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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just once answers Now. Today on

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Speaker 1: the Happy Families Podcast, Kylie and I are talking about

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Speaker 1: a topic that has been big news recently. Should we

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Speaker 1: ban social media for kids?

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Speaker 2: South Australian Premier Peter Malmanaskis says a band would help

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Speaker 2: young people improve their mental health. The excessive use of

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Speaker 2: social media with and of itself was actually doing harm

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Speaker 2: to our young people's mental health. And then we're seeing

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Speaker 2: a dramatic spike in childhood depression, childhood anxiety, and it's

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Speaker 2: must extreme end fort and evidence of youth suicide. And

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Speaker 2: I think we're sort of at the point now that

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Speaker 2: governments have to act.

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Speaker 3: A couple of weeks ago on the podcast, we talked

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Speaker 3: about the fact that the suf Australian government are looking

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Speaker 3: to make social media illegal for under fourteen year olds.

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Speaker 3: My question to you, Justin is can I actually do that?

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Speaker 3: Can I ban it?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? So what they want to not only make it

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Speaker 1: legal for under fourteen's, but even make it so that

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Speaker 1: you have to have parental permission for fourteen and fifteen

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Speaker 1: year olds to get hold of social media and a

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Speaker 1: lot of this momentum is as a result of the

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Speaker 1: book that I'm currently reading, Jonathan Heights, The Anxious Generation.

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Speaker 1: Short answer your question, can you ban social media? Yah,

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Speaker 1: of course you can. We ban all sorts of things.

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Speaker 1: We ban driving for kids under a certain age, We

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Speaker 1: ban alcohol for kids under a certain age, We ban

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Speaker 1: all sorts of illicit substances for people of all ages.

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Speaker 1: We ban gambling. So it's not a big deal really

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Speaker 1: to put an age gate or an age restriction on

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Speaker 1: whatever we want. It's entirely reasonable to do that.

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Speaker 3: You talk about putting an age gate on driving, for instance,

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Speaker 3: or gambling or alcohol and drug use, those to me

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Speaker 3: seem a little bit easier to mandate because you've actually

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Speaker 3: got to go to a shop front to do that,

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Speaker 3: or you're behind a wheels very visual, whereas social media,

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Speaker 3: to me is something that happens, you know, kind of

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Speaker 3: can happen anywhere and in the privacy of your own home.

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Speaker 3: How do you go about banning something like that.

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Speaker 1: So in the early days, with alcohol, with driving, with

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Speaker 1: all the things that we're talking about, anybody could do it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, when cars were first invented, there was no

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Speaker 1: such thing as having a driver's license, you could put

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Speaker 1: kids behind the wheel of a car. The genie is

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Speaker 1: out of the bottle, twothpaste out of the tube. Really

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Speaker 1: hard to get it back in with something like social

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Speaker 1: media because it is so pervasive. But even with alcohol,

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Speaker 1: I mean in the eighteen hundreds and even to the

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Speaker 1: nineteen hundreds, it was not uncommon at all. In fact,

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Speaker 1: it was pretty normal practice for kids to be given

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Speaker 1: alcohol by their parents because it was cleaner and safer

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Speaker 1: than the water that they were drinking. Often when kids

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Speaker 1: are going to lie, people even today get around all

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Speaker 1: the laws that we've just mentioned. But by legislating, what

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Speaker 1: we do is we save pain and we reduce damage.

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Speaker 1: That's almost guaranteed. The whole idea here is it's like

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Speaker 1: seat belt walls. Everyone said, oh, you can't make us compulsory,

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Speaker 1: Like it's silly to make people wear seatbelts. Nobody wears them.

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Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to enforce it. Enforcement

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Speaker 1: will be a big problem. Going to talk about that shortly,

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Speaker 1: But ultimately they made the laws, and what it did

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Speaker 1: is it changed the norm, It changed the expectation, and

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Speaker 1: overwhelmingly people got in line with the law. That's the

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Speaker 1: critical thing.

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Speaker 3: So I don't actually know when the seat belt laws

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Speaker 3: came in, but I have vivid memories of being a

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Speaker 3: youngster and my mum and dad setting up the boot

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Speaker 3: of the station wagon lack a bed so me and

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Speaker 3: my sisters while we traveled. The thought of it today

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Speaker 3: is absolutely mortifying.

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Speaker 1: So just on that, I mean, you were born in

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Speaker 1: the late nineteen seventies. Front seat belts in cars in

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Speaker 1: Australia nineteen sixty nine compulsory became legal then, and for

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Speaker 1: seat belts in the back seat nineteen seventy one, so

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Speaker 1: that was the law in Australia. You're in New Zealander

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Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five it became a legal requirement for

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Speaker 1: all cars to have a front seat belt. It wasn't

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Speaker 1: until nineteen seventy five that you had to wear them,

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Speaker 1: and by nineteen seventy nine it was front and back.

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Speaker 1: Anyone who grew up in that era knows that even

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Speaker 1: though the legislation was there, there was a lot of

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Speaker 1: flouting of the laws. A lot of people did not

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Speaker 1: wear seatbelts even into the nineteen eighties. It took a

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Speaker 1: while for the legislation to grab hold, but eventually it did.

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Speaker 1: It reach critical mass and people bought into it. If

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Speaker 1: South Australia works out a way to legislate, it's not

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Speaker 1: going to be an overnight success. It's going to take

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Speaker 1: a while for generations to move through, try new things

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Speaker 1: and figure out how to do it.

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Speaker 3: Do you know how they'll do it? Like, how will

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Speaker 3: they go about this?

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Speaker 1: So there's a halfl of states over in the US, Utah, Arkansas,

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Speaker 1: they're both passed laws. I believe that Florida also has

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Speaker 1: moved in that direction. Overt bans blocking kids under a

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Speaker 1: certain age from being able to use any social media

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Speaker 1: at all. And they're basically laws that mandate the platforms

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Speaker 1: have to use age verification, age gating before they'll allow

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Speaker 1: access to the platform.

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Speaker 3: But isn't that just a question where it says are

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Speaker 3: you over eighteen, for instance, and you say yes, yeah.

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Speaker 1: Probably mean we've got a couple of issues here. The

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Speaker 1: ability for social media platforms to do this well is very,

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Speaker 1: very limited. We know that from explicit content and how

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Speaker 1: easy it is for kids who access that A couple

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Speaker 1: of things to consider when it comes to even the

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Speaker 1: usefulness of this sort of a law. We're making a

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Speaker 1: law because there's a belief that mental health problems in

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Speaker 1: our young people are because of happening due to the

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Speaker 1: social media title wave that has ripped through the entire

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Speaker 1: world over the last decade or so. If that is true,

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Speaker 1: then this is a really good, really important change. If

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Speaker 1: it's not, then there's not going to be any improvement

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Speaker 1: in mental health. So that's the first thing. Second thing

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Speaker 1: I mentioned it already is enforcement. So I think that

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Speaker 1: we should take a look at them one at a time.

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Speaker 1: It's a really convoluted scientific issue. Do you remember hearing

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Speaker 1: the story about how long it took for people to

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Speaker 1: recognize that smoking causes lun cancer.

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Speaker 3: I don't think so.

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Speaker 1: So legitimately it took decades. It took absolute decades. There

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Speaker 1: were people who were screen from the top of their

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Speaker 1: carcinogenic lungs. Smoking is killing me. Smoking is the reason

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Speaker 1: that I have lung cancer. But it took decades for

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Speaker 1: really high quality science to be done and to be

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Speaker 1: accepted at a point where governments started to say, okay,

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Speaker 1: we now have enough evidence that we can step in

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Speaker 1: and say smoking is causing lung cancer. For a long

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Speaker 1: time earlier, a long time prior to that, people were

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Speaker 1: saying I was doing it, but they needed the evidence

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Speaker 1: for it, and evidence takes Science is a slow process,

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Speaker 1: it's really challenging. Same process. Same principle applies here when

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Speaker 1: it comes to social media. If you have a look

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Speaker 1: at Jonathan Hate's book The Anxious Generation, which I said

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Speaker 1: I'm reading at the moment, most of the studies it

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Speaker 1: is drawing on to provide this conclusion that social media

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Speaker 1: is at the heart of our well being woes. Most

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Speaker 1: of that science is based on underpowered and weak and

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Speaker 1: poorly designed studies. And most of those studies, if not

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Speaker 1: all of them, failed to reach what I would consider

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Speaker 1: to be the appropriate standard to make the claims that

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Hate is making. Now this is a concern, and

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Speaker 1: there are people on the other side of the world

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Speaker 1: like Amy Auben and Andrew Shabulski who's at the Oxford

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Speaker 1: Internet Institute, Oxford University, who have looked at similar data

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Speaker 1: and basically said, well, John Hayte and Gene Twangy, who

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Speaker 1: is one of his collaborators, they're doing their stats wrong.

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Speaker 1: They're not asking the right questions, They're asking the wrong

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Speaker 1: questions of the numbers. And Andy Shabolski and Amy Auben

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Speaker 1: have literally and quite famously said the amount of social

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Speaker 1: media you consume has the equivalent impact on your well

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Speaker 1: being as the number of potatoes you eat each week.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a really provocative. It's a very very

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Speaker 1: provocative thing to say. I've got a different position. My

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Speaker 1: position is this, and both Andy Shabolski I've spoken with

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Speaker 1: him for hours at a conference last year, and Gene Twangy,

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Speaker 1: who I've spoken with on the Happy Families podcast and

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Speaker 1: in one of our summits, both of them reject my idea.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know whether this is right or not

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Speaker 1: because they're pushing back against it. But here's how I'm

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Speaker 1: seeing it. I'm arguing that social media is not actually

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Speaker 1: the issue because loads of people use social media and

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Speaker 1: really healthy and fun ways. I'm looking at you. You've

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Speaker 1: just discovered Snapchat. You've just discovered Snapchat, and it's taken

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Speaker 1: over your life and it's brought you so much joy.

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Speaker 1: But it's also built so many wonderful relationship moments. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's just been so funny built. I want one word, filters. Filters.

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Speaker 1: But you love Marco Polo, and you love Messenger, and

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Speaker 1: you love Instagram and all those things you use them

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Speaker 1: in really productive and adaptive ways, healthy ways, usually to

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Speaker 1: build relationships in really meaningful and important ways. It's enhancing,

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Speaker 1: elevating connection. It's what social media at its very best

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Speaker 1: is supposed to do. The issue, of course, is that

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Speaker 1: some people are totally feral. Some people. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if I should say that on the podcast, but some

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Speaker 1: people are feral, Like I'm just saying it. Some people

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Speaker 1: have addictive personalities. For me, social media is an unhappiness machine.

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Speaker 3: I've actually been talking to quite a few different people

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Speaker 3: about the way they use social media. I choose to

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Speaker 3: literally I don't engage with the comments. Often more times

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Speaker 3: than not, I don't even comment myself.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: I literally follow the people who uplift and bring joy

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Speaker 3: and light into my life, and I'm interested in their content,

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Speaker 3: not what everyone else's opinion is around their content. And

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Speaker 3: it just makes such a difference.

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Speaker 1: So you're using it differently to me, though, I'm pretty

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Speaker 1: much on their ea for consumption or to share stuff.

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Speaker 1: And then I get caught up in conversations with people

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Speaker 1: who disagree with me because the mob. No matter what

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Speaker 1: you say on social media, somebody will hate you for it. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I can't help it get pulled into it, and

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Speaker 1: it is for me this tremendous unhappiness machine, and for kids,

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Speaker 1: especially kids who are struggling. We've got whistleblowers who have

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Speaker 1: told us that there are bad actors. There's the intentionality

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Speaker 1: of the algorithm, which is designed to grab attention and

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Speaker 1: keep it. There's the privacy issues, the security concerns. Such

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Speaker 1: a horrible list just goes on and on and on.

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Speaker 1: I can't use it and feel improved by it. It

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Speaker 1: interferes with productivity, which is a predicta of well being.

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Speaker 1: It interface with relations ships both in person and online,

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Speaker 1: and if it's with sleep, physical activity, long, long, long list. Overall,

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Speaker 1: in spite of the way that you get the goodness

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Speaker 1: out of it, it's not in thatt positive on the world.

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Speaker 1: It's a really really ugly reality for far too many, way, way, way, way,

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Speaker 1: way too many people. So all of that is to

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Speaker 1: say research isn't giving us a clear answer yet, but

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Speaker 1: experience is, and I think that the governments are right

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Speaker 1: to be finally cracking down even though the science isn't

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Speaker 1: there yet. I guess time will tell.

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Speaker 3: So you've acknowledged that the research is limited and quite

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Speaker 3: weak at this point. But the second issue you acknowledged

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Speaker 3: was enforcement of it.

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Speaker 1: How do you polase it? Yeah, yep. This is my

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Speaker 1: big question. What's the government going to be able to

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Speaker 1: do to enforce the law and hold the platforms accountable. See,

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Speaker 1: you can tell whether somebody is wearing a seatbelt or not.

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Speaker 1: You can tell whether there's a fifteen year old sitting

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Speaker 1: in the park and drinking a schooner or a long

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Speaker 1: neck or not. But at the moment, X formerly known

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Speaker 1: as TWAS, I don't how much longer we're going to

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Speaker 1: have to keep on saying forming on Twitter. Everyone knows

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Speaker 1: that exits for is Twitter, but we still have to

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Speaker 1: say it. X is completely ignoring the Safety Commissioner on

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Speaker 1: a handful of things and challenging fines and other things

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Speaker 1: in court, basically saying that the Australian Government has no

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Speaker 1: say on what happens on that platform. So the government

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Speaker 1: is essentially weak. It's quite impotent here. It can't enforce

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Speaker 1: so many laws that we already have, and if they do,

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Speaker 1: it's really a lottery on whether or not you get caught.

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Speaker 1: I don't see enforcement working and kids will get around

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Speaker 1: it if they want to, which means that it's the

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Speaker 1: government's got good intentions here, I think, but I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure that it's workable.

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Speaker 3: So, based on everything you're saying, is change even possible?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. I want it to be. I'm

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Speaker 1: on the side of those who are saying let's move

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Speaker 1: the needle here. I'm not begond censorship. I think people

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Speaker 1: should be able to do and say what they want.

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Speaker 1: But I also am really big on developmentally appropriate opportunity,

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Speaker 1: and our kids don't need this. It's not a developmentally

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Speaker 1: appropriate system or platforms social media generally, it's just not

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Speaker 1: appropriate for them. Here's what I know. Accountability is good,

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Speaker 1: Accountability is essential, and what the government wants to do

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Speaker 1: is good. But today it's absolutely, unquestionably lacking. And primarily

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Speaker 1: that's because in Australia, where we're quite helpless, the US

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Speaker 1: Congress holds all the power here. The States, even in

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Speaker 1: America they're quite limited, but the US Congress, they have power.

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Speaker 1: Here in Australia, we've got almost no power at all.

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Speaker 1: What we know historically is that there's been forty Congressional

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Speaker 1: hearings where tech titans have shown up and answered the

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Speaker 1: Congress for the way they are or are not implementing

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Speaker 1: safety measures and things that are supposed to keep our

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Speaker 1: kids safe online. So far, after forty hearings, there has

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Speaker 1: not been a single law passed. Because of the fecklessness

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Speaker 1: of politicians, the mendacity, the incredible dishgnaesty of the CEOs.

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Speaker 1: In spite of the whistleblowers, In spite of all the

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Speaker 1: suicides and all the deaths and all the tragedy and

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Speaker 1: the information that we have about how badly this is going,

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Speaker 1: something does need to happen. Change is necessary. Legislation will

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Speaker 1: certainly help over time, but I don't think it's enough,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think that it's really going to be

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Speaker 1: what we need in the here and now.

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Speaker 3: Well, this is a really cool seque because I think

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Speaker 3: you're about to start what your hope becomes a bit

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Speaker 3: of a movement to change.

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Speaker 1: I am, and this podcast is not about that movement.

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Speaker 1: Because the movement's coming up, we'll let people know about it,

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Speaker 1: but this conversation does lean in that direction. So basically,

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Speaker 1: with my team and with some wonderful, wonderful colleagues from

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Speaker 1: right around the country, a halful of people who have said, yes,

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Speaker 1: we're with you on this, we're going to try and

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Speaker 1: speak to as many primary schools and as many primary

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Speaker 1: school parents across the country as we can. And we've

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Speaker 1: got four key messages for an unplugged childhood because I

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Speaker 1: do believe, just like smoking, that eventually the social media

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Speaker 1: science will catch up and point in the direction of

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Speaker 1: harm being caused. So the four messages, the four key

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Speaker 1: messages for an unpluged childhood. Number one delay just delay delay, delay,

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Speaker 1: delay delay. Commit absolutely commit to keeping smartphones and social

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Speaker 1: media out of primary school. I'm not worrying about high school.

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Speaker 1: In some ways, it's a bit too late, right like

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Speaker 1: that generation, It's just it's too late. We've got to

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Speaker 1: start somewhere. I think where we need to start is

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Speaker 1: with our primary school is. We've got to get it

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Speaker 1: right there. We can get critical mass in primary school.

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Speaker 1: I don't think we can do it in high school

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Speaker 1: right now. But if we can give our kids a

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Speaker 1: play based childhood because we've delayed and kept smartphones on

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Speaker 1: social media out of primary school, we're already on track

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Speaker 1: for a positive future. The second thing is boundaries. So

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Speaker 1: when your kids get their first smartphone, they're probably going

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Speaker 1: to agree to pretty much any conditions because they're really, really,

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Speaker 1: really craving it, so we need to have rules around it.

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Speaker 1: No phones in bedrooms, no phones in bathrooms, no phones

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Speaker 1: overnight anywhere near you, tech free zones, tech free times.

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Speaker 1: We should be allowed to check your phone sporadically because

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Speaker 1: we're your parents and we care about you. I think also,

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Speaker 1: kids don't need smartphones, they need smart parents, and smart

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Speaker 1: parents give their kids dumb phones. That's got to be

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Speaker 1: the approach. Number three, Build a community. Kids don't want

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Speaker 1: to be socially isolated, and if they're the one's doing

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Speaker 1: it on their own, it's not fair to them, which

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Speaker 1: is why we're in the situation we're in. But if

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Speaker 1: we can with everyone else in our parent group and

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Speaker 1: our class group and our WhatsApp group, if we can

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Speaker 1: build a community right now with other parents who all

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Speaker 1: wanted to delay giving smartphones to their kids until at

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Speaker 1: least the age of fourteen, and then we stick together

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Speaker 1: because it takes a village. It makes it much easier

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Speaker 1: for the kids, like it's so vital. And last of all,

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Speaker 1: go slow, just slow it down. Have the conversations with

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Speaker 1: your kids in primary school about how we don't want them,

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Speaker 1: we don't want them on these social media platforms. Until

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Speaker 1: they're at least sixteen. I think that should be our aim,

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Speaker 1: maybe even older, help them to know that they can

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Speaker 1: navigate the world without it. Ultimately, we can wait for

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Speaker 1: the government, but it's really costly and I think as

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Speaker 1: parents we need to move on this way sooner. So

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Speaker 1: watch out for that the socials the newsletter. Subscribe if

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Speaker 1: you haven't subscribed the Happy Families Newsletter. More information coming

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Speaker 1: up on that soon.

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Speaker 3: Well, it sounds like this is going to be something

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Speaker 3: to look forward to.

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Speaker 1: Watch this space. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by

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Speaker 1: Justin Ruhlan for Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer.

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Speaker 1: If you like more information about the stuff we've talked about,

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Speaker 1: subscribe to the Happy Famili's newsletter. We'll let you know

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Speaker 1: all about it as soon as we can. Happy families

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Speaker 1: dot com dot a