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Speaker 1: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, they're all notice. If they don't clear

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Speaker 1: out the kids, they're looking at fines of fifty million dollars.

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Speaker 1: Aut Communication Studies academic Patrick Ozma joins me. Now, Hali, Patrick,

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Speaker 1: Hi there, how are you? How would this? How do

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Speaker 1: you think this is going down? Because I've played some

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Speaker 1: kids and I just played elbow talking about the whole thing,

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Speaker 1: and the whole thing feels like, ah, yes, kids, you're

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Speaker 1: misbehaving and just go out there and have a run.

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Speaker 1: And I feel, you know, it's not going to be

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Speaker 1: popular amongst a whole generation.

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Speaker 2: It's not that turkeys don't vote for Christmas, so to

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Speaker 2: you imagine that most young people are very much into

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Speaker 2: social media, many of them, dare I say, we throw

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Speaker 2: this word around easily addicted, but my research actually tells

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Speaker 2: us that some of them might be quietly welcoming it.

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Speaker 2: I did some research last year with some high school students,

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Speaker 2: and you know, one of the things they are is

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Speaker 2: actually terrified of making the first move when it comes

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Speaker 2: to real life. They actually do want to socialize. The

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Speaker 2: prevalence of social media has potentially eroded those skills. And

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Speaker 2: no one's saying that all social media use is harmful.

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Speaker 2: And the way I try to divine it up is

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Speaker 2: we consume social media, we create social media, we connect,

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Speaker 2: and we act on what we see and most harmful

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Speaker 2: part is the most popular. So the passive scrolling, the

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Speaker 2: consuming social media has very well documented harms. I don't

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Speaker 2: think it's really.

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Speaker 1: I agree, but Patrick, we all live in the world,

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Speaker 1: and I totally agree. And I would actually have to say,

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Speaker 1: if you're worried about scrolling, you should actually stop the

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Speaker 1: old people doing it as well, because I've just seen

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Speaker 1: so many old people who are going, look at this, Barbara,

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Speaker 1: it's like a television station. He look as Jimmy Kerr. Look,

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Speaker 1: Jimmy Kerrer is talking on there's an oh love. That's

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Speaker 1: an amazing picture of something blowing up and not well.

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Speaker 1: And you look at old people and they're scrolling as well.

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Speaker 2: Well, that's the good you know, that's the good role modeling. Right,

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Speaker 2: If you're going to be a parent that tells your

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Speaker 2: kid to get off social media, then you need to

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Speaker 2: do the same thing, not for getting thirteen to fifteen

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Speaker 2: year olds have very different, not as advanced cognitive skills,

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Speaker 2: and if we can change law, it might mean that

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Speaker 2: the culture kind of follows because sometimes you know, changing

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Speaker 2: the law and lock of cultural change, the Marriage Amendment Act,

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Speaker 2: you know, and this is also don't forget, this isn't

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Speaker 2: a ban, This is a delay always saying it's people

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Speaker 2: under a certain age. So we're not saying young people

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Speaker 2: can never ever use social media. It's a bit like

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Speaker 2: alcohol or tobacco or drive.

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Speaker 1: How yeah, I get this, I get this. How how

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Speaker 1: how compliant and how behind it other organizations that that

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Speaker 1: actually provide the platforms, because I know that they've been

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Speaker 1: slowly sort of briefing everybody. You know, this is going

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Speaker 1: to happen from this day and if you're under sixteen,

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Speaker 1: you're going to have to stop watching the old TikTok.

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Speaker 1: So are they behind this or are they going to

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Speaker 1: try and look for loopholes and look, you.

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Speaker 2: Know, yeah, enforcement is going to be really really difficult.

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Speaker 2: Imagine that the amount of advertising revenue that they're about

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Speaker 2: to lose. So they're already releasing things like jupe apps.

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Speaker 2: There will be ways that young people get around it.

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Speaker 2: You can get VPNs fake accounts. But it's going to

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Speaker 2: help both teachers, parents and other people to kind of

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Speaker 2: combat the and if you heard of the idea of

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Speaker 2: the broccoli argument. So if you're a parent, you might

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Speaker 2: tell your you might tell your kids how many times

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Speaker 2: a week to eat their broccoli. You might get to

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Speaker 2: say that three or four times a day. But social

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Speaker 2: media can expose young people to advertising messages thousands of

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Speaker 2: times a week. So rather than it being a persuasing

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Speaker 2: game persuading my young person to do something, or teachers

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Speaker 2: having to monitor it, they can just say, look, this

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Speaker 2: is actually the law now, so it makes easier. But no,

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Speaker 2: of course, the social media platforms are very invested in

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Speaker 2: not losing this audience. They'll try and find ways around it.

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Speaker 2: But it is a line in the sand, and you know,

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Speaker 2: there's never going to be a silver bullet, right, We're

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Speaker 2: never going to solve these problems overnight. It's a really subtle,

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Speaker 2: nuanced problem.

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Speaker 1: Patrick, communications studies from academic. You're quite good at talking.

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Speaker 1: And so we're now late, and I thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for your time today.

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