Do you think there is an age where we can worry any less about online harm?

[Bartg]

Watching the Brianna ghey documentary is just horrifying. Do you think after a certain age, this stuff is less of a risk? Do you think there is an age at which young people will be less likely to be influenced or follow the harmful content?

a lot of talk is about restricting social media use til eg 16. But is this even enough? I know it would be better than what we have now.

Also surely this content is just so awful it has no place in society at all. I feel like it will be a worry for me as a parent for many years. Even after 18 when I will have no control over what they can access

No i dont think there is but you hope that your young adult DC’s have developed/learnt enough to be able to sift information and have been brought up with a strong moral compass that helps them stick to their core views and morals.

Saying all that, with young adult DS’s ( and an exH with ‘different’ views) I always listen to them, worry about ‘Andrew Tate’ type influence and challenge their comments/thinking as appropriate.

For me, at least at 16 onwards teenagers have a little more ability to cope with seeing certain types of hardcore porn that are widely available online. I’d rather that it wasn’t so widely available at all, but there’s IMO a big difference between an 11 or 12 year old seeing violent porn of women being choked, spat on and so on during sex; and a 16 or 17 year old seeing it. The latter isn’t great either, obviously; but I think the damage done to the psyche of children and young teenagers - boys and girls - by hardcore porn is incalculable.

I’ve bern sent autoplay porn videos by bots on sites like Tumblr and Discord and so on, where you see the video play even before you can turn it off. A couple of times the images made me physically want to vomit — even as a (not particularly shockable) 45 year old grown woman. The idea of my young daughter seeing something like that makes me feel pure desolation.

Not really, although the older the better. I watched a documentary about a young man who was radicalised online and it only took a few weeks before he was completely sucked in.

Those with mental health issues are particularly vulnerable; pro anorexia and self harm is rife online.

There was one teenager who killed herself after seeing thousands of pro suicide posts.

I think it depends which of the many harms you’re talking about.

My argument for keeping smartphones away from teens until 16 is because of the bullying, grooming, body image and porn issues - you are less impressionable and vulnerable at 16 than at 12. You are also better able to judge what not to post online.

I don’t agree that you need to start them young to ‘teach them healthy habits’ because a person of any age is vulnerable to smart phone overuse/addiction. I don’t think having a smartphone at 12 makes that any better.

This is awful. I must admit. I haven’t stumbled on anything myself. I am only really on Facebook. I have no idea which platforms are safer than others

A boy turning young man, having the idea he is with it , knows what is right and wrong. If he choses to watch evil things that is on him.

If only this stuff wasn’t so accessible though. It’s so easy to find and algorithms to push

Esther Ghey on radio today campaigning for schools to ban mobile phones. Looks like her child was actually excluded several times and had, I think this was just about Brianna?- had 100+ safeguarding inquiries BC they were compulsively looking at phone under the desk and filming TikTok videos in the toilets to upload