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Speaker 1: You're listening to a Muma Mia podcast. Mumma Mea acknowledges

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Speaker 1: the traditional owners of land and waters that this podcast

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Speaker 1: is recorded on.

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Speaker 2: Hi.

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Speaker 1: I'm Claire Murphy. This is Muma MIA's daily news podcast,

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Speaker 1: The Quickie, and today we're looking into the thirty six

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Speaker 1: month movement, the calls who increase the age of social

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Speaker 1: media sign up from thirteen to sixteen and what difference

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Speaker 1: that claims to make on the mental health of those

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Speaker 1: who fall into that age bracket. But first, here's the

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Speaker 1: letters from the Quickie newsroom. Thursday June sixth New South

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Speaker 1: Wales Premier Chris Mins will deliver a landmark apology in

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Speaker 1: Parliament today to those who lived with criminal convictions due

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Speaker 1: to homosexual acts. The New South Wales government did criminalized

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Speaker 1: homosexuality forty years ago, but for those who were convicted

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Speaker 1: of those acts before then, they lived with the shame

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Speaker 1: and opportunity limits of having a criminal record. Advocates saying

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Speaker 1: this apology is long overdue, seeing as New South Wales

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Speaker 1: is the last of the states to issue one, after

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Speaker 1: all the others had done so by twenty seventeen. Many

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Speaker 1: of those who held these criminal convictions have now passed away,

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Speaker 1: not receiving the apology for a life upended by criminal charges,

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Speaker 1: many having to fight to have their records expunged. Coronary

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Speaker 1: heart disease remains Australia's number one leading cause of death,

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Speaker 1: but many of those who die from it also had

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Speaker 1: other issues. An Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Reports

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Speaker 1: studied the death certificates of Australians during twenty twenty two

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Speaker 1: in order to get a better snapshot of the nation's health,

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Speaker 1: finding coronary heart disease still leading the way in Aussie deaths,

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Speaker 1: followed by dementia, hypertension, cerebrovascular disease and diabetes, with almost

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Speaker 1: a quarter of the one hundred and ninety one thousand

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Speaker 1: registered deaths in twenty twenty two having five or more

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Speaker 1: recorded causes. The results vary by age, with suicide, road

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Speaker 1: traffic accidents, and accidental poisoning the most common underlying causes

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Speaker 1: of death in those aged fifteen to fifty four, with

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Speaker 1: substance abuse, depressive disorders and other factors such as self

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Speaker 1: harm and intimate partner violence also contributing underlying causes of

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Speaker 1: death in that age group. King Charles has attended commemorations

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Speaker 1: for the eightieth anniversary of d Days, speaking at a

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Speaker 1: remembrance event in Portsmouth. The king is expected to head

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Speaker 1: off on his first international trip since being diagnosed with

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Speaker 1: cancer this week, flying to France for further commemoration celebrations,

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Speaker 1: joining Ukrainian President Vladimi Zelenski and US President Joe Biden.

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Speaker 1: Charles told the crowd at Portsmouth to commit to always remembering, cherishing,

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Speaker 1: and honoring those who served that day, where approximately four

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Speaker 1: thy four hundred Allied troops died fighting to liberate France

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Speaker 1: from the Germans. Actress Christina Applegate has admitted she's suffering

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Speaker 1: from depression, not coping with how her body's feeling after

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Speaker 1: being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Applegate spoke about her experience

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Speaker 1: on her podcast Messi, joined by co host Jamie Lynn Siegler,

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Speaker 1: who's also been diagnosed with the same condition, saying she

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Speaker 1: doesn't enjoy living because doing anything isn't enjoyable anymore. She

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Speaker 1: posted on social media that the episode was recorded last

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Speaker 1: year when she was feeling low, confused, and angry at

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Speaker 1: the disease, and that it should be taken as an

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Speaker 1: honest take on where she was in a brief moment,

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Speaker 1: not the reality, Siegler comforted her co host, saying it's

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Speaker 1: hard to live in a disabled body, but that it

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Speaker 1: was harder when you compare it to how it used

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Speaker 1: to be. Applegate said she would seek out her therapist

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Speaker 1: in the wake of the interview, admitting she'd avoided therapy

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Speaker 1: since her diagnosis three years ago. That's what's happening in

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Speaker 1: the world today. Next, we speak to the thirty six

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Speaker 1: Month campaigns radio star spokesperson and co founder to see

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Speaker 1: why Nova Radio's Whipper wants kids to be older before

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Speaker 1: embarking on a social media journey. The thirty six Month

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Speaker 1: campaign claims that at thirteen, kids aren't ready for social media. Instead,

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Speaker 1: they're asking them to be barred from scrolling Instagram or

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Speaker 1: TikTok until they're sixteen, using those three years or thirty

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Speaker 1: six months to develop their sense of self, to understand

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Speaker 1: their own identity and develop the resilience required to handle

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Speaker 1: the exposure some social media platforms bring. The research does

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Speaker 1: show that with every notification, every like, or comment, dopamine

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Speaker 1: is released into the brain, creating a reward loop that

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Speaker 1: becomes addictive, keeping those who scroll anticipating the next beat

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Speaker 1: ding or whistle announcing another interaction with their social media account.

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Speaker 1: It's what hooks us all in regardless of age, but

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Speaker 1: for a growing young person, the research suggests that it's

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Speaker 1: rewiring their brains to become more anxious and is contributing

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Speaker 1: to an epidemic of mental illness. According to a research

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Speaker 1: study of American teens age twelve to fifteen who use

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Speaker 1: social media for more than three hours a day, they

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Speaker 1: faced twice the risk of negative mental health outcomes, including

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Speaker 1: depression and anxiety. Other studies showed the negative impact was

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Speaker 1: worse for adolescent girls and those already experiencing poor mental

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Speaker 1: health when you factor in the reality of cyberbullying, which

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Speaker 1: has led to the deaths of many young Australians, one

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Speaker 1: of the most high profile being the former face of Akubra,

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Speaker 1: Queensland schoolgirl Dolly Everett, who took her life when she

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Speaker 1: was just fourteen. And there are many factors contributing to

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Speaker 1: the mental health outcomes of young Australians linked to the

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Speaker 1: use of social media. The research tracking the increase in

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Speaker 1: anxiety and depression in young people can link this spike

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Speaker 1: to major societal shifts.

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Speaker 3: Something happened in the early twenty tens. And my argument

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Speaker 3: in the book is a tragedy in two acts. The

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Speaker 3: first act is the loss of the play based childhood.

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Speaker 3: You were out with your friends after school, there was

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Speaker 3: nobody supervising. You had to learn how to work out conflicts,

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Speaker 3: how to face adversity. So that's what kids have had

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Speaker 3: for hundreds of thousands of years. We began to crack

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Speaker 3: down on that, to lock kids up in the nineties,

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Speaker 3: to not let them out. So we're restricting what they

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Speaker 3: most need, which is play, from the nineties through the

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Speaker 3: two thousands. But mental health doesn't collapse, then it's actually

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Speaker 3: pretty stable. Then we get aact to which is the

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Speaker 3: arrival of the phone based childhood. And what that is

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Speaker 3: is in twenty ten, everybody had a flip phone, no

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Speaker 3: front facing camera, no social media on the phone, no

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Speaker 3: high speed data, and by twenty fifteen everyone's got all

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Speaker 3: those other things. Now suddenly everyone has a smartphone, a

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Speaker 3: front facing camera, a high speed internet, social media, especially Instagram,

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Speaker 3: on the phone, and almost like someone turned a switch.

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Speaker 3: In twenty thirteen, girls in America and many of the

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Speaker 3: countries suddenly become very anxious, depressed, and self harming.

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Speaker 1: That's psychologist Jonathan Hate, the author of the book The

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Speaker 1: Anxious Generation, speaking to The Daily Show. But it's not

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Speaker 1: all negative for young social media users. A twenty twenty

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Speaker 1: two US survey by the Pew Research Center of American

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Speaker 1: teenagers and their parents showed the majority of them felt

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Speaker 1: social media helped them feel more accepted, sixty seven percent

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Speaker 1: that it gave them a support network when times were tough,

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Speaker 1: seventy one percent said it gave them a space to

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Speaker 1: share their creative sides, and eighty percent said it made

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Speaker 1: them feel more connected to their friends. We asked you

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Speaker 1: who have teen kids in your life how they feel

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Speaker 1: about the call to lift the social media age to sixteen,

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Speaker 1: and the responses were varied.

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Speaker 2: My kids said that kids will just do what they

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Speaker 2: want like they do now. They'll lie about their age.

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Speaker 2: They'll hide the social media out behind a new widget

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Speaker 2: that doesn't look like a social media app and just

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Speaker 2: rename it so even if their parents do check their feet.

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Speaker 3: It will allow kids to have any social media until

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Speaker 3: they were sixteen, and had parental locks on the phones

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Speaker 3: until they turned eighteen, meaning any apps they wanted had

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Speaker 3: to be required.

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Speaker 4: Now, fourteen year old has seemed to navigate it okay,

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Speaker 4: and we will be okay to let my twelve year

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Speaker 4: old sign up when she's thirteen next year, even if

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Speaker 4: they say sixteen when it's thirteen and he doesn't have

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Speaker 4: social media?

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Speaker 1: How do I know this? Because I check his phone?

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Speaker 2: Why because I'm allowed to? I'm his parents.

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Speaker 4: This week have been dealing with online bulling through different apps.

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Speaker 4: I'm a primary school teacher. These kids away younger than thirteen.

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Speaker 4: We teach cyber safety until the cows come home, but

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Speaker 4: it just doesn't seem to be real for them.

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Speaker 1: So it seems there are two camps, those who say

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Speaker 1: the kids can handle it and those who say they

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Speaker 1: see the harms and were restricted as much as they can.

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Speaker 1: One third of the Fitzzy Whipper and Cake Nova Sydney

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Speaker 1: radio breakfast team, Michael Whipper Whippley, has taken up the

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Speaker 1: challenge of raising the social media age, backing the thirty

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Speaker 1: six Months campaign to buy children those extra few years

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Speaker 1: as they develop away from social media before they're exposed

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Speaker 1: to that world. Whipper, what motivated you to get involved

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Speaker 1: in this in the first place.

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Speaker 5: For one, I've got my own kids. There's three of them.

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Speaker 5: I'll see them. They're mad a little monkeys and they're

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Speaker 5: growing up at one hundred miles an hour and was

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Speaker 5: probably last year. I thought, imagine if they didn't have

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Speaker 5: to go through what I'm reading a lot about. And

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Speaker 5: there was most definitely a movement towards people becoming educated

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Speaker 5: on this topic. And the data that has now been

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Speaker 5: collected over at least to ten year period no longer

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Speaker 5: seems to have horrible, horrible information attached to it. So

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Speaker 5: when I was looking at both of it, I thought,

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Speaker 5: do you know what? I am in a position where

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Speaker 5: I do have a platform. I know some people that

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Speaker 5: I can probably partner with to get this message across

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Speaker 5: to make sure that it hits home. So I felt

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Speaker 5: like it wasn't a case of should I do something.

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Speaker 5: I need to do something. Someone needs to put their

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Speaker 5: hand up in the public space and say this doesn't work. Guys,

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Speaker 5: this is not a good thing.

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Speaker 1: What scares you the most about it for your own kids?

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Speaker 1: What is the data telling you that has you fearful

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Speaker 1: of them signing up too early?

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Speaker 5: Well, if you look at the data and you're right

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Speaker 5: when you talk about too early too Claire, you go, well, yes,

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Speaker 5: the platform says thirteen, that's what it currently is, and

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Speaker 5: there's a whole lot of kids that are on social

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Speaker 5: media prior to the age of thirteen. Like the actual

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Speaker 5: age gait to get into these social media platforms, it

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Speaker 5: is hardly anything, really non existent. So but when I

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Speaker 5: think about my own kids, there's two parts to it.

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Speaker 5: One is joining and because beoming a citizen of these

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Speaker 5: social networks where you're stepping into a world that's really

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Speaker 5: uncontrollable by you and controlled by the network itself and

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Speaker 5: the platform itself. So the smart algorithms, they're serving what

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Speaker 5: they decide they want to serve your kid, So the

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Speaker 5: influence can be diminished as you as a parent, That

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Speaker 5: powerless position you find yourself in is a pretty scary one.

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Speaker 5: So in looking at the statistics too, in terms of

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Speaker 5: the psychological damage, you go one out of two kids

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Speaker 5: their mental health is affected by social media. And as

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Speaker 5: we've been saying, if this was any other product, you know,

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Speaker 5: we've been using the ridiculous analogy of a shampoo. Imagine

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Speaker 5: if there was a shampoo on the shelf and every

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Speaker 5: second kid that used it had a psychological issue and

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Speaker 5: in some cases resulted in death, it simply wouldn't exist.

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Speaker 5: So I don't know why as a country we're allowing

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Speaker 5: some app to control and have this level of influence

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Speaker 5: on our children.

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Speaker 1: The problem, we say thing obviously, is that kids already

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Speaker 1: know this exists, and they're all desperate to be a

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Speaker 1: part of it. It's their social currency now is being

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Speaker 1: on a social media app and being able to share

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Speaker 1: and receive their likes and comments in return. How do

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Speaker 1: we explain to thirteen, fourteen, fifteen year olds that we're

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Speaker 1: trying to exclude them from that, because that's how they

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Speaker 1: will feel is excluded from the party.

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Speaker 5: I think we also look at the opportunity we can

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Speaker 5: explain to them, the opportunity for the families to get together.

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Speaker 5: I think also we need to tell them clear of

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Speaker 5: the damage that's actually doing. You know, they're old enough

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Speaker 5: for these kids at the age of thirteen to be

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Speaker 5: able to empathize. You know, they can understand when there's

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Speaker 5: a sad story, and if you are to share the

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Speaker 5: harsh reality of social media with them, I think there's

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Speaker 5: a different conversation to be had there. I also know

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Speaker 5: and the research says that if you take the kids

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Speaker 5: aside one by one and you're able to say, hey,

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Speaker 5: this isn't a great thing. We're going to remove it.

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Speaker 5: They're okay, but collectively you're right. As a group, they

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Speaker 5: feel it's their currency and it's their below. So that

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Speaker 5: is one challenge. But I think if we were to

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Speaker 5: change the age from thirteen to sixteen, or that thirty

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Speaker 5: six months to give the kids back, we would be

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Speaker 5: able to not only educate them, we'd be able to say, hey, guys,

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Speaker 5: this isn't a good thing, and it hasn't been for

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Speaker 5: a very long time, and we'll be able to show

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Speaker 5: them what the damage has been. So I think that

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Speaker 5: would be the important point to make. Even if we're

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Speaker 5: able to make it illegal and the social platforms don't

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Speaker 5: come on board and they don't put in a two

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Speaker 5: factor verification, they don't want to play ball, at least

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Speaker 5: being able as a parent to say, guys, you don't

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Speaker 5: steal a car, you don't rob a bank, you don't

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Speaker 5: get on social media before you're sixteen because it's illegal.

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Speaker 1: What about those parents who say, like they've already got

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Speaker 1: enough on their plate without having to deal with arguing

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Speaker 1: with a fifteen year old about joining up to social media.

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Speaker 1: It's a real pressure that parents feel from kids and

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Speaker 1: sort of from a broader community perspective too, because if

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Speaker 1: Australia does this, it doesn't mean other countries are going

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Speaker 1: to going to be influences of that age who are

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Speaker 1: part of these children's worlds, telling them that being on

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Speaker 1: this app is the best thing for them. Parents are

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Speaker 1: going to struggle to make this actually happen if, as

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Speaker 1: you say, the social media platforms don't also come on board.

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Speaker 1: Are there going to be tools to help parents navigate this.

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Speaker 5: I think that's a really great point. And one thing

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Speaker 5: that we've seen already which is fantastic is parents' groups uniting.

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Speaker 5: You know, there was one mother I spoke to yesterday.

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Speaker 5: Sheena has five hundred people in a WhatsApp group. So

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Speaker 5: it's the ability of the parents bonding together to be

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Speaker 5: able to share the words and put their hand up

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Speaker 5: and say hey, as a family, we're not doing it,

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Speaker 5: which gives the other parents the power to say, well,

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Speaker 5: little Timmy's not doing it as well, because I've spoken

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Speaker 5: to his parents. But like the messaging we've been putting

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Speaker 5: across Clare, it's the idea of going, well, hang on

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Speaker 5: a minute, let's have thirty six months to get to

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Speaker 5: know yourself before the rest of the world does.

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Speaker 1: So you have a petition to make this happen, which

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Speaker 1: has already attracted ninety thousand signatures. Yeah, how do you

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Speaker 1: think that's going to go? Are there politicians who are

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Speaker 1: already backing it? Are there people who are going to

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Speaker 1: work with you to try and make this happen. How

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Speaker 1: do you think it's going to go?

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Speaker 5: Well, I know that it's a hot topic, and we

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Speaker 5: also know that the Prime Minister Albanezi, who's been on

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Speaker 5: our show, he has said something needs to change here.

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Speaker 5: He supports the idea that thirteen is far too young

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Speaker 5: to be on social media. So off the back of that,

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Speaker 5: we definitely take a bit of support in. You know,

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Speaker 5: we're going to be sitting down with the Peter Dutton

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Speaker 5: as well and saying is this something that you would consider?

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Speaker 5: We know there's an election coming in prior to May

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Speaker 5: next year. I think it is, so I like to

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Speaker 5: think that if we're here trying to win votes, Well,

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Speaker 5: I'll tell you what, there's a lot of parents that

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Speaker 5: would vote for you if you promise to pass this bill.

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Speaker 1: Have you reached out to the social media platforms themselves

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Speaker 1: to see how open they might be to changing this.

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Speaker 5: No, we haven't. What we have seen though, and there's

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Speaker 5: some great cases as examples of the US state by

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Speaker 5: state Florida most recently, as a few other countries around

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Speaker 5: the world. One of the states in the US has

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Speaker 5: gone to eighteen. But we feel also in that thirty

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Speaker 5: six months, that three years, we can also give some

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Speaker 5: great education around what we do, and we also see

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Speaker 5: that opportunity that's going to be what the battle is.

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Speaker 5: There's the tech front, so how's it actually going to work?

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Speaker 5: There's the e Safety Commissioner who understands and has the

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Speaker 5: relationships and the back and forth with the tech platforms.

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Speaker 5: And there is the political front. So if we can

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Speaker 5: combine all those three, I reckon we can hit them

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Speaker 5: pretty hard.

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Speaker 1: We mentioned the thirty six months thirteen to sixteen, YEA,

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Speaker 1: why is that window so important for them to be

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Speaker 1: not on social media? What's happening between thirteen and sixteen

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Speaker 1: that social media is interrupting.

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Speaker 5: It's the crucial years of development of the brain. And

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Speaker 5: it's also if you remember back to when you went

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Speaker 5: through Claire, I don't know, but it was for me.

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Speaker 5: It's that time where you're developing and it's a very

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Speaker 5: very vulnerable time. It's a very fragile time. So through

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Speaker 5: those years you're learning to understand emotions. Your decision making

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Speaker 5: can be a little bit off because your brain is

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Speaker 5: being rapidly and doesn't stop till about the age of twenty,

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Speaker 5: So that prefrontal cortex is where all those emotions and

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Speaker 5: decision making happen. So the research is that they're such

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Speaker 5: crucial times to get to know yourself and understand yourself.

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Speaker 5: So if you feel that and you take it away,

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Speaker 5: and let's not ignore the fact that your child is

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Speaker 5: the product. Without your child on the social media platform,

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Speaker 5: it wouldn't exist. So here they are selling your child's

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Speaker 5: attention and deciding what they're going to show. You wouldn't

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Speaker 5: let a stranger come into your house who said, Hey,

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Speaker 5: I'm going to show you kid all these things, but

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Speaker 5: I'm not going to tell you what they are. It's

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Speaker 5: absolutely no way you would. Why are we being bullied

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Speaker 5: into this as a country. I think we need to

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Speaker 5: be stronger than this.

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Speaker 1: Many of your comments to us around whether children can

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Speaker 1: be given phones and access to social media came down

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Speaker 1: to how you choose to parent your children, and at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, that will be the ultimate

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Speaker 1: deciding factor in how early kids get access to these things.

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Speaker 1: But if we restrict them by law, as we do,

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Speaker 1: say alcohol, driving, voting, and sex, will parents comply? And

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Speaker 1: even if they do, they'll need to stay tech savvy

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Speaker 1: enough to figure out if kids are hiding them better

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Speaker 1: than we can find them. You can have your say

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Speaker 1: on this, join the conversation on the Quickie, Instagram threads

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Speaker 1: and Facebook. Yes, we get the irony of asking you

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Speaker 1: to join us on social media to discuss the use

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Speaker 1: of social media. Thanks for listening today, friends, taking some

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Speaker 1: time to feed your mind. The Quickie is produced by

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Speaker 1: me Claire Murphy and our executive producer, Cali Rintle, with

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Speaker 1: audio production by Tom Lin