Your thoughts on banning social media for under 16s

[OnNaturesCourse]

A topic I've been hearing a lot about on the news lately and it's got me thinking.

How do you feel about a possible ban on social media for under 16s?

(I know it has been said it won't be happening in the UK now but I found the topic thought provoking...)

YABU - it's a silly idea
YANBU - it's NOT a silly idea.

Does anyone know how Australia are implementing it? Are they going down the ID route, or just the DOB (which I agree is far too easy to get round!)

I think it’s a good idea and I am all for it. I didn’t realise it was cut and dry that it’s not going to happen though?

Ive seen a few of these threads and they always have the same responses. People in favour of or people against who, even though they agree that SM is very damaging for adolescents, think we shouldn’t even try to do anything about it as it’ll be ‘too hard’

Better education, training available free and accessible to parents.

This is a huge thing. I really wish there was more easily available education for parents about phones and the internet.

The husband of a local Headteacher works (maybe worked as it’s a few years since I had one at that school) for CEOP and once or twice a year he did a talk with parents in the year or so before most kids started getting phones. It was massively eye opening and really informative - especially about apps and features you might not realise they have.

She very cleverly tied it into other events so that the max number of people would go to it.

There was an amendment to the law saying that the companies can not require ID.

I’ve heard facial recognition but that could just be speculation

Age verification software already exists and is in use https://www.yoti.com/business/facial-age-estimation/

Instagram are rolling out Teen accounts for 13-17 which parents can act as supervisors on. This presumes however that parents already have some form of control over their teenagers phones on apps they download and the rest.

I'd support a ban - it's mostly utterly vacuous shite

1. who says nobody cares that kids get bullied at school?
2. Where is your source that kids are more likely to be assaulted at school than via someone they meet over the net and why on earth is that an argument for not trying to stop either?
3. What about bullying via social media?
4. How on earth can you say that having access to social media makes kids less isolated when it seems the opposite is true?

Having watch Swiped I think it is a good idea. Not sure about the logistics but even if a ban reduced the amount of young children with smart phones it would be positive.

I don't really want my child to have a smart phone but I probably will when he goes to secondary as I don't want him to feel isolated. If it was banned ans therefore reduced the numbers using them the feeling of isolation wouldn't be such a problem.

Agree with it in principle but it's unenforcible. These rules were in place when I was in school and we just put in fake birth dates.

I don’t agree with your entire post but massively agree with the last paragraph.

People are saying the horse has already bolted are more than likely doing it from the POV of having teenage children. What about those of us who have much younger kids that want to see a seismic shift by the time they get to that age, so that the argument of ‘all my friends are on it’ doesn’t wash?

I do think there needs to be a complete change to the fact that smart phones are basically essential at secondary school in some places.

The only option for the bus pass here now is an app. Their homework is set on an app. So every single kid from the villages here must have a phone that supports these apps.

That does need to change. It annoys the life out of me as DS2 never used to carry his phone much and now he requires it every single day. And I hate that you have squads of kids at the bus stop with their phones in their hands for the bus. Then people are surprised that thefts and muggings are up 🙄

Agree with protecting the up and coming younger generation - I am a parent of primary and nursery age children and already shocked at the amount of children that have uncontrolled access to smart phones and tablets etc.

The current teenage generation is trickier - like taking away a toy from a baby but surely it's better to try and do something rather than just saying "it's too late" or the "horse has bolted". Maybe if there is a way to age check accounts there could be a way for under 16s to still have access but it be a simiplier version with parental control? I don't know.

This is another thing, I agree with the idea of a ban completely. Those saying it’s not enforceable are missing the point. I don’t have the answers but then, why would I? Why would any of us presume to know how they could make this work? It’s up to the policy makers to consult on this and try and find a way to make it work.
There will always be ways around it, but even if it raises some much needed awareness and stops even half of kids accessing it I think it’ll be worth it.

Im sure there are plenty of underage kids drinking alcohol, that doesn’t mean we should allow it to be legally bought and consumed by under 18s.
These things also get policed in a social fashion. Most people would judge the parents of a kid who knowingly allowed them to get blind drunk at the age of 13 these days.

I’m not saying the horse has bolted because of current teenagers, but because of society in general. Adults are the big problem with it.

My teen can’t get the school bus without an app. Nor can he access his homework.

Banning kids from social media won’t work if they have to have phones to access basic things.

Theres never going to be a system whereby you upload your passport to Facebook or Instagram and it does proper facial recognition everytime you log in so what are they actually going to do to make any ban workable?

Far better to have proper education for parents and encourage people to actually parent.

A half arsed ban that leads to complacency that it’s all sorted will cause even more problems imo.

I am for a ban but I think it’s unworkable and it would be better to put more focus on the algorithms in place and the advertising

I think it's a great idea but in practice it's too late. Social media is such a huge part of young people's lives now and even if individual parents are able to enforce not allowing access, it will just leave their children feeling and being left out.

I speak from experience of not having access to MSN messenger as often as my friend when I was a teen! So many plans were made without me, so many things shared which I wasn't a part of.

So while I'd love to think my little girl wouldn't be involved with any of this until she's 16+, the reality is it all seems to enter their worlds so early now. I'd say my SD was talking about and away of tiktok etc from about 6/7😮

My teens don't really use social media. They have no interest in it.

I think short form media content is bad for the brain and I seem to be in a constant battle with my 11 yo to get him off YouTube shorts. But the multiplicity of sources you can get it from, TV, playstation, tablets, phone means that it is only a hop from say, watching a movie or doing homework, and it's back on again.

I can only hope he follows in the footsteps of his siblings and acquires a casual distain for social media otherwise I feel under resourced for the challenge.

Brilliant idea. Very hard to police. And also what about the 12-15 year olds already using it a how do we stop them?

There was a TV programme about this last night. Two of the adults in the programme signed on to Tik Tok as 14 year olds. The amount of unsolicited content they were subjected to was frightening. Minecraft, self harm, suicide and a call from Police radio of a young woman in distress as her father was beating her mother.

A ban removes the expectation children have of having smart phones soon as they’re at secondary school.
Even schools expect them to carry them and set homework etc accordingly.

A ban would get rid of this and allow parents to shut down the conversation with “You can’t have a smart phone; it’s against the law”

There will always be crappy parents. There are parents who give their children alcohol and drugs, but most parents don’t. We just need most parents to not give their children smartphones and the battle is much easier. We need to shift the norm to being from children having them, to children not having them because at the moment, that balance is heavy skewed to the former which makes it a harder battle for the latter.

It's a load of nonsense.
It should be down to parents to decide what is appropriate for their children.

What a great idea! That'll definitely stop all teens using social media! Same as banning drinking, smoking, vapes and sex for under 16s has completely eradicated all those!

... Oh... Wait

Obviously it won't work. Regardless of how it's framed.

The only solution - which ain't gonna happen and so guaranteeing it won't work - is to make the platforms (by the way, how do folk define "social media" ?) criminally liable with the threat of jail time for the executives.

It would just be a statement of intent. Much like the drugs laws. A sort of "in an ideal world" piece of legislation.

I'd like to be proved wrong, but given you are never going to get Musk, Zuckerberg or any other non resident into a UK court, I think I'm pretty spot on.

Also how else would hostile state actors get a chance to mess with our society ? Which as we all know is vital to the interests of our own elite.

My dd has all homework on line and YouTube isn’t blocked on her school device because it has some educational content. So I can take her phone etc but it’s hard to take the school device when she says she has homework

Removing devices most certainly won't be the answer