she joins
me now, good morning, Jade, love you to talk to
you again.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Hi, Francesca, thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Why have you got on board with the Before sixteen
Movement as a youth advisor?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Well, since I last spoke on the show, I've continued
to be involved in lots of youth mental health sort
of organizations and sort of focusing on getting involved with
grassroots that are already doing work in our communities. And
an overwhelming response from all of these organizations was that
technology was a huge issue, and I honestly didn't need

(01:06):
them to be the ones telling me that it definitely
wasn't new information. And so when I was sort of
proposed the idea that I could become part of this
campaign to restrict social media for before sixteen year olds
in New Zealand. It sort of seems like a no
brainer to jump on board with.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
Tell me about this message that you've shared with adults,
and this is a message you know from someone who's
grown up in the social media age.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
Well, I think a big counter argument at the moment
to the restriction of social media for under sixteen year
olds is that we should be focusing on the education
and schools to allow young people the tools to step
away from social media on their own. And while I
do not disagree with this statement at all, I think

(01:55):
that we are far far beyond the point of just
relying on education to step in and be the intervention
for young people. As we've seen over the last few
years and more recently with the United States court rulings,
is that these technology platforms have been engineered to intercept

(02:15):
our control functions in our brains, and a young person
relying on knowledge they've been taught in school just may
not be enough at this current stage to intercept those
control features.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
So what do you want adults to know about young
people in social media? And what would you like them
to do. What can make a difference.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
I think one of the biggest messages is particularly for parents,
for parents who are probably in the phases of having
young people who are coming through and being on social media.
We're talking maybe year seven, year eight sort of age,
is to try and guide them to understand that the

(02:58):
content that they're fed off of social media is really
just a whole other reality. And while this seems like
it should be something that has already been talked about
quite regularly, you'd be surprised by how mean, how much
of this conversation has been lost within families already.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
And of course the other issue is jade that lots
of adults love their social media and their phones.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Right exactly exactly well, I mean, when I'm talking about
these control mechanisms being overridden through technology, it does not
just apply to young people. But unfortunately, our young people
are the ones with the brains that are still developing,
and our young people are the ones that are really
the most susceptible to the harm and the damage that's

(03:45):
coming from this technology. But it does not discriminate. It
definitely applies to adults as well.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
What is your experience of social media how did it
impact you.

Speaker 3 (03:55):
Well, When I was going through even my phases of
recovery from my eating disorder, it was actually very very interesting,
even from an experimental point of view, to understand how
quickly the algorithm adapted to whatever I was feeling. And
that was something that was really quite alarming, was that
when I was really quite deep in my eating disorder,

(04:16):
you could almost see the disorder through. If you looked
on my feed on my phone, you could see the
sort of content I was being fed was completely completely
relevant to the way that the emotions I was feeling
and what I was going through. And then while I
was in recovery again, my algorithm adapted to that and
completely changed to fit exactly what I was going through.

(04:36):
And I think that that's probably something another message to
feed to people who probably don't quite understand how quickly
and how clever these algorithms work, is that they completely
latch on to whatever is going through subconsciously or consciously.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
In your mind, you're twenty, now, how do you manage
your consumption of social media?

Speaker 3 (04:59):
I think I'm probably a bit of an exception, given
that I am now working in a role where I'm
also campaigning for how harmful and how damaging social media is.
So I actually am off quite a few of the
platforms that a lot of my generation are on, and
I don't. I try my best not to be con

(05:23):
entirely consumed by many of the apps, but I still am.
I'm only human. I also full victim to a doom
scroll every now and again, and when I catch myself
doing it, I just sort of think. I think I
may have mentioned this on my last interview, but I
have young siblings and I can just I can just
see them straight away, like, exactly how easy it is

(05:44):
for the little minds to be completely overwhelmed by this
content themselves.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
So you're having to play a little bit more Monopoly
and Uno exactly, yeah, yeah, which isn't so bad, right, hey,
just really quickly, Obviously, last time we took you were
campaigning for better mental health services. I was wondering, have
you seen anything change since we last spoke.

Speaker 3 (06:04):
It's a very interesting sort of space to be and
from having been advocating for it when I was just fifteen,
I think I sort of felt like I wasn't making
a lot of progress, and I was obviously a little
fish in a massive pond. And I was trying to
go after a very very large goal, and so I
shifted my where I was putting my efforts into smaller organizations.

(06:26):
And I think that that is something that is super
important and really lucky to see sparking over New Zealand
is that we have lots of youth movements sort of
beginning to evolve and really gain a lot of traction.
But unfortunately, I have to admit I feel as though
the youth mental health services is still something that continue
could continue to be improved, and still need as much

(06:48):
attention as they did probably five years ago when I
was just fifteen.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
Oh Ja Ja Varnie, thank you so much for your
time this morning. Appreciate it. Love your work. Don't you
love young people that don't just sit around complaining but
decide to make a difference about things.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
For more from the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live and news Talks it Be from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.