Today’s Social Media Ban Announcement: Discussion

[ByeByeTikTok]

I haven’t seen a thread for today’s expected ban on social media for Under 16s so thought I’d start one. If there already is one pls link and I’ll get this deleted.

What will it likely include?
What won’t it include?
How do you and your kids feel about it, especially if they’re already using it?
Will you follow it, and when?
Will people try to get round it?

I agree. The ban won't solve any of the issues parents seem to think it will. There are plenty of ways to get around it and parents who think it is the solution are being blissfully ignorant in assuming that it will stop their teen accessing social media.

Yes, same here. I have a 9 year old and so happy about this. My 12 year old niece has had a phone since she was 9. Every meet up and she is glued to the thing. She doesn't interact with anyone and my dd who is only 3 years younger feels sad that her cousin doesnt play or even talk to her. I worry about what she is accessing as there seems to be little parent restrictions. Yes my dd has a kids tablet but she mostly enjoys playing still and rarely uses it.

I have DC 15&13 interested to see how this will be brought in. They have recently had changes to phones in schools. Have to put them in lockers. Which has gone down well overall. D's got phones at 11 both fairly locked down and heavy restrictions on use and time. They both still have restrictions on phone use at home. I also say no to lots of apps, Dd2 has asked many times and been refused Snapchat, Instagram, Tick-tock and Pinterest among others.

Dd1 has Snapchat since earlier this year. She is generally good with her phone and does put it down after a while, unless she's watching YouTube shorts. I still check both dcs phones and have Google family link on them.

Dd2 just WhatsApp, Saturday evening she was on a call playing a game with a few friends from school. They don't tend to meet up outside of school so it will be a shame if she isn't able to do that going forward. She finds it far more difficult to put down and will instantly try and replace it with a different 'screen' eg Nintendo switch/laptop for homework or 'revision' (pissing about on BBC bitesize playing games) or watching anime.

I've noticed a few people say their DC don't have social media but then say the do have Snapchat or WhatsApp both of these are social media. I prefer WhatsApp to Snapchat as while messages can be deleted it's not instant like on Snapchat.

Are you sure? It doesn’t work immediately or 100% but…

• Hardly anyone smokes any more since cigarettes are banned in public places
• Kids do now wear seatbelts since they became mandatory
• Teachers having relationships with students is illegal and a safeguarding issue, and those with former students over the age of consent has been outlawed in workplaces and is taboo in a way it wasn’t when I was at school

Other things affected by legislation are more leaky but are reduced in prevalence. With Netflix etc it is very easy for children to watch 18+ movies but they tend not to.

Putting a marker down legally nudges behaviour. It gives parents and teachers the tools they need to move the dial. My young teen isn’t allowed social media apart from WhatsApp, and even the debate on changing the law has made my life easier in that decision and dampened down the protests. It has also helped her, as it’s easier to say her mum won’t let her have it if it’s mainstream for people to think it’s dangerous.

I agree that the interesting part of today will be hearing what they deem to be social media, and what they deem to be harmful social media.

I don’t think the objective is to stop all access to SM I think it’s to reduce the harms. So I’m interested in how this can be done as I do think it’s the right approach rather than a total ban.

Great post.

Chocolate ration is up.

Double plus good.

As if this isn’t their actual motive in the first place!

I’m thrilled about it. I know it’s not going to solve all the issues, and some kids will find a way round, but as others have said, hopefully it’ll become stigmatised like underage drinking and smoking. Those things being illegal doesn’t completely stop people, of course it doesn’t, but it does mean that they become socially unacceptable.

We have two kids, DD who’s 16, and a very sensible diligent girl, who still spends way too much time on snap and TikTok. This was despite her not getting it until she was 14, and us being pretty strict on timings etc. DS who is 13 and who’s never been allowed to have SM access and now has a brick phone, still manages to find a way around it, using his laptop or even his Dad’s phone!?! He sneaks about, and lies just to get onto SM, whereas in every other aspect of his life he’s not really any bother. It is a constant battle and we are at our wits end with him. So I’m glad they’re banning it, as hopefully the sensible parents will get their younger kids off it, and that will reduce the temptation. It’s addictive and designed to be so. If many of us as adults can’t manage our own screen time, how on earth can we expect our kids to?

It is not to reduce harms. It is to get a your ID linked to your social media.

“Today I can announce that the government will ban access to social media for all children under the age of 16”.

Mine don't use the social media features of ss or WA. Not allowed.

I'd be happy to see the new law but I'm also aware it opens up a huge gap in the market for a new platform that just skirts around the rules. Tech companies aren't stupid and where there's money to be made, they'll find a way.

A ban is great, but it's the parents who created the problem and it's only them who can fix it.

Just listening to the announcement now. Wow, huge. SM has definitely caused issues for my DC at times, in different ways. Returning to this discussion after work, looking forward to it.

Completely agree.

I say good luck to them especially since they are talking about banning YouTube for under 16s.

They don't have much of a clue about practical stuff.

It is still going to be down to parents. But as long as middle class parents now have the thing that they can say "well the government says you can't" because they are too wet to parent and say no without the backing of the government, it's all great 🙄

It's almost as if parents need the grown up to say no first so they don't have to deal with peer pressure as if peer pressure goes away like that.

That is shocking at 8 years old

Great decision. I hope it doesn't take ages to come in.

This is a bad move.

Governments banning access to media is a big infringement on liberty. The evidence for it need to be really strong, other measures unavailable, and the policy applied neutrally.

The evidence is in fact weak (see link), and we’ve not had time to learn from the Australian ban. The reported list of banned sites seems fairly arbitrary: X but not BlueSky, for example, US sites but no Chinese ones. Likely effect: driving activity onto channels that are much harder to monitor.

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-comments-on-evidence-on-benefits-and-harms-of-social-media-and-social-media-bans-on-young-people/

“The government has announced today that it will target people too young to vote instead of cracking down on the real causes of the problems, as that’s likely to be less popular and too much like hard work.”

This is my point. They are still social media apps, their friends posting pictures to them in feeds or as messages is literally what social media is. You may feel they don't use the features but by having the apps they definitely are using social media.

My dc have restricted access but I'm aware what I am allowing them to use is social media and I have decided that I am happy with them using it how it's used currently. Dd1 only got Snapchat when she was 15.

What do you think are the real causes of the problems (genuinely interested) and do you think that SM is good (ie not bad) for them?

Children should be seen and not heard.

Hmmm so the speech didn’t include anything on HOW they’ll do it which I think is what we all wanted to know.

I don't have a lot of faith in it - they'll find ways to get around it in a hot minute. Mine have already set up a secret VPN on my WiFi, they're always one step ahead