May 26, 2024 • 16 mins
There is a growing movement to commit to giving our primary-aged children unplugged childhoods! Dr Justin shares four things you can do NOW to give your children a play-based childhood, free from digital distractions and social media.
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In this episode:
- How would an enforcement even work?
- Censorship
- Age-verification for social media
- Importance of holding platforms accountable
- A movement to keep smartphones and social media out of primary school
- Unplugged childhood
- Kids need smart parents not smart phones
Related links:
- Tech Giants Are Anti-Kids - Happy Families
- #991 This Week In Parenting: Vape Zones, Baby Bans, & Nicotine Pouches
- How Do I Get My Daughter To Drop Social Media And Study For Exams? - Happy Families
- Social media has the “exact same negative effect on depression” as eating potatoes | Quartz
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers Now. Today on
the Happy Families Podcast, Kylie and I are talking about
a topic that has been big news recently. Should we
ban social media for kids?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
South Australian Premier Peter Malmanaskis says a band would help
young people improve their mental health. The excessive use of
social media with and of itself was actually doing harm
to our young people's mental health. And then we're seeing
a dramatic spike in childhood depression, childhood anxiety, and it's
must extreme end fort and evidence of youth suicide. And
(00:41):
I think we're sort of at the point now that
governments have to act.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
A couple of weeks ago on the podcast, we talked
about the fact that the suf Australian government are looking
to make social media illegal for under fourteen year olds.
My question to you, Justin is can I actually do that?
Can I ban it?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah? So what they want to not only make it
legal for under fourteen's, but even make it so that
you have to have parental permission for fourteen and fifteen
year olds to get hold of social media and a
lot of this momentum is as a result of the
book that I'm currently reading, Jonathan Heights, The Anxious Generation.
Short answer your question, can you ban social media? Yah,
of course you can. We ban all sorts of things.
(01:19):
We ban driving for kids under a certain age, We
ban alcohol for kids under a certain age, We ban
all sorts of illicit substances for people of all ages.
We ban gambling. So it's not a big deal really
to put an age gate or an age restriction on
whatever we want. It's entirely reasonable to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You talk about putting an age gate on driving, for instance,
or gambling or alcohol and drug use, those to me
seem a little bit easier to mandate because you've actually
got to go to a shop front to do that,
or you're behind a wheels very visual, whereas social media,
(02:01):
to me is something that happens, you know, kind of
can happen anywhere and in the privacy of your own home.
How do you go about banning something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So in the early days, with alcohol, with driving, with
all the things that we're talking about, anybody could do it.
I mean, when cars were first invented, there was no
such thing as having a driver's license, you could put
kids behind the wheel of a car. The genie is
out of the bottle, twothpaste out of the tube. Really
hard to get it back in with something like social
media because it is so pervasive. But even with alcohol,
(02:27):
I mean in the eighteen hundreds and even to the
nineteen hundreds, it was not uncommon at all. In fact,
it was pretty normal practice for kids to be given
alcohol by their parents because it was cleaner and safer
than the water that they were drinking. Often when kids
are going to lie, people even today get around all
the laws that we've just mentioned. But by legislating, what
we do is we save pain and we reduce damage.
(02:49):
That's almost guaranteed. The whole idea here is it's like
seat belt walls. Everyone said, oh, you can't make us compulsory,
Like it's silly to make people wear seatbelts. Nobody wears them.
You're not going to be able to enforce it. Enforcement
will be a big problem. Going to talk about that shortly,
But ultimately they made the laws, and what it did
is it changed the norm, It changed the expectation, and
(03:10):
overwhelmingly people got in line with the law. That's the
critical thing.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So I don't actually know when the seat belt laws
came in, but I have vivid memories of being a
youngster and my mum and dad setting up the boot
of the station wagon lack a bed so me and
my sisters while we traveled. The thought of it today
is absolutely mortifying.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So just on that, I mean, you were born in
the late nineteen seventies. Front seat belts in cars in
Australia nineteen sixty nine compulsory became legal then, and for
seat belts in the back seat nineteen seventy one, so
that was the law in Australia. You're in New Zealander
in nineteen sixty five it became a legal requirement for
all cars to have a front seat belt. It wasn't
until nineteen seventy five that you had to wear them,
(03:56):
and by nineteen seventy nine it was front and back.
Anyone who grew up in that era knows that even
though the legislation was there, there was a lot of
flouting of the laws. A lot of people did not
wear seatbelts even into the nineteen eighties. It took a
while for the legislation to grab hold, but eventually it did.
It reach critical mass and people bought into it. If
(04:16):
South Australia works out a way to legislate, it's not
going to be an overnight success. It's going to take
a while for generations to move through, try new things
and figure out how to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Do you know how they'll do it? Like, how will
they go about this?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So there's a halfl of states over in the US, Utah, Arkansas,
they're both passed laws. I believe that Florida also has
moved in that direction. Overt bans blocking kids under a
certain age from being able to use any social media
at all. And they're basically laws that mandate the platforms
have to use age verification, age gating before they'll allow
access to the platform.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
But isn't that just a question where it says are
you over eighteen, for instance, and you say yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Probably mean we've got a couple of issues here. The
ability for social media platforms to do this well is very,
very limited. We know that from explicit content and how
easy it is for kids who access that A couple
of things to consider when it comes to even the
usefulness of this sort of a law. We're making a
law because there's a belief that mental health problems in
(05:21):
our young people are because of happening due to the
social media title wave that has ripped through the entire
world over the last decade or so. If that is true,
then this is a really good, really important change. If
it's not, then there's not going to be any improvement
in mental health. So that's the first thing. Second thing
I mentioned it already is enforcement. So I think that
(05:42):
we should take a look at them one at a time.
It's a really convoluted scientific issue. Do you remember hearing
the story about how long it took for people to
recognize that smoking causes lun cancer.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So legitimately it took decades. It took absolute decades. There
were people who were screen from the top of their
carcinogenic lungs. Smoking is killing me. Smoking is the reason
that I have lung cancer. But it took decades for
really high quality science to be done and to be
accepted at a point where governments started to say, okay,
we now have enough evidence that we can step in
and say smoking is causing lung cancer. For a long
(06:17):
time earlier, a long time prior to that, people were
saying I was doing it, but they needed the evidence
for it, and evidence takes Science is a slow process,
it's really challenging. Same process. Same principle applies here when
it comes to social media. If you have a look
at Jonathan Hate's book The Anxious Generation, which I said
I'm reading at the moment, most of the studies it
is drawing on to provide this conclusion that social media
(06:40):
is at the heart of our well being woes. Most
of that science is based on underpowered and weak and
poorly designed studies. And most of those studies, if not
all of them, failed to reach what I would consider
to be the appropriate standard to make the claims that
Jonathan Hate is making. Now this is a concern, and
there are people on the other side of the world
(07:02):
like Amy Auben and Andrew Shabulski who's at the Oxford
Internet Institute, Oxford University, who have looked at similar data
and basically said, well, John Hayte and Gene Twangy, who
is one of his collaborators, they're doing their stats wrong.
They're not asking the right questions, They're asking the wrong
questions of the numbers. And Andy Shabolski and Amy Auben
(07:22):
have literally and quite famously said the amount of social
media you consume has the equivalent impact on your well
being as the number of potatoes you eat each week.
I mean, it's a really provocative. It's a very very
provocative thing to say. I've got a different position. My
position is this, and both Andy Shabolski I've spoken with
him for hours at a conference last year, and Gene Twangy,
(07:44):
who I've spoken with on the Happy Families podcast and
in one of our summits, both of them reject my idea.
So I don't know whether this is right or not
because they're pushing back against it. But here's how I'm
seeing it. I'm arguing that social media is not actually
the issue because loads of people use social media and
really healthy and fun ways. I'm looking at you. You've
just discovered Snapchat. You've just discovered Snapchat, and it's taken
(08:07):
over your life and it's brought you so much joy.
But it's also built so many wonderful relationship moments. I mean,
it's just been so funny built. I want one word, filters. Filters.
But you love Marco Polo, and you love Messenger, and
you love Instagram and all those things you use them
in really productive and adaptive ways, healthy ways, usually to
(08:28):
build relationships in really meaningful and important ways. It's enhancing,
elevating connection. It's what social media at its very best
is supposed to do. The issue, of course, is that
some people are totally feral. Some people. I don't know
if I should say that on the podcast, but some
people are feral, Like I'm just saying it. Some people
have addictive personalities. For me, social media is an unhappiness machine.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I've actually been talking to quite a few different people
about the way they use social media. I choose to
literally I don't engage with the comments. Often more times
than not, I don't even comment myself.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I literally follow the people who uplift and bring joy
and light into my life, and I'm interested in their content,
not what everyone else's opinion is around their content. And
it just makes such a difference.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So you're using it differently to me, though, I'm pretty
much on their ea for consumption or to share stuff.
And then I get caught up in conversations with people
who disagree with me because the mob. No matter what
you say on social media, somebody will hate you for it. Yeah,
and I can't help it get pulled into it, and
it is for me this tremendous unhappiness machine, and for kids,
especially kids who are struggling. We've got whistleblowers who have
(09:42):
told us that there are bad actors. There's the intentionality
of the algorithm, which is designed to grab attention and
keep it. There's the privacy issues, the security concerns. Such
a horrible list just goes on and on and on.
I can't use it and feel improved by it. It
interferes with productivity, which is a predicta of well being.
It interface with relations ships both in person and online,
and if it's with sleep, physical activity, long, long, long list. Overall,
(10:06):
in spite of the way that you get the goodness
out of it, it's not in thatt positive on the world.
It's a really really ugly reality for far too many, way, way, way, way,
way too many people. So all of that is to
say research isn't giving us a clear answer yet, but
experience is, and I think that the governments are right
to be finally cracking down even though the science isn't
(10:26):
there yet. I guess time will tell.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So you've acknowledged that the research is limited and quite
weak at this point. But the second issue you acknowledged
was enforcement of it.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
How do you polase it? Yeah, yep. This is my
big question. What's the government going to be able to
do to enforce the law and hold the platforms accountable. See,
you can tell whether somebody is wearing a seatbelt or not.
You can tell whether there's a fifteen year old sitting
in the park and drinking a schooner or a long
neck or not. But at the moment, X formerly known
(10:59):
as TWAS, I don't how much longer we're going to
have to keep on saying forming on Twitter. Everyone knows
that exits for is Twitter, but we still have to
say it. X is completely ignoring the Safety Commissioner on
a handful of things and challenging fines and other things
in court, basically saying that the Australian Government has no
say on what happens on that platform. So the government
is essentially weak. It's quite impotent here. It can't enforce
so many laws that we already have, and if they do,
(11:22):
it's really a lottery on whether or not you get caught.
I don't see enforcement working and kids will get around
it if they want to, which means that it's the
government's got good intentions here, I think, but I'm not
sure that it's workable.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
So, based on everything you're saying, is change even possible?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I don't know. I want it to be. I'm
on the side of those who are saying let's move
the needle here. I'm not begond censorship. I think people
should be able to do and say what they want.
But I also am really big on developmentally appropriate opportunity,
and our kids don't need this. It's not a developmentally
appropriate system or platforms social media generally, it's just not
appropriate for them. Here's what I know. Accountability is good,
(12:00):
Accountability is essential, and what the government wants to do
is good. But today it's absolutely, unquestionably lacking. And primarily
that's because in Australia, where we're quite helpless, the US
Congress holds all the power here. The States, even in
America they're quite limited, but the US Congress, they have power.
Here in Australia, we've got almost no power at all.
What we know historically is that there's been forty Congressional
(12:22):
hearings where tech titans have shown up and answered the
Congress for the way they are or are not implementing
safety measures and things that are supposed to keep our
kids safe online. So far, after forty hearings, there has
not been a single law passed. Because of the fecklessness
of politicians, the mendacity, the incredible dishgnaesty of the CEOs.
In spite of the whistleblowers, In spite of all the
suicides and all the deaths and all the tragedy and
(12:44):
the information that we have about how badly this is going,
something does need to happen. Change is necessary. Legislation will
certainly help over time, but I don't think it's enough,
and I don't think that it's really going to be
what we need in the here and now.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, this is a really cool seque because I think
you're about to start what your hope becomes a bit
of a movement to change.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I am, and this podcast is not about that movement.
Because the movement's coming up, we'll let people know about it,
but this conversation does lean in that direction. So basically,
with my team and with some wonderful, wonderful colleagues from
right around the country, a halful of people who have said, yes,
we're with you on this, we're going to try and
speak to as many primary schools and as many primary
school parents across the country as we can. And we've
(13:26):
got four key messages for an unplugged childhood because I
do believe, just like smoking, that eventually the social media
science will catch up and point in the direction of
harm being caused. So the four messages, the four key
messages for an unpluged childhood. Number one delay just delay delay, delay,
delay delay. Commit absolutely commit to keeping smartphones and social
(13:49):
media out of primary school. I'm not worrying about high school.
In some ways, it's a bit too late, right like
that generation, It's just it's too late. We've got to
start somewhere. I think where we need to start is
with our primary school is. We've got to get it
right there. We can get critical mass in primary school.
I don't think we can do it in high school
right now. But if we can give our kids a
play based childhood because we've delayed and kept smartphones on
(14:10):
social media out of primary school, we're already on track
for a positive future. The second thing is boundaries. So
when your kids get their first smartphone, they're probably going
to agree to pretty much any conditions because they're really, really,
really craving it, so we need to have rules around it.
No phones in bedrooms, no phones in bathrooms, no phones
overnight anywhere near you, tech free zones, tech free times.
(14:33):
We should be allowed to check your phone sporadically because
we're your parents and we care about you. I think also,
kids don't need smartphones, they need smart parents, and smart
parents give their kids dumb phones. That's got to be
the approach. Number three, Build a community. Kids don't want
to be socially isolated, and if they're the one's doing
it on their own, it's not fair to them, which
is why we're in the situation we're in. But if
(14:53):
we can with everyone else in our parent group and
our class group and our WhatsApp group, if we can
build a community right now with other parents who all
wanted to delay giving smartphones to their kids until at
least the age of fourteen, and then we stick together
because it takes a village. It makes it much easier
for the kids, like it's so vital. And last of all,
go slow, just slow it down. Have the conversations with
(15:14):
your kids in primary school about how we don't want them,
we don't want them on these social media platforms. Until
they're at least sixteen. I think that should be our aim,
maybe even older, help them to know that they can
navigate the world without it. Ultimately, we can wait for
the government, but it's really costly and I think as
parents we need to move on this way sooner. So
watch out for that the socials the newsletter. Subscribe if
(15:34):
you haven't subscribed the Happy Families Newsletter. More information coming
up on that soon.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, it sounds like this is going to be something
to look forward to.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Watch this space. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by
Justin Ruhlan for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
If you like more information about the stuff we've talked about,
subscribe to the Happy Famili's newsletter. We'll let you know
all about it as soon as we can. Happy families
dot com dot a
It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the
time poor parent who just once answers Now. Today on
the Happy Families Podcast, Kylie and I are talking about
a topic that has been big news recently. Should we
ban social media for kids?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
South Australian Premier Peter Malmanaskis says a band would help
young people improve their mental health. The excessive use of
social media with and of itself was actually doing harm
to our young people's mental health. And then we're seeing
a dramatic spike in childhood depression, childhood anxiety, and it's
must extreme end fort and evidence of youth suicide. And
(00:41):
I think we're sort of at the point now that
governments have to act.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
A couple of weeks ago on the podcast, we talked
about the fact that the suf Australian government are looking
to make social media illegal for under fourteen year olds.
My question to you, Justin is can I actually do that?
Can I ban it?
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Yeah? So what they want to not only make it
legal for under fourteen's, but even make it so that
you have to have parental permission for fourteen and fifteen
year olds to get hold of social media and a
lot of this momentum is as a result of the
book that I'm currently reading, Jonathan Heights, The Anxious Generation.
Short answer your question, can you ban social media? Yah,
of course you can. We ban all sorts of things.
(01:19):
We ban driving for kids under a certain age, We
ban alcohol for kids under a certain age, We ban
all sorts of illicit substances for people of all ages.
We ban gambling. So it's not a big deal really
to put an age gate or an age restriction on
whatever we want. It's entirely reasonable to do that.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
You talk about putting an age gate on driving, for instance,
or gambling or alcohol and drug use, those to me
seem a little bit easier to mandate because you've actually
got to go to a shop front to do that,
or you're behind a wheels very visual, whereas social media,
(02:01):
to me is something that happens, you know, kind of
can happen anywhere and in the privacy of your own home.
How do you go about banning something like that.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So in the early days, with alcohol, with driving, with
all the things that we're talking about, anybody could do it.
I mean, when cars were first invented, there was no
such thing as having a driver's license, you could put
kids behind the wheel of a car. The genie is
out of the bottle, twothpaste out of the tube. Really
hard to get it back in with something like social
media because it is so pervasive. But even with alcohol,
(02:27):
I mean in the eighteen hundreds and even to the
nineteen hundreds, it was not uncommon at all. In fact,
it was pretty normal practice for kids to be given
alcohol by their parents because it was cleaner and safer
than the water that they were drinking. Often when kids
are going to lie, people even today get around all
the laws that we've just mentioned. But by legislating, what
we do is we save pain and we reduce damage.
(02:49):
That's almost guaranteed. The whole idea here is it's like
seat belt walls. Everyone said, oh, you can't make us compulsory,
Like it's silly to make people wear seatbelts. Nobody wears them.
You're not going to be able to enforce it. Enforcement
will be a big problem. Going to talk about that shortly,
But ultimately they made the laws, and what it did
is it changed the norm, It changed the expectation, and
(03:10):
overwhelmingly people got in line with the law. That's the
critical thing.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
So I don't actually know when the seat belt laws
came in, but I have vivid memories of being a
youngster and my mum and dad setting up the boot
of the station wagon lack a bed so me and
my sisters while we traveled. The thought of it today
is absolutely mortifying.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
So just on that, I mean, you were born in
the late nineteen seventies. Front seat belts in cars in
Australia nineteen sixty nine compulsory became legal then, and for
seat belts in the back seat nineteen seventy one, so
that was the law in Australia. You're in New Zealander
in nineteen sixty five it became a legal requirement for
all cars to have a front seat belt. It wasn't
until nineteen seventy five that you had to wear them,
(03:56):
and by nineteen seventy nine it was front and back.
Anyone who grew up in that era knows that even
though the legislation was there, there was a lot of
flouting of the laws. A lot of people did not
wear seatbelts even into the nineteen eighties. It took a
while for the legislation to grab hold, but eventually it did.
It reach critical mass and people bought into it. If
(04:16):
South Australia works out a way to legislate, it's not
going to be an overnight success. It's going to take
a while for generations to move through, try new things
and figure out how to do it.
Speaker 3 (04:30):
Do you know how they'll do it? Like, how will
they go about this?
Speaker 1 (04:33):
So there's a halfl of states over in the US, Utah, Arkansas,
they're both passed laws. I believe that Florida also has
moved in that direction. Overt bans blocking kids under a
certain age from being able to use any social media
at all. And they're basically laws that mandate the platforms
have to use age verification, age gating before they'll allow
access to the platform.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
But isn't that just a question where it says are
you over eighteen, for instance, and you say yes, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Probably mean we've got a couple of issues here. The
ability for social media platforms to do this well is very,
very limited. We know that from explicit content and how
easy it is for kids who access that A couple
of things to consider when it comes to even the
usefulness of this sort of a law. We're making a
law because there's a belief that mental health problems in
(05:21):
our young people are because of happening due to the
social media title wave that has ripped through the entire
world over the last decade or so. If that is true,
then this is a really good, really important change. If
it's not, then there's not going to be any improvement
in mental health. So that's the first thing. Second thing
I mentioned it already is enforcement. So I think that
(05:42):
we should take a look at them one at a time.
It's a really convoluted scientific issue. Do you remember hearing
the story about how long it took for people to
recognize that smoking causes lun cancer.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
So legitimately it took decades. It took absolute decades. There
were people who were screen from the top of their
carcinogenic lungs. Smoking is killing me. Smoking is the reason
that I have lung cancer. But it took decades for
really high quality science to be done and to be
accepted at a point where governments started to say, okay,
we now have enough evidence that we can step in
and say smoking is causing lung cancer. For a long
(06:17):
time earlier, a long time prior to that, people were
saying I was doing it, but they needed the evidence
for it, and evidence takes Science is a slow process,
it's really challenging. Same process. Same principle applies here when
it comes to social media. If you have a look
at Jonathan Hate's book The Anxious Generation, which I said
I'm reading at the moment, most of the studies it
is drawing on to provide this conclusion that social media
(06:40):
is at the heart of our well being woes. Most
of that science is based on underpowered and weak and
poorly designed studies. And most of those studies, if not
all of them, failed to reach what I would consider
to be the appropriate standard to make the claims that
Jonathan Hate is making. Now this is a concern, and
there are people on the other side of the world
(07:02):
like Amy Auben and Andrew Shabulski who's at the Oxford
Internet Institute, Oxford University, who have looked at similar data
and basically said, well, John Hayte and Gene Twangy, who
is one of his collaborators, they're doing their stats wrong.
They're not asking the right questions, They're asking the wrong
questions of the numbers. And Andy Shabolski and Amy Auben
(07:22):
have literally and quite famously said the amount of social
media you consume has the equivalent impact on your well
being as the number of potatoes you eat each week.
I mean, it's a really provocative. It's a very very
provocative thing to say. I've got a different position. My
position is this, and both Andy Shabolski I've spoken with
him for hours at a conference last year, and Gene Twangy,
(07:44):
who I've spoken with on the Happy Families podcast and
in one of our summits, both of them reject my idea.
So I don't know whether this is right or not
because they're pushing back against it. But here's how I'm
seeing it. I'm arguing that social media is not actually
the issue because loads of people use social media and
really healthy and fun ways. I'm looking at you. You've
just discovered Snapchat. You've just discovered Snapchat, and it's taken
(08:07):
over your life and it's brought you so much joy.
But it's also built so many wonderful relationship moments. I mean,
it's just been so funny built. I want one word, filters. Filters.
But you love Marco Polo, and you love Messenger, and
you love Instagram and all those things you use them
in really productive and adaptive ways, healthy ways, usually to
(08:28):
build relationships in really meaningful and important ways. It's enhancing,
elevating connection. It's what social media at its very best
is supposed to do. The issue, of course, is that
some people are totally feral. Some people. I don't know
if I should say that on the podcast, but some
people are feral, Like I'm just saying it. Some people
have addictive personalities. For me, social media is an unhappiness machine.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
I've actually been talking to quite a few different people
about the way they use social media. I choose to
literally I don't engage with the comments. Often more times
than not, I don't even comment myself.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
I literally follow the people who uplift and bring joy
and light into my life, and I'm interested in their content,
not what everyone else's opinion is around their content. And
it just makes such a difference.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
So you're using it differently to me, though, I'm pretty
much on their ea for consumption or to share stuff.
And then I get caught up in conversations with people
who disagree with me because the mob. No matter what
you say on social media, somebody will hate you for it. Yeah,
and I can't help it get pulled into it, and
it is for me this tremendous unhappiness machine, and for kids,
especially kids who are struggling. We've got whistleblowers who have
(09:42):
told us that there are bad actors. There's the intentionality
of the algorithm, which is designed to grab attention and
keep it. There's the privacy issues, the security concerns. Such
a horrible list just goes on and on and on.
I can't use it and feel improved by it. It
interferes with productivity, which is a predicta of well being.
It interface with relations ships both in person and online,
and if it's with sleep, physical activity, long, long, long list. Overall,
(10:06):
in spite of the way that you get the goodness
out of it, it's not in thatt positive on the world.
It's a really really ugly reality for far too many, way, way, way, way,
way too many people. So all of that is to
say research isn't giving us a clear answer yet, but
experience is, and I think that the governments are right
to be finally cracking down even though the science isn't
(10:26):
there yet. I guess time will tell.
Speaker 3 (10:29):
So you've acknowledged that the research is limited and quite
weak at this point. But the second issue you acknowledged
was enforcement of it.
Speaker 1 (10:38):
How do you polase it? Yeah, yep. This is my
big question. What's the government going to be able to
do to enforce the law and hold the platforms accountable. See,
you can tell whether somebody is wearing a seatbelt or not.
You can tell whether there's a fifteen year old sitting
in the park and drinking a schooner or a long
neck or not. But at the moment, X formerly known
(10:59):
as TWAS, I don't how much longer we're going to
have to keep on saying forming on Twitter. Everyone knows
that exits for is Twitter, but we still have to
say it. X is completely ignoring the Safety Commissioner on
a handful of things and challenging fines and other things
in court, basically saying that the Australian Government has no
say on what happens on that platform. So the government
is essentially weak. It's quite impotent here. It can't enforce
so many laws that we already have, and if they do,
(11:22):
it's really a lottery on whether or not you get caught.
I don't see enforcement working and kids will get around
it if they want to, which means that it's the
government's got good intentions here, I think, but I'm not
sure that it's workable.
Speaker 3 (11:35):
So, based on everything you're saying, is change even possible?
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah, I don't know. I want it to be. I'm
on the side of those who are saying let's move
the needle here. I'm not begond censorship. I think people
should be able to do and say what they want.
But I also am really big on developmentally appropriate opportunity,
and our kids don't need this. It's not a developmentally
appropriate system or platforms social media generally, it's just not
appropriate for them. Here's what I know. Accountability is good,
(12:00):
Accountability is essential, and what the government wants to do
is good. But today it's absolutely, unquestionably lacking. And primarily
that's because in Australia, where we're quite helpless, the US
Congress holds all the power here. The States, even in
America they're quite limited, but the US Congress, they have power.
Here in Australia, we've got almost no power at all.
What we know historically is that there's been forty Congressional
(12:22):
hearings where tech titans have shown up and answered the
Congress for the way they are or are not implementing
safety measures and things that are supposed to keep our
kids safe online. So far, after forty hearings, there has
not been a single law passed. Because of the fecklessness
of politicians, the mendacity, the incredible dishgnaesty of the CEOs.
In spite of the whistleblowers, In spite of all the
suicides and all the deaths and all the tragedy and
(12:44):
the information that we have about how badly this is going,
something does need to happen. Change is necessary. Legislation will
certainly help over time, but I don't think it's enough,
and I don't think that it's really going to be
what we need in the here and now.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Well, this is a really cool seque because I think
you're about to start what your hope becomes a bit
of a movement to change.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
I am, and this podcast is not about that movement.
Because the movement's coming up, we'll let people know about it,
but this conversation does lean in that direction. So basically,
with my team and with some wonderful, wonderful colleagues from
right around the country, a halful of people who have said, yes,
we're with you on this, we're going to try and
speak to as many primary schools and as many primary
school parents across the country as we can. And we've
(13:26):
got four key messages for an unplugged childhood because I
do believe, just like smoking, that eventually the social media
science will catch up and point in the direction of
harm being caused. So the four messages, the four key
messages for an unpluged childhood. Number one delay just delay delay, delay,
delay delay. Commit absolutely commit to keeping smartphones and social
(13:49):
media out of primary school. I'm not worrying about high school.
In some ways, it's a bit too late, right like
that generation, It's just it's too late. We've got to
start somewhere. I think where we need to start is
with our primary school is. We've got to get it
right there. We can get critical mass in primary school.
I don't think we can do it in high school
right now. But if we can give our kids a
play based childhood because we've delayed and kept smartphones on
(14:10):
social media out of primary school, we're already on track
for a positive future. The second thing is boundaries. So
when your kids get their first smartphone, they're probably going
to agree to pretty much any conditions because they're really, really,
really craving it, so we need to have rules around it.
No phones in bedrooms, no phones in bathrooms, no phones
overnight anywhere near you, tech free zones, tech free times.
(14:33):
We should be allowed to check your phone sporadically because
we're your parents and we care about you. I think also,
kids don't need smartphones, they need smart parents, and smart
parents give their kids dumb phones. That's got to be
the approach. Number three, Build a community. Kids don't want
to be socially isolated, and if they're the one's doing
it on their own, it's not fair to them, which
is why we're in the situation we're in. But if
(14:53):
we can with everyone else in our parent group and
our class group and our WhatsApp group, if we can
build a community right now with other parents who all
wanted to delay giving smartphones to their kids until at
least the age of fourteen, and then we stick together
because it takes a village. It makes it much easier
for the kids, like it's so vital. And last of all,
go slow, just slow it down. Have the conversations with
(15:14):
your kids in primary school about how we don't want them,
we don't want them on these social media platforms. Until
they're at least sixteen. I think that should be our aim,
maybe even older, help them to know that they can
navigate the world without it. Ultimately, we can wait for
the government, but it's really costly and I think as
parents we need to move on this way sooner. So
watch out for that the socials the newsletter. Subscribe if
(15:34):
you haven't subscribed the Happy Families Newsletter. More information coming
up on that soon.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Well, it sounds like this is going to be something
to look forward to.
Speaker 1 (15:42):
Watch this space. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by
Justin Ruhlan for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.
If you like more information about the stuff we've talked about,
subscribe to the Happy Famili's newsletter. We'll let you know
all about it as soon as we can. Happy families
dot com dot a
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