We all know how children today spend much of their time connected to social media sites like Facebook and Instagram. In response to rising concerns, the Australian government is planning to implement a minimum age limit for youngsters on social media, potentially as high as 16 years old.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese made the statement, stating the goal is to get kids off their devices and “onto the footy fields”.
What is this age restriction?
Federal legislation to implement this age restriction will be submitted later this year. While the actual age restriction hasn’t been confirmed yet, it is expected to be set between 14 and 16 years old, with Albanese leaning towards the higher range. “I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields and the swimming pools and the tennis courts,” he told national broadcaster ABC (via South China Morning Post. He also stressed the need to enable students to have “real experiences with real people.”
Concerning social media’s detrimental effects on youth, Albanese referred to it as a “scourge” that contributes to mental health problems. “We know that there are mental health consequences for what many young people have had to deal with,” he continued.
Peter Dutton, the head of Australia’s conservative opposition, backed the government’s proposal by emphasizing the dangers social media presents to kids. Experts disagree about how enforceable these limitations will be, though. The University of Melbourne’s associate professor Toby Murray noted that the present age verification techniques are “unreliable” and may jeopardize user privacy.
Some are concerned about the wider ramifications of this prohibition. Digital media scholar Daniel Angus cautioned that denying young people access to social media could keep them from using healthy online communities. Sociologist Samantha Schulz emphasized that the true problem is with social media companies themselves because they don’t own up to the content they host.
In the interim, during the next few months, age verification system experiments will take place.
