Momentum is growing behind a push for Australia to become one of the first countries to legislate age restrictions on social media use. At a summit in Sydney, politicians, academics, educators and teen users, have been discussing... face-to-face... the impacts of the modern digital space.
"I wish I didn't have it as early as I did and if I could get rid of it, I feel like if I got rid of it, it would be hard, but if everyone didn't have it. I think it'd be easier.""Growing up with social media, I think it's changed a lot of me and my friends' opinions. And I think if the ban was to go through, I think it'd be very hard to deal without social media.
South Australia's Premier, Peter Malinauskas, says the evidence about social media's harms to young people is clear. "From my personal experience, people my age, I'm 17, people my age are actually in support of it. Everyone I've talked to is quite a big fan of the ban. People younger, so you're looking at people under 14, it becomes a bit more controversial. Those are the people who would be impacted by a ban, but people who have gone off the back growing up with social media, they realise that a ban would've been beneficial to them growing up.
She says there is plenty of global data linking social media use with increases in depression and loneliness, anxiety, self-harm and suicide - particularly among girls and young women."I think most of the data points in the direction of 16 or older being the age minimum for social media. So the links between social media use and depression are stronger among those ages 15 and younger. In most of the data that we have. 17 and 18 year olds, the links are not quite as strong.
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