Patrick Usmar: AUT Communications Professor on Australia's social media ban

Australia's pioneering social media ban is casting ripples around the world.  

The new law sets a mandatory age limit of 16 or older for accounts on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube.

Now countries like Malaysia and Denmark are following the Australian lead with similar approaches. 

AUT communications studies professor Patrick Usmar told Andrew Dickens enforcement will be difficult, but it should limit exposure to the thousands of ads kids had been seeing every week.  

He says parents now won't need to persuade their kids to get off it, and teachers won't need to monitor it as much, because they can just say it's the law now. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, they're all notice. If they don't clear
out the kids, they're looking at fines of fifty million dollars.
Aut Communication Studies academic Patrick Ozma joins me. Now, Hali, Patrick,
Hi there, how are you? How would this? How do
you think this is going down? Because I've played some
kids and I just played elbow talking about the whole thing,
and the whole thing feels like, ah, yes, kids, you're
misbehaving and just go out there and have a run.

(00:22):
And I feel, you know, it's not going to be
popular amongst a whole generation.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
It's not that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so to
you imagine that most young people are very much into
social media, many of them, dare I say, we throw
this word around easily addicted, but my research actually tells
us that some of them might be quietly welcoming it.
I did some research last year with some high school students,

(00:51):
and you know, one of the things they are is
actually terrified of making the first move when it comes
to real life. They actually do want to socialize. The
prevalence of social media has potentially eroded those skills. And
no one's saying that all social media use is harmful.
And the way I try to divine it up is
we consume social media, we create social media, we connect,

(01:14):
and we act on what we see and most harmful
part is the most popular. So the passive scrolling, the
consuming social media has very well documented harms. I don't
think it's really.

Speaker 1 (01:27):
I agree, but Patrick, we all live in the world,
and I totally agree. And I would actually have to say,
if you're worried about scrolling, you should actually stop the
old people doing it as well, because I've just seen
so many old people who are going, look at this, Barbara,
it's like a television station. He look as Jimmy Kerr. Look,
Jimmy Kerrer is talking on there's an oh love. That's
an amazing picture of something blowing up and not well.
And you look at old people and they're scrolling as well.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, that's the good you know, that's the good role modeling. Right,
If you're going to be a parent that tells your
kid to get off social media, then you need to
do the same thing, not for getting thirteen to fifteen
year olds have very different, not as advanced cognitive skills,
and if we can change law, it might mean that
the culture kind of follows because sometimes you know, changing

(02:09):
the law and lock of cultural change, the Marriage Amendment Act,
you know, and this is also don't forget, this isn't
a ban, This is a delay always saying it's people
under a certain age. So we're not saying young people
can never ever use social media. It's a bit like
alcohol or tobacco or drive.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
How yeah, I get this, I get this. How how
how compliant and how behind it other organizations that that
actually provide the platforms, because I know that they've been
slowly sort of briefing everybody. You know, this is going
to happen from this day and if you're under sixteen,
you're going to have to stop watching the old TikTok.
So are they behind this or are they going to

(02:49):
try and look for loopholes and look, you.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Know, yeah, enforcement is going to be really really difficult.
Imagine that the amount of advertising revenue that they're about
to lose. So they're already releasing things like jupe apps.
There will be ways that young people get around it.
You can get VPNs fake accounts. But it's going to
help both teachers, parents and other people to kind of

(03:13):
combat the and if you heard of the idea of
the broccoli argument. So if you're a parent, you might
tell your you might tell your kids how many times
a week to eat their broccoli. You might get to
say that three or four times a day. But social
media can expose young people to advertising messages thousands of
times a week. So rather than it being a persuasing
game persuading my young person to do something, or teachers

(03:36):
having to monitor it, they can just say, look, this
is actually the law now, so it makes easier. But no,
of course, the social media platforms are very invested in
not losing this audience. They'll try and find ways around it.
But it is a line in the sand, and you know,
there's never going to be a silver bullet, right, We're
never going to solve these problems overnight. It's a really subtle,
nuanced problem.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Patrick, communications studies from academic. You're quite good at talking.
And so we're now late, and I thank you so
much for your time today.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
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