Recently, the Australian parliament passed a bill that will ban teens under sixteen from using various social media platforms. The government plans to start enforcing this bill roughly a year from now by imposing fines on specific social media companies which refuse to enforce the law. The bill has been met with mixed reactions from different people. Some say that it serves as a key step in protecting the well-being of young people, and others say that it will end up doing more harm than good.
Despite the controversy, however, there is no arguing that the bill serves as a major change for both tech companies and the teens themselves. According to CNN, the ban will extend to even the largest social media platforms, such as Instagram, Snapchat and Tiktok. Companies such as these may be faced with a fine of around thirty-two million U.S dollars for not enforcing the ban. As a result, many will have to turn to methods which will help them verify the ages of online users. TechCrunch says that such “age assurance technologies” come in many different styles. Some methods include having a user provide information such as a bank account or a mortgage, which can be used by the app to estimate the user’s age. Additionally, a user can provide an ID confirming their age. Australia will eventually begin testing these technologies. TechCrunch also mentions that the Age Check Certification Scheme, an organization specializing in age assurance, has even been employed to oversee these tests. Its CEO predicts that the industry for this technology will grow over time.
The main concern regarding the situation, however, is kids’ mental health. According to The Hill, there are numerous people who are against the bill, arguing that some children rely on social media to find mental health support. Still, it has been known that social media use can have negative effects on mental health, too, and that an excessive exposure to technology can be detrimental. According to John Hopkins Medicine, kids who often use social media are more likely to have depression and problems with sleep. According to WMC Psychology teacher Mrs. Feltmann, young teens’ brains are often still developing, and, as a result, they may not know how to properly process information received online. According to her, “If you look at brain development, you can see there’s a lot of research that shows that the frontal lobes and the prefrontal cortex are not fully formed until really the mid-20s for many people…Its under heavy construction, so to speak, during the teenage years.” Because childrens’ brains are not yet fully developed, she says, it is wise to prevent them from using social media until they grow older and are more suited to safely and properly engage with these online platforms.
So, considering both the benefits and the drawbacks associated with social media use during the formative years, the most pressing question asks whether the ban will have positive or negative effects on teens’ mental health.
Mrs. Donnelly, a school counselor at WMC, shared her opinion regarding this question:
“I think in the long run, yes, its going to have positive effects. I can imagine it can be challenging for people who are maybe fourteen or fifteen right now who are using it that are gonna now be kicked off of it…I think its so hard when you’re coming of age and all you’re bombarded with is people posting the very best aspects of their life which is essentially what all of those platforms do,” she explains.
Mrs. Hennessy, another counselor at WMC, believes that “Its so hard to be a teenager to begin with, and then to just have all these different posts and images and expectations in your face all the time as a young adult growing up, I think could be really detrimental to one’s mental health…I think, overall, [the effects would] be positive.”
In total, the passing of this law certainly represents a big change for Australia, and it will definitely be interesting to find out how tech companies, parents, and teens deal with this new bill in the future.
