Dr Danielle Einstein: Clinical Psychologist on whether a social media ban would be dangerous for kids utilising mental health services

Social media influencer and mental health advocate Jazz Thornton says a social media ban would be dangerous for kids mental health.

She says kids are able to access free mental health resources through social media.

But is it worth the negative effect it comes with?

Clinical Psychologist Dr Danielle Einstein talks to Heather du Plessis-Allan about the implications of a social media ban for kids.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
As the debate rolls on over whether the government should
ban under sixteens from social media, and Australian clinical psychologist
is visiting New Zealand arguing that we absolutely should. Doctor
Danielle Einstein is with us now, Doctor Danielle. Hello, Hi,
have mate. I can't get past your surname. I know,
how good is that any relation?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Well, I've kept it going. We come from the same
family and all, so that's as close as it gets.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Wow, that's pretty cool. Now listen do you think I mean?
The big debate that we're having here in New Zealand
about whether the government should do this or not is
whether they actually can do it? Is it doable?

Speaker 2 (00:37):
I spoke with your Minister for Education today and she
has some fantastic ideas. And what is really important here
is that we are asking the platforms to step up.
So it's not a question of its whether it's doable.
It's a question of who has skin in the game.
The platforms need to take some responsibility for the age

(00:58):
of which young people on their platforms because it's just
causing so many harms. We actually just can't afford not
to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
But this sounds to me like it's not doable. What
do you mean, so like, it is not doable for
these guys to verify that somebody at fifteen is not
sixteen and that somebody at sixteen is sixteen.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
These platforms know how you're feeling. These platforms know how
you're posting, what you're sharing. They know how, and they
can read it. They can do that, They will be
able to do it. That is a sidetrack argument, can
they do it? The real concern is the actual advocates
and the people that are actually misinterpreting evidence and data

(01:39):
and saying it's not really harming everyone, it's not harming
them in the same way. We are all being affected,
whether it's the individual under sixteen or the school at
which they go to and the group at which they're in,
whether they actually feel like they belong, and the mental
health crisis which is affecting countries around the world is
under so we just it's not a question of durable

(02:04):
or age assurance. It's a question of whether it's the
right thing to do.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Danielle, I'm starting to form I'm a mother, but my
children are very young. The preschool is so well under
the age of using the social media, but obviously have
been reading things in advance like The Anxious Generation and stuff,
and I have come to the view that I think
that social media is as bad for their little brains
as Siggi's are for their lungs. Am I being hysterical?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
No, it's actually it has our phones and our computers
and our emails, and in particular social media, which is
particularly persuasive and pervasive. It hooks us it, it pulls
us in. It's addictive. You can feel the addictive pull
as you walk in the door of your home, and
you if you pick up your phone and try and look,

(02:51):
am I want it? Am I needed somewhere? That's how
you can tell. Or if you get into the car
and need to be connected immediately that second, you can
feel it's an invisible draw card. It's the dopamine. It's
the uncertainty heather of is there something good possibly waiting
for me? And the important thing to know is that
because there's not always something good, sometimes we don't get

(03:14):
the message we want. Then we look somewhere else on
our phone, all right, or our computer or our message
for something else, and all of a sudden, particularly children
who just don't have the emotional wherewithal yet they just
don't have the tools yet to manage themselves and it's
affecting their development and that's what that's the message we've

(03:34):
got to get out, Danielle.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
It's good to talk to you. Look after yourself, Doctor
Danielle Einstein, clinical psychologist. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive,
listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,
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