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.

Exactly 🤣
OP come back to us when your kids are 15. We can chat then.

Chat about what though? @WhiteLily1 Whats your point?

That it's hard to say to your kids that they can't go on social media? That when they're walking home from school it's impossible to know what they get up to on their phones? That they need SM to meet friends, or because they're complaining to you that their mates are doing a viral video and they can't join in? Fine, but that doesnt negate the need for regulation.

There's just a bit of a throw your arms up attitude like nothing can be done. You know there is LOADS of controls that companies / government can be put on the internet to make it safer? They're choosing not to do this.

I'm assuming OP deliberately used a ott and hysterical thread title for effect? What exactly are you suggesting should be done? Ban it? Oh purlease.

Because I've never had any problems with either ds's SM. Eldest is currently at uni. I've never tracked them, monitored them, looked at their phones. Never needed to. No bullying, no nastiness, no problems, nothing. They know my expectations. Most caring parents talk to their dc about what they consider reasonable.

@asterel I actually agree with you - there is a lot of horrible horrible stuff out there online.
But we can't simply ban it and think it will go away.
I don't have a solution - more education about internet safety?
Maybe giving more giving children and teens better opportunities for self esteem and confidence so they don't go searching out things that lead to inappropriate content.
The current education system is letting so many children down that their mental health, confidence and general happiness is poor - so they are seeking out answers - which leads by just a few clicks to the inappropriate stuff.

@Oblomov23 I used that title because thats what Esther Ghey is suggesting. If you read my posts youll see that Im suggesting theres many ways to tackle the problem.

But as long as your kids are alright then theres not a problem, right?

The thing is all the parental controls are there for you to use! Your child can have 20 mins of Instagram on their phone to catch up with mates posts etc for example before it the app turns off.
You can approve every app or not approve.
Your child / teen doesn’t need a laptop in their room with unmonitored safari. If you actually bother to learn the tech (which every parent should!)
then there are so many things you can use, and no, if you know what you are doing, and are around keeping an eye on your teen, it’s not that easy for them just to ‘get around it’
Of course, they can and will see things on other kids phones- can’t get around that one but that’s not where the main damage is done IMO.
It’s being on their own, in their room with unfiltered devices for hours that’s the problem.
And yes, I do have multiple teen children before anyone asks!

I agree

Anybody who works in a school knows the negative impact sm has on kids MH and hiw much school time is spent dealing with the SM fallout even in upper KS2

I’d favour just denormalising it in the first instance - schools saying pupils can only bring brick and not smartphones to school, more of making it okay for kids not to have them. I recently went round a mixture of state and independent schools to look at with DD. All the kids at the state comps had (expensive!) smartphones, and the schools also made a big deal about setting them homework online, using apps and so on.

The independent schools all had an anti-smartphone/social media culture, and when you asked the kids who took you round on tours they said that phones aren’t a big deal and it’s quite normal for kids in the school not to have a smartphone or social media before at least year 9. So it obviously can be done. And it’s very telling that expensive independent schools are trying to denormalise smartphones. State schools and parents could easily follow suit and just try to stop normalising the idea amongst parents that every kid must have a smartphone at ten or 11 or they’ll be somehow “left out” or socially inadequate.

(If anything, it’s starting to look like the reverse. Too much time online hampers kids’ lives, social and academic skills and life choices, and will set them back in life, whereas parents and schools who restrict it will end up better adjusted.)

More can be done, sure. Parents also need to take far far more responsibility and parental controls and how to use them need to be easier to implement, even more robust so more parents put these in place more.

It’s the banning social media for under 16’s title I was referring to. It’s just not something that would ever be able to happen. That horse has well and truly bolted.
How about we ban all disposable nappies and all formula for babies under 1. We all know disposable nappies are awful for the environment and breastfeeding is proven to be far more beneficial for the baby. I mean I’m being OTT but you get my drift.

I think it’s just hard to get a grip on parenting teenagers until you have one yourself as it’s a completely different ball game.

A bit like someone telling you how to parent a newborn, making judgements and having the answers when they haven’t had one themselves.

@Halfmanhalfcake

Oh purlease. I didn't say that: my kids are ok so no comment needed? I never said that.

But you only have to read a few mn threads to know there's tonnes and tonnes of things parents can do. Lists of monitoring, checking, tracking, reading dc's chats if you want to, apps and controls that parents can use if they want to. Talking to your child about it. Might help!

I chose not use any tracking, no monitoring, no restrictions, nothing. But that's because if the character of my ds's and the fact was I never needed to, because they never saw any bullying, never posted anything silly, no dick pics!

Just because I took a relaxed stance, doesn't mean I'm not aware of the issues other parents have had. am

I don't think banning things until an age where teens generally think they know it all is remotely a good idea.

In fact having seen the state a uni mate of my DD1's got into in his first year at uni having been banned/shielded from a lot, I think it's a terrible idea.

I do wish more schools were able to do what my DD4's primary school do/can. The husband of the HT works for CEOP. He does an annual chat at the school for parents and a separate one for the older children as many get mobiles just before going to high school. He puts the fear of god into the parents by showing them how easy it is for people to track kids and/or chat to them through "safe" apps. He teaches people how to use the apps that are most popular with the kids at that point. A local company provide a really nice afternoon tea and school staff very kindly play games with the children so parents are very much tempted to go. And then even the ones only going for the cakes seem to end up learning something helpful. He does similar with the children, but in an age appropriate way.

I've had a lot of grief over the years because other parents felt I was ridiculously strict with phones as the children got older. No phones in bedrooms overnight, any downloads have to be approved from my phone and any contacts added have to be run by me. We checked phones - sometimes often if they were young or something was going on, sometimes less often if there wasn't. We always had a rule where there was no trouble/grief about something I wasn't going to be happy with if it was brought up before I found it on their phone. It made the children feel secure about being open about what was going on as I wasn't going to hit the roof.

The three eldest are all uni age now and two of them have said they feel we should be even tighter on the younger ones because of how bad it is online now. One of them still tells her friends "Urgh my mum is a nightmare and bans my phone at night" when she's home as she finds it hard still to just ignore messages and the likes.

I think a balance of education, age appropriate access, boundaries and trust is needed. It's incredibly difficult to get all of those spot on all of the time. I've been quite lucky that my way has worked well with the elder three - not always perfect, but enough. I just have to hope it works with the younger ones in a similar way (with tweaks along the way as technology and their personalities change!)

Sorry. Posted by accident.

But. To talk about banning is just utterly ridiculous and it's embarrassing and I certainly don't want to be associated with such nonsense.

I support all sorts of choices. If people want better apps, more restrictions, further development, so parents have more options. Fine.

But banning. No. To even suggest it is ridiculous. I enjoy social media. I don't have any problems with it and neither do my boys and I certainly won't support Ridiculous ideas such as banning because I just think it's silly.

@YetMoreNewBeginnings

I teach 18-22 age students, and by that age they are universally telling me they wish they had had more restrictions on their internet and social media / phone use during their teenage years. Many are already doing “digital detoxes” and so on at that age and telling me not to let my kids have phones! Social media seems to be a generalised bad experience for them even when they’ve only had it for a few years.

So it can’t be that there are loads of wonderful positives to it that outweigh the bad stuff, or why do my students already by 18 think that it’s been a uniformly negative experience for them? Doesn’t that suggest that they’d have been better off having less of it, if any? So maybe we adults need to step up and step in.

You can't shut the gates OP. An age limit won't make any difference, kids have always lied to get past age restrictions since age restrictions existed.

It's up to the parents. I detest this arse wiping crap that goes on now. It's one of the reasons kids are getting well into their 20s not being able to adult.

I personally havent let my youngest have SM and he's nearly 17. He's SN and I know it could do more harm than good. Thankfully he's not that interested. I can't shield him forever, it's a digital age whether you like it or not.

There's a huge difference between more restrictions and a complete ban.

As I've said, my uni age children have said with the things are now they think I should be stricter on my younger children than I was with them (and most other parents felt I was uber strict as it was).

That still doesn't mean that only introducing things at an age where so many teens feel invincible and know it all is a wise idea.

Plus, from another angle, are you happy with the school your dc attend? I have been very happy with our school. Ds2 is still there. Their pastoral care is good, they spend time in tutor, assemblies, PHSE etc, talking about all sorts of topics: phones, the internet, self esteem, bullying, and just treating each other nicely. Most decent schools do.

If only brick phones are allowed then how do those pupils who travel by bus manage? Most if not all services to our local high schools are cash free and pupils have to pay online and show their weekly/monthly ticket via the app?

Isn’t that something which the bus company ought to address? There must be ways that other people without smartphones can use the bus. Do you think we should be expected to buy expensive tech for kids that might not be good for them just for the convenience of a private bus company?

@YetMoreNewBeginnings posts sense. I too am finding most of Ds1's uni friends are thriving, loving it, are studying hard, at the gym, out with friends, less reliant on drink, sm usage, etc. They are clean living, aware of what they are eating, and aware of sm and the effects on their MH, and some take breaks from sm if required. Good for them!

I agree I think under 16s should be banned from social media. I don’t think social media is healthy for many adults let alone children. It’s a distorted reality and tbh if it disappeared tomorrow I think we’d be better off as a society. (And before anyone chirps up that mumsnet is social media, I’m talking about the likes of Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc)

I'm convinced AI would be able to help here - we can't employ enough people to police the Web for it forever changes but AI could. Somehow. It would be a massive undertaken. International cooperation etc. Male violence is another thing that needs to be tackled and the access to violent porn. Or religious extremism.

But children do not access only from smartphones. There are numerous ways to connect to the Web, via different device types and different networks. As a starting point, education of the parent is needed. People need to understand what they can currently do to control what their child accesses.

@JasperTheDoll that's the thing - a smart phone is so much more than "social media". I do so much on my - including using it as my "bus ticket".
There is a lot I literally wouldn't be able to do in life without it. Any online forms. Ordering and paying for things. Applying for things. Information from the school. Getting the Uber to and from school.
Yes I could do some of those things before - but doing it online is so so so much quicker and easier.
You can't ban smart phones for teens . As said - some need it for their bus ticket and to access apps for homework - unless we all (as a society) went back to old methods. But we've gone to far in that now.

I was also a bit of a "I'm alright Jack poster". I'll clumsily try to explain why - everything nowadays seems to be someone else's issue to manage e.g. one that gets me currently is this instant jump to "talk to someone" if you're having a bit of a shit time mentally, or that video with the two blokes at a footy game and the chatty one has killed themselves at the end and the message is almost a guilt trippy "if only the other guy had talked to him more.......". I really hate that video as you can tell.

It's almost like the first line should be to saddle someone else with the task of helping you when surely the best, long term and sustainable help would be to seek help or try to sort it yourself first?

Thats how I view this. The information is out there, kids will access it if they want regardless whether they download a vpn, an app that can subvert blockers, sneak a look on a pals phone at a sleepover or kids view it in school on others phones (am slightly amused at the "phones are banned at dc school" posts, yea, theyre banned at my dc school too allegedly).

Passing the responsibility off on to someone or something isnt a long term solution because when they can access it they are thrown into that world for the first time completely unprepared. As parents we need to try and drum it into them that they don't want to do these things, but in a way its not taboo so if they do and need help they dont feel ashamed to talk, help them build resilience to these things so if they do accidentally see a pro-whatever site they can hopefully shrug it off, monitor what we can and deal with situations with the kids input where possible so they can handle it better mentally in the future.

(That is really shittily explained I know)

Exactly. Many schools ask pupils to use them in lessons for two factor authentication when logging onto school devices etc or to take photos in practical subjects such as art. Almost all homework is online now too.