A historic moment was recently recorded in Australia’s House of Representatives where a bill aiming at trying to prevent young persons below the age of 16 from accessing social media accounts was passed. This bill, which has elicited controversy and discourses, has been made in an effort to respond to emerging criticism that has been placed on social media particularly its effects on the youth. The bill which was supported by 102 votes with only 13 opposing, is now awaiting the nod from the senate before becoming law.
The Rationale behind the Bill
The main reason behind this legislation has arisen from the emerging damages social media has had on the young generation’s health. Other negative effects of Social Media include anxiety, stress, depression, cyber-bullying, mostly resulting from the over use of Smart devices. However such risks are avoided by the government since it is now closing all these platforms to reduce the prevalence of fake news and create a safer cyberspace for young Australians.
Key Provisions of the Bill
- Age Verification: The bill also requires social media website to incorporate measures on how it will prevent those under the age of sixteen to register. This may involve the use of fingerprints, facial recognition or other I.D evidence though the platforms are barred from forcing users into providing high sensitive identification information.
- Penalties for Non-Compliance: Failure to observe the age-verification guidelines has been preceded by severe penalty charges of up to AUD 50 million or its equivalent of $33 million. This section provides insurance and a way of making sure that the platforms complied with the new regulations strictly.
- Implementation Timeline: The bill does allow social media sites one year to come up with the necessary mechanisms of ensuring that only persons of a required age access the restricted content. This timeline is in a way to ensure the company gets adequate time to make changes without affecting their operations greatly.
Support and Criticism
The bill has been lauded by parents, educators and child welfare organizations due to the recognition accorded them. Its supporters insist social media is toxic to kids and cannot be controlled, and hence the only solution is legislation. They think that by limiting the time, children will practice healthier behaviors and improve their interpersonal communications.
But the bill has also received criticism from different people as well as organizations. The legislation’s opponents said it is oppressive and may lead to negative effects. In this way, they argue that exclusion of children from social media could lead to their isolation from peers and deny them all the perceived benefits of social media use, including, interesting content and support groups. There are also fears on the violation of privacy by personal age-verification systems and the shifting of children to unknown unmonitored corners of the dark internet.
The Way Forward
With the bill going to the Senate for consideration, opponents and proponents of the bill will probably come out more vociferous in the course of articulating the gains or losses that will come with the bill. Parliaments will eventually have to assess the effects of the legislation to be wrapped up and respond to criticism from opponents. Further changes to enhance privacy and guarantee the effectiveness as well as the safety of operating an age-verification system may be required to achieve increased support.
What Social Media is doing to Today’s Youths, Particularly the Children
Currently, the worldwide trends are social networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, snapchat and even TikTok are in fashion. However these platforms have advantages such as connectivity and information access their impact to today’s younger generation, especially the children, is raising more and more concern.
Mental Health Issues
- Anxiety and Depression: young people who spend long hours on social media develop anxiety and depression. It is sad that the constant stream of curated and for the most part unattainable images makes people sew low self-esteem. The need to constantly rely on the facade one creates on their social network feeds such unhealthy thoughts resulting in mental health complications.
- Cyber-bullying: Social media may sometimes be overrun with harmful content, such as threats, harassment, or assaults that degrade youngsters who are subjected to cyber-bullying. Another feature of using the internet as a means of bullying is that a victim cannot escape this kind of aggression as easily as in the case of more familiar forms of bullying. This makes it worse and difficult to solve since most bullies are encouraged by the fact that they are behind a mask on the social media interfaces they use.
Impact on physical health
- Sleep Deprivation: Due to the large amounts of time taken in using sites such as Facebook and twitter, one can spend most of their time in front of a computer screen or telephone leading to lack of sleep. Children and teenagers are most probably to spend several hours at night browsing feeds, texting friends or letting their eyes strain at the screens which leads to sleeplessness. They lose adequate sleep and the consequences are worst for their health, for their performance at school or college or university and for overall welfare.
- Sedentary Lifestyle: Sedentary behaviour may be related to time spent on social media platform in that because children spend so much time on social media platform, they spend little or no-time exercising or playing outside. Failure to exercise results to complications like obesity, poor posture and general reduced physical fitness. The long term consequences of a sedentary lifestyle remain a major concern because they lay the platform for future disorder.
Social and Emotional Development
- Impaired Social Skills: Social networking allows people to interact without visiting each other physically, but it reduces physical interaction and deprives people of important interaction experiences. Kids that spend a lot of time on the internet will face challenges relating with people in the real world, this result in feelings of loneliness with social isolation.
- Emotional Distress: Youngsters are also at risk of coming across undesirable things and copying peer groups, which leads to stress. Seemingly endless competitiveness and the desire to receive likes and comments become tiresome in terms of emotions. Such a compulsive demand for appreciation may destabilize the child’s self-esteem and emotional state.
Unwanted or Harmful Material
- Age-Inappropriate Material: Interestingly, children can easily open violating material on social media regardless of the age limitations that are put in place against violent, sexual or explicit content. Its effects also are wrong in terms of their psychological development; it would make them desensitized to violence, or have sick attitudes towards relationships and sexuality.
- Privacy and Security Risks: there is very little appreciation of threats to privacy and security as exhibited in social networking. This openness may expose them to very serious risks; they may reveal personal details or interact with strangers without seeing the risks involved. In dire consequences, users young and old are at risks of being conned online, become victims of identity theft or even being kidnapped.
Academic Performance
- Distraction and Reduced Concentration: Social media is said to have taken the place of television as children who spend a lot of time browsing social networks will spend less time studying and therefore produce less. Notifications as well as the feeling of having to check or update frequently interferes with homework, study time, and grades.
- Information Overload: The volume of information shared in the social networks cause overload; it becomes greatly challenging for young learners to capture and often act on important aspects. This may in one way or the other impact their learning ability by distracting them from their academic work.
Should India need a similar policy to ban young children from social media?
Based on the observation that digital technology occupies a central place in society, different countries are concerned with the effects of social sites on young thinking and are thus contemplating on strict measures. Australia’s decision to block youngsters under 16 years from social networks has raised the concern as to the need for the effectiveness of such a measure. This raises a pertinent question: Has India required a similar policy to safeguard the younger generation from the various unfavourable impacts of social media?
The Current Scenario in India
India being largest Democratic country in the world has a large population and hence it has huge no. of social media users globally. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp now have over 10 million young users. Even though such applications provide social connections, entertainment, and educational materials, the harm which such platforms present is extremely high, more so to young users.
Possible Hazards for Juveniles
- Communication through social media has been well associated with several other complications to the overall health of individuals including anxiety, depression and; low self-esteem. Inadequate images, fashion, and lifestyles constantly presented by social media apps may cause low self-esteem, psychological comparison, the reduction of users’ psychological well-being.
- Bullying through the internet and especially through social networks is very common and children and teenagers can become victims of harassments and threats, insults and humiliation. Hence, social media as they are anonymous and have a large coverage they will worsen the effects of bullying as compared to face to face bullying.
- Specifically, young users have poor awareness concerning their privacy and security online. Especially they may compromise their identity and share personal details making them a target for paedophiles, identity theft, and other forms of cybercrime.
- Nonetheless, children are always exposed to age restricted materials containing violence, pornography, and hatred ideologies and elements. This exposure can influence their psychological growth and influence what perception and behaviour they take negatively.
- This has been established in the fact that use of social media platform is addictive in that people spend most of their time browsing through their social media walls rather than focusing on their books and other constructive activities. The stimuli and the need to be connected may negatively affect the performance and development of the students.
Arguments In favour of Ban
- Government must ban children below the age of 18 years from using social media since doing that will help to reduce cases of mental health issues. Reducing kids to such content and comparison, the children may be protected from wrong role-modelling that can lead to low self-esteem and undergo mental improvements.
- A ban with young users can reduce the likelihood of cyber bullying. Given the facts that fewer young Internet users post to these or similar platforms, the prospects for bullying or harassment are limited, which ensures the safety of the Internet space.
- Such measures may prevent children from transferring personal data in the Internet space. It is possible to consider that proper age-verification systems will allow keeping only the people of proper ages and protect young users from possible threats.
- Reduced time spent on social media means that children will spend more time outdoors playing, practicing hobbies or doing homework . It may in turn help promote their motor and cognitive growth.
Challenges and Considerations
While the benefits of such a policy are evident, there are also challenges and considerations that need to be addressed:
- Implementation and Enforcement: There is always a problem in the actualization of age-verification mechanisms which must be properly implemented and enforced. Monitoring and control over social media are also vital; and the matter of stopping children from going around parental controls must have an effective technological solution.
- Balancing Digital Literacy: Setting restrictions on young users’ social media profiles prevents children from accessing informational and basic skills in the digital environment. It is important to strike a balance between protecting children and ensuring they are equipped to navigate the digital world responsibly.
- Alternative Engagement: It is important to pre-offer other avenues and activities children can healthy participate in. Education and information, safe online usage lessons and encouraging the use of technology in a correct manner assists children.