Reference News Network reported on April 15 that Charlie Campbell's article titled "Can Australian Leaders Win Against Social Media?" was published in Time magazine on April 14. The following is an excerpt of the full text:

This press conference began as usual: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced reporters' questions ranging from housing, the Middle East war to his relationship with former U.S. President Donald Trump. Then, 11-year-old Lana picked up the microphone and asked, "Do you think social media has an impact on children?"

Let Childhood Return to the Real World

This is the question that Albanese feels most confident answering and touches the core of the government's most prominent policy, directly affecting Lana and the student journalists invited for the interview by the "Behind the News" column.

Albanese firmly replied, "Of course it does. That's why we are banning teenagers under 16 from using social media. I want to see you go out and play together at lunchtime, talk to each other like we are now, instead of just staring at electronic devices."

The fact that the Australian prime minister specifically set aside 45 minutes to communicate with children who are at least two more terms away from voting age highlights his view that social media poses a clear threat to Australia's most precious resource - its youth. Moreover, he is determined to take action.

To a large extent, the harm caused by social media is undeniable. Some companies, under the guise of "engagement," entice children during their impressionable years and reshape their brains through addictive content in vast quantities. Psychologists say that this influence is unimaginable before and has changed the development process of humanity. In the ten years after the popularization of mobile internet, the incidence of depression among young Americans rose by about 150%, and anxiety disorders and self-harm behaviors also increased correspondingly. This trend is reflected in developed countries including Australia. During the same period, the number of girls hospitalized due to mental health problems in Australia surged by 81%, while boys increased by 51%. Albanese said, "This has become the primary topic of discussion among parents. These children's minds are still developing, and young people need space to grow healthily."

On December 10, Australia will impose a 16-year-old age restriction on users of platforms such as Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, and X. This is the first such law in the world.

Australia's law is not aimed at underage children but targets companies that fail to take sufficient safeguards. For undefined "systemic violations," fines can reach up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (approximately $31 million). In other words, Australia will change the situation: instead of relying on users to truthfully disclose their ages, the responsibility will be shifted to global tech giants.

Last November, the French education minister said that the EU should "urgently" follow Australia's lead, especially considering that the integration of artificial intelligence means stronger algorithms are spreading false information at unprecedented speeds. Australia is now becoming a focus of attention for other countries in this regard. Many jurisdictions, including the UK, Ireland, Singapore, Japan, and the EU, are closely watching Canberra's next moves. In the US, the bipartisan "Children Away from Social Media Act" is advancing in the Senate, aiming to limit the use of social media by children under 13 and prohibit platforms from targeting users under 17 with content. Meanwhile, last year, approximately half of US states passed legislation making it more difficult for children and adolescents to go online without supervision.

"An Imperfect Plan is Better than No Plan"

However, this does not mean there are no opponents, and the opponents are not just social media companies.

Some mental health experts argue that banning children from using social media will push them into darker, less regulated corners of the internet. Others worry that bypassing age restrictions will leave children in a more uncontrollable environment where they cannot seek help. Additionally, with countless games and educational websites also adopting addictive scrolling features, what exactly constitutes social media has sparked massive controversy.

For Albanese, an imperfect plan is better than no plan at all. He said, "We acknowledge this won't be absolutely effective. But it does convey societal attitudes and gives parents the confidence to have relevant conversations with their children."

If parents once worried about children's attention to comic books and television, the immersive, dopamine-driven attraction brought by computer screens (including video games, chat platforms, and social media) has changed the way almost everyone sees the world, especially young people. A February government report released in Australia found that 80% of prepubescent children use social media. A 2024 Pew Research Center poll found that 46% of American teens said they were "almost always" online.

These devices may bring real dangers. Pedophiles and human traffickers have greater freedom of movement in the virtual world than in the real world.

Psychologists say that playing in the real world - preferably outdoors and with children of different ages - is crucial for a child's growth. Young people learn how to avoid injury in potentially harmful scenarios, such as climbing trees or jumping off swings at their highest point. However, such play is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, children spend more time in front of screens, and the introduction of Facebook "likes" and Twitter "retweets" in 2009 accelerated this trend: in the opinion of many experts, these innovations transformed social media from a harmless networking platform into a popularity contest driven by algorithms. The launch of Instagram coincided with the release of the iPhone 4 and Samsung Galaxy S, both equipped with the world's first front-facing cameras. Instagram's series of filters allowed users to style their photos, and these filters are now ubiquitous on other platforms.

The result is a lot of entertainment, but not all positive. The digital realm introduces significant new risk factors for young people's developing sexual views, such as the distorted impact of readily available pornographic content on anyone who sees it, and the corresponding increase in risks of online grooming and sextortion.

Teaching Skills Rather Than Imposing Restrictions?

Australia is the sixth-largest country in the world by land area and has a population of only 26 million. Therefore, Australia has a large number of sparsely populated inland communities, and for these communities, social media is "absolutely crucial." Albanese said, "We are not against technological progress. Young people will not be banned from interacting through technology related to their education or communication with each other. We will not confiscate people's devices."

Albanese mentioned the success of last year's ban on mobile phones in Australian public schools. Education Minister Jason Clare said, "The results were very significant." A survey of nearly 1000 principals in New South Wales found that 87% of respondents said students paid more attention in class, and 81% noticed improvements in learning. Meanwhile, serious incidents involving social media (such as bullying and the spread of explicit or derogatory content) in South Australia decreased by 63%, and behavioral problems dropped by 54%. "But after school, the phones come out again, and children return to the quagmire of social media. In the past, bullying and intimidation stopped at the school gate. Now it happens at home too."

Despite this, critics argue that the social media age restriction is a hasty reaction made without proper consultation, raises data privacy issues, and increases risks for young people using the platform illegally.

Sugerman compared Australia's ban to the Prohibition in the 1920s in the United States. Some studies suggest that the Prohibition actually led to an increase in alcohol consumption in the US and a surge in organized crime. He said a much better strategy would be to teach teenagers to master technology, make them aware of online dangers, and learn how to think rationally, act purposefully, and cope with the virtual world to mitigate harm. Sugerman said, "Human behavior is most averse to being ordered around. On the contrary, people are naturally resistant to being told what to do." (Translated by Tu Qi)

Cover of Time magazine's April 14 issue

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7493444218334937652/

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