Perspective with Heather du Plessis-Allan: Here's a solution to handling kids and social media

About this debate in Australia on banning social media for kids - I have just come across an article that makes the best comparison yet for how we should deal with this issue.

Treat it like sex.

This article is by an academic in Australia and she argues that the best way to protect kids from social media is by teaching them its dangers, like we do with sex.

I think we know now that banning sex for teens doesn't work, celibacy all the way through to marriage doesn’t work - and the best way to deal with it is with sex education.

We teach kids how the whole thing works, we teach them how to be safe, and most kids actually do end up fine. That, she says, is how we should treat social media.

Teach the kids how it works, teach them about the algorithms that push information at you, teach them that if you click something you’ll get more of the same, teach them how the perfect model lying by the pool with her perfect boyfriend on the perfect holiday is just a photo and it's not real.

And teach them how to be safe, teach them not to look at certain things, show them how to talk about what they see if it upsets them and so on.

But with sex - we do ban it as well. We say kids under sixteen cannot legally have sex, we put these guardrails up, and I think we should do that with social media too, if only as a guardrail.

For kids under a certain age, ban it. No social media.

But ban it knowing the ban is just a guardrail - it's not going to work. Most kids are going to flout it because if it doesn't work for sex, it won't work for social media. But educate them as well, that is the most important part.

If we think about it like that - kids will do this thing you don't want them to do, if you ban them from doing it, they'll do it anyway. Then you understand the best thing you can do as a parent and an educator is teach the kids how to do it safely.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Listen to this debate over in Australia about banning the
social media for kids. I've been thinking about it a lot.
I'm sure many parents have actually about what the best
way to deal with the social media is, whether you
ban it or do something else. And today I came
across an article that I think makes the best comparison
yet for how we should treat social media for kids,
and that is treat it like sex. Now, this particular article,

(00:22):
and I'll explain, but this particular article is by an
academic in Australia. What she argues is that the best
way to protect kids from social media is by teaching
them it's dangers, kind of like we do with sex.
Because I think we now know that banning sex for
teens doesn't work, right, Celibacy all the way through marriage
is just as a looney idea doesn't work. The best
way to deal with it is the way that we

(00:42):
do deal with it at the moment, which is sex education.
We teach kids how the whole thing works, We teach
them how to be safe, and most kids actually do
end up being completely fine. And that, she says, is
how we should treat social media. Teach the kids how
it works. Teach them about the alghai rhythm that will
push information at you. Teach them if they click something,

(01:02):
you'll get more of the same thing. Teach them how
the perfect model lined by the pool with her perfect
boyfriend on the perfect holiday is just a photo. It's
not real. And then teach them how to be safe
when they're using it, how to not look at certain things,
how to talk about the things that they see that
upset them, and so on and so on. Right, but
here's the next step with it. With sex, we do

(01:23):
ban it as well, don't we. We say kids under
sixteen cannot legally have sex. We put these guardrails in.
I think to take this comparison further, I think that
we should do that with social media too, if only
as a guardrail kids under whatever age. We decide no
social media, same as we decide no sex allowed to
happen legally, as I say, ban it. Knowing the ban

(01:46):
is just a guardrail. It's not gonna work for most kids.
They are going to flout it. But just like because
it doesn't work with sex, it's not going to work
with social media. But then we educate them as well,
and that is the most important part. If we think
about it like that kids are going to do this
thing that you don't want them to do, and that
you're banning them from doing it, they're going to do
it anyway, then you understand the best thing that you
can do as a parent, and as an educator and

(02:07):
as a country is teacher kids how to do it safely.
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