Tick tock, clock running out for minors on social media
AT THE end of the year children under 16 will not legally be able to have an account on social media platforms.
The Social Media Minimum Age Bill 2024 is the first of its kind in Australia.
Some parents give children free range of the internet while others monitor and hope for the best, setting up restrictions in administer mode.
Then there are others like my husband and I who don’t allow our 10-year-old daughter access to any social media platforms.
She has a Nintendo Switch she uses to watch YouTube Kids and play games like Animal Crossing and Minecraft.
No TikTok, no Facebook or Instagram or Twitter.
The other day I was trawling through my Facebook feed and a random photo popped up.
It had been posted by a spammer for its shock value. It was pornography.
It no doubt would be removed by Meta as quickly as possible, but I saw it and others would have too.
If my child was scrolling through my Facebook page, she would have seen it.
If my child had a Facebook account, she would have seen it.
Let me be clear, it was graphic pornography and something if seen by a 10-year-old would remain with them.
I am an older parent and I’ve been through internet safety issues with my sons who are all grown men now.
The eldest turns 30 this year, when he was 10, there was MySpace and social media was in its infancy.
He had a computer in his room, he played World of Warcraft.
There was an internet connection, and Google and video streaming website YouTube had just been launched.
I was setting up parental controls and decided to check his browser history.
‘Ladies’ boobs’ came up as one of his searches, it was such a wholesome description.
We had ‘the talk’ and his access to ‘ladies’ boobs’ was curtailed.
Two years ago, our daughter had an iPad.
She needed it for school when we lived on the Gold Coast.
We did the right thing and set it up with child appropriate boundaries.
Or so we thought.
She’d sit in her bedroom using the iPad, I’d hear constant chatter.
One evening I listened in, it sounded like she was talking to a boyfriend,
I marched in and wrestled the iPad off her.
“That’s my personal thing, you are not allowed to take my personal things,” she screamed at me.
It was never going to end well.
I don’t put up with that nonsense, she’s number four and I’ve had decades in the game.
She was using an app that gave the user a virtual boyfriend.
She was talking because she used voice to text, she was too little to write everything she wanted to say.
I read her saying he’d learned how to ‘kiss better’ and the Ai boyfriend was talking of getting her a phone so they could communicate easier.
Yes, it was Ai and the phone thing was just part of the patter.
But, to me it seemed like grooming.
What if predators make apps for exactly that purpose?
I didn’t like it, it made my blood run cold.
From that point on, there was no iPad.
The Nintendo Switch came into the home and while that is a better option, we still do a check from time to time … just in case.
She has no computer or access to social media and even before talk of a ban, we decided she’d only have access to it at 16.
The new legislation makes this easier for parents like us to enforce social media boundaries.
We have the weight of law behind us.
But what of parents who don’t care?
There are households where kids do as they please.
The ban is supposed to be in force by December.
Just how it will be enforced is unclear but it’s an important step in the right direction.
Also, as an older parent, I have lived in a world before the internet.
Had it been a thing, what happened at school would’ve followed me home.
I was a sensitive, creative child and I was bullied a lot.
That was in the 1970s and 80s.
I’d come home with lots of little folded notes in my blazer pocket.
That was how we ‘posted’ back in the day.
I’d read nasty notes alone in my room.
I was called Llama because I was so tall and thin.
And Rudolf, because I had allergies and my nose was always red.
We weren’t allowed to wear make up but by the time I got to high school, the bullying had become so bad I used concealer to try hide my red nose and freckles.
If I had social media, things would have been so much worse.
Banning it and enforcing that ban puts a buffer between school bullies and home.
Having a safe place to land is important for a child’s mental health.
If little notes affected me and remained in my memory this long, how much worse would it be for my little girl?
The hope is parents will adhere to the ban and safeguard their children.
Unlike little pieces of paper, once something is posted on the internet … it’s there for ever.
