To think Social Media should be banned for under 16s

[Halfmanhalfcake]

Off the back of Esther Gheys campaigning about phone use and social media,
I was thinking how bonkers it is that we (as a society) haven't put in stricter controls over social media / internet use for kids yet.

It's as if the technology has developed too quickly, and parents have been left scrabbling around trying to control whatever they can, in what is essentially a completely unregulated cyber world.

I realise that some people are anti nanny-state, but imagine if CBBC started showing snuff films or porn in the middle of some teen drama. When mental health problems in children are soaring, and there is some evidence to show a link to phone / social media use, it seems totally nuts that regulation isn't being enforced at a higher level.

I see grown adults lose all perspective just from being on twitter, how on earth do we think kids can handle it better?

What benefit is it for children under 16 to be on social media? So they can do some tik-tok dance craze? If you want to do a dance just do it in your front room with your mates. To post posey-influencer style images at 13/14? For whose benefit?

I've heard people argue that its unrealistic to think that it can be changed now. Why? My kids are still young so maybe i dont understand.

The 12 year old of today whose parent smugly states 'they don't have it' .... the problem can hit later. Aged 14/15 is very very different to 12

This is so true! I remember when anything you used to search for on the internet would bring back results for porn sites. And no, it wasn't based on my search history - I don't even think that was a thing then. I used to try and search for the most bland, boring things possible, just to see if there was anything that wouldn't result in at least one porn link! You had to be careful not to scroll too far down your search results.

When cars were invented there weren't any safety rules, but gradually as more and more people got killed, we brought in laws, safety measures, the highway code etc. That's what needs to happen with the internet and SM. We don't just throw our hands up and say oh well we can't stop it now. We need to find ways to keep the benefits and lessen the harm, with stricter laws and higher expectations about protecting kids.

That would be me then. I wasn't smug - I was factual. My 12 year old DOESN'T have it. Her internet use is heavily monitored and restricted and I believe that should be the case for all children.
Her internet will continue to be controlled until she is grown up enough to manage it herself, and that will not be at 14/15. That is the condition of her having it.

Won't stop her creating an account on a mates phone or simply watching over their shoulder and joining in that way

Kids find a way! People seem to constantly upgrade phones and old phones are simply given away

I am a data privacy and IT specialist and I'm on the fence about this.

On the one hand, I know the laws and the technical controls well. There's plenty of under used control mechanisms.

On the other hand, I've been banging my head against a brick wall with my employers (charities that offer support to the vulnerable) to employ themselves mechanisms, and get nowhere until something happens.

My role as DPO is legally protected, and they are supposed to have a damn good reason for rejecting my instructions.

Then I will deal with that when and if happens. Doesn't mean I should blindly turn all restrictions off and let her get on with it does it!

And what magically happens when they turn 16?

This is really interesting, why do you think they reject it so much?

The thing is teens have always done things that aren't completely safe or sensible. Look at frequent comments on Mumsnet about how "in my day" teens would hang around the local rec drinking cheap cider and smoking.
The amount of Mumsnetters who talk of reading"bonkbuster" novels and Cosmopolitan magazine at 12 year old.
It shouldn't (couldn't) be banned. It's impossible.
It's down to parents/guardians to be aware of what their children are doing.

My Dd is ASD. She won’t use social media.

But a bonkbuster is COMPLETELY different to the stuff they can be exposed to on the internet.

I'm not advocating for a total ban, or for an abdication of parental responsibility and communication. Perhaps the age limit thing wouldn't work, but that doesn't mean nothing should be done. And if I'm honest, I find that attitude a bit perplexing - but again I'm missing something?

@SoIRejoined analogy with cars is a great one.

Or they are gaming online and communicating with randoms. I’ve sat in the room while my ds games and there are young primary kids on Fortnite who happily offer their name and school to random adults who can talk to them . I heard a young primary school kid say that he was home alone- scary stuff.

@ArseInTheCoOpWindow well yes all autistic teens are different.
Mine would be very lonely without it.

@ExtraOnions are you seriously suggesting that social media has no effect on young people’s mental health? 😳

Bloody hell. The naivety from some posters on here is terrifying.

@InAnotherLifetimeMaybe nothing “magically happens” but it’s not a huge reach to understand that a 16 yr old would have more maturity than MOST 10 yr olds. I’m blindsided that people don’t get this. The stuff that my DC can access now is way too adult for them - it makes me very sad.

@Halfmanhalfcake are "bonkbuster" books really that different?
I mean a generation of females grew up reading them plus Cosmo etc magazines - giving them a distorted view of sexual relationships, how to "please your man", unrealistic beauty standards, body images etc.
Yes there is extreme stuff on the internet but that's why it's down to parents to monitor.

@Needmorelego I missed how old your kids are but good luck with the parental monitoring 😬

Honestly I wish it would be banned for everyone. The evidence is in, it's done/doing far more harm to society than good.

@Needmorelego The 90s were horrific for women. And Im glad that the tides have turned slightly.

If your 14 year old is doing homework, needing internet access, and whilst theyre doing that they look at porn, anorexia, self harm websites, and then clear their history what are you going to do? Stand over them the entire time theyre doing their homework? Or theyre hanging out after school and their mate shows them that stuff?

Its VERY different to a bonkbuster.

It's the older teens who are having issues and getting into trouble

Not so much '10 year olds'

So at 16 when mumsnetters think it's ok to have SM isn't that going to be the worst time not the best.

I actually think the suggestion of "kids' phones" is far more realistic than the idea of trying to ban social media for kids using ordinary phones. It would be far more enforceable, and I reckon Esther Ghey suggested that precisely because she recognised that simply banning social media for kids under a certain age would never work.

Lots of apps have age limits already. I think WhatsApp is 16 if I remember rightly, and most of the others are around 13. The vast majority of kids have these apps way before the minimum age, so the current restrictions are pretty meaningless in practice.

Personally, I think a lot of it does come back to parenting, and monitoring what your child is doing online, maintaining an open dialogue about what they're seeing/ doing, and teaching them how to stay safe etc. That's much harder and more labour-intensive than saying "we'll just ban it all", but probably the safest option overall - we all know that kids will find ways of circumventing age restrictions when they want to!

@CreateHope one daughter age 15 who is autistic.
We are very strict on monitoring.
All our phones (hers, mine, her dads) are linked so we can see what she (and each other) are up to.
We check her laptop regularly.
We did have issues in the past which caused some problems so we are now very very strict.

@CroftonWillow it was via social media that I discovered my hobby group which is now a major part of my life and I talk (online) to people within that hobby from all over the world.
I use Facebook a lot for local events and news and other interest groups and have a lot of fun with it.
My life would be quite boring without social media.
I have no interest in influencer type posts so I don't look at them.

I think people who say (as in this thread) things about how it’s always been like this, they need to find their tribe, it’s got great opportunities on it as well, it’s all about parental control — have NO idea of the kind of content that’s out there.

I use tumblr/various discord servers/other “young” social media as part of a hobby, and I have been sent unsolicited porn involving violence, group sex and very young-looking girls that made me as a fortysomething shocked and physically sick. It’s not remotely like a bit of Jilly Cooper or an old fashioned girlie magazine.

I’ve watched groups of very young women on Discord (young women largely because of the nature of my hobby; I’m sure the same thing happens with young men on gaming sites etc too), be convinced into various kinds of scams and downright harmful nonsense, bizarre ideas and quite dangerous behaviour because of getting into a group mentality on social media sites, especially around mental health, gender issues, self-harm and eating, and no sensible advice or facts gets them out of quite cultish groupthink. Very similar to the pro-eating disorder groups. They suck young people in and become an alternative to real life. I also see the normalisation among them of quite extreme “kink” discourse, where girls in their late teens and early 20s are talking about rape/bdsm/choking and incest fantasies as not just normal forms of sex but cool and edgy.

Because the social media sites use algorithms that target you, you might use Tiktok or Twitter and never see anything like that because you’re a middle-aged woman who likes recipes, kittens and funny videos of women crawling through windows. Your teenage kids don’t get that content - they are targeted with different content.

On a more mundane level, my DD (11) who doesn’t have social media tells me about girls at her school messaging men on Roblox in the middle of the night and “dating” people online that their parents have no knowledge of. School had to deal recently with many of the year 6 kids bullying each other on WhatsApp at 3 and 4am. Now, that sort of bullying stuff might well be easily dealt with by better parental control; but how are you going to stop them seeing content that is damaging and harmful?

Are you going to be sitting there looking at it over their shoulder every literal second they use it? Because if you aren’t, it’s fabulously naive and gullible to think that you are getting parental control over what they can see. And I for one think that if my DD saw even a second of some of the porn I’ve seen - unsolicited - on SM, at 11 YEARS OLD, it would be traumatising and damaging and something you can’t just unsee or easily fix. At 11 I was still reading Malory Towers and watching children’s television (as are my DD and her friends). There’s a big gulf even between 11 year olds and 14 or 15 year olds. I would be very upset if my 15 year old had seen some of the porn that circulates on social media, but it would be less damaging than an 11 year old seeing it. I still don’t think 15 year olds should see that kind of content though!

But bear in mind that if you just use the internet and social media as an adult, you won’t see it yourself and you won’t know what’s out there.