Australia Pulls the Plug: The Kids’ Social Media Ban America Wishes It Had

LISTEN and SUBSCRIBE on:

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/watchdog-on-wall-street-with-chris-markowski/id570687608 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2PtgPvJvqc2gkpGIkNMR5i 

WATCH and SUBSCRIBE on:

https://www.youtube.com/@WatchdogOnWallstreet/featured  

Australia just took a sledgehammer to Big Tech, moving to deactivate more than a million under-16 social media accounts—and honestly, it’s hard to argue with the logic. From skyrocketing ADHD diagnoses to nonstop AI-generated brain rot, the research is catching up to what common sense told us years ago: social media is melting young minds. This commentary revisits early warnings, cultural red flags, and the Ghostbusters 2 “negative slime” prediction that turned out to be dead-on. Then we ask the big question: Would the world be better if every social platform vanished tomorrow?

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it will have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Australia bands social media for kids. Yeah. More than one
million social media accounts held by users under sixteen years
old are set to be deactivated. Yeah, I love it.
I do. I think it's fantastic. Here's the story. Okay,

(00:42):
social media is absolutely nuking children's brains. Uh huh. A
barrage of AI generated brain rod is haunting children across
numerous screens, from personal smartphones to school issued laptops to televisions.
Social is adding significantly to that cacophony, making it harder

(01:03):
than ever for kids to concentrate. Now. A research from
M Carolyn Institutent Sweden and Orgon Health and Science University
has found a significant link between screen time and diagnosis
of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, suggesting that exposing young brains
to social media could have major mental health implications. Whatever.

(01:27):
I didn't need to study to tell me that this
was harmful. I saw this in its infancy, and I
saw what would happen. We told you. We called it
here on this show. We called it here on this show.
It was my Ghostbusters two, Ghostbusters to breaking down social media.

(01:51):
And in Ghostbusters two wasn't a very good movie, wasn't.
There was a pink slime that oozed in the sewers
underneath Manhattan, and the pink slime was like negative energy,
and anybody got near it, it would make everybody argue.
And I remember talking about this. Yeesh. Had to be

(02:12):
two thousand and six, two thousand and seven when all
this stuff was really starting to kick into gear, and
I said, watch out. I said, this is this is
going to turn into a mess. And I remember watching
and I was sitting there. I was guest hosting the
Daily Buzz CW Network morning show back in the day,

(02:34):
and this is when Twitter first came out, and I
remember Justin Timberlake and Austin Kuchner, Austin Kuchner getting, you know,
having a contest who could get more Twitter followers? And
then I was right around that period of time too,
not long after. One of our friends' kids was older,

(02:54):
was in middle school or high school at the time.
Was all upset by the amount of Twitter hours that
she didn't have. And again, I'm watching. I said, this
is a disaster. This is a disaster. I wonder if
we're gonna play a game of imagine right now? How much
better would the world be today? How much better would

(03:16):
the world be today if we woke up tomorrow and
there were no social media companies? Yep, let's let's say,
you know, fight club Tyler Durden. Tyler Durden blows up
all of the social media companies. Imagine Imagine going to

(03:36):
the gym and not having people with their phones taking videos,
creating content of their workouts, and people take it selling
pictures of themselves and posting craft and people out at
restaurants taking pictures of the food. And I can go
on and on and on. Tell me the world wouldn't

(03:56):
be a better place. Come on, I dare you oyay?
Telling me how that went? No better? Yet? Throwing it
out there to our listening audience, How has social media
made the world a better place? I'm waiting, watchdog on

(04:17):
Wall Street dot Com