As a mother of three screen addicts, I was very happy when Australia rolled out its social media ban for users under 16. In fact, I was so excited that I started a “Take Back Control” WhatsApp group with parents of my kids’ friends, lobbying them to coordinate our own social media ban. (My kids were mortified.)
My experiment failed. And Australia’s isn’t going great, either. As concern about children’s use of social media grows and more countries mull their own restrictions — Britain and Canada were the latest to announce bans — their effectiveness is in question. Today, my colleague Victoria Kim in Australia reports from the front line of social media regulation.
Over the past six months, the government of Australia has learned what most parents already know — it’s tough getting between teenagers and anything they desperately want.
In December, Australia became the first country to ban children under 16 from some of the world’s most popular social media apps. Governments, researchers and — perhaps most of all — concerned parents around the globe have been watching the experiment with keen interest. The effects of social media on developing brains have become a major concern for parents and educators worldwide. A number of other countries are following Australia’s lead.
Six months in, though, the law is far from a resounding success. It’s still early. But about seven in 10 parents say teens aged 13 to 15 who were on the social media platforms before the ban were either never kicked off or managed to create new accounts, according to the Australian regulator in charge of implementing the law. Teenagers talk cavalierly about how easily they’ve been able to get around age prompts. (One method: Drawing mustaches on their faces for age verification photos.)
Those who seem most crestfallen are the parents who, by their own accounts, were the “evil nasty mom” or the “psycho mom” — the strict ones who locked up phones overnight, or who took them away after school. Many of these parents told me they’d hoped the ban would ease some of the peer pressure their children feel to be on these apps by ensuring their friends weren’t on them either.
But little seems to have changed. “The kids all laugh about it, ‘What a joke, we haven’t been taken off anything,’” Lauren Hillier, 42, told me. Her 13-year-old son is still on Instagram, her 15-year-old stepdaughter is still on Snapchat and Lauren is still stuck being the bad guy.
The law versus determined teens
Australia’s law was supposed to turn the whole country into an alliance, Dany Elachi, a father of five in Sydney, told me. Parents who wanted to hold off on giving their children phones could find strength in numbers.
But the technological barriers put up by platforms like TikTok and YouTube — which are supposed to verify users’ ages, under the law — have been far from foolproof. The result is that the law hasn’t changed the behavior of enough teens to reach a critical mass, and the overwhelming, timeless teenage desire to do what their friends are doing continues to keep young people hooked on the various apps from which they’ve supposedly been banned.
Parents say they suspect the companies have the technological prowess to do much more, but are choosing not to. Australia’s regulator in charge of implementing the law says it has opened investigations into Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube — five of the 10 services covered by the new regulations — and that it will decide on enforcement actions soon. Under the law, companies can face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars, or about $35 million, for not doing enough to bar users under 16 from holding accounts.
Still, Elachi, who founded a group called the Heads Up Alliance for parents who want to keep their children off smartphones, told me it’s become clear that the law is just “one piece of the puzzle to keep the next generation of kids from addiction.” Parents, for now at least, still have to be the gatekeepers.
Hope for the younger ones?
Despite a lackluster start, some parents are holding out hope that the law’s real benefits will be for kids who are younger than the current batch of 13- to 15-year-olds who have been the focal point of the ban’s rollout.
The next cohort could enter their teens with different legal and social norms around the appropriate age for social media use. And, over time, a sufficient number could come to eschew social media, like an earlier generation came to shun smoking — or, at least, that’s what some Australian parents are hoping.
For now, one mother with a 12-year-old told me the law had helped her hold the line in their household battle of wills, despite her son’s daily requests to download TikTok.
Another has even put up a financial reward: 2,000 Australian dollars, or about $1,400, if her 12-year-old can stay off social media until his 18th birthday. She’s also trying her hand at a bit of social engineering by attempting to nurture friendships with families that share similar values when it comes to smartphones, and by encouraging hobbies that don’t involve screens.
It’ll be a long few years ahead, but hopefully the law means it’ll become easier and easier for teens to eschew social media, another mother of two boys, Bec Barton, told me.
What’s in the Iran deal
A senior U.S. official disclosed the text of the preliminary agreement between the United States and Iran to cease hostilities, open the Strait of Hormuz and start nuclear talks. The official read the text out loud on a conference call with reporters.
The 14-point agreement that is expected to be signed in Switzerland on Friday says that Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon and calls for a $300 billion plan for Iran’s reconstruction. The U.S. and Iran declare the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon,” it says. Here’s what else is in the text.
At the Group of 7 summit in France, President Trump said the U.S. would sign the deal but he warned, “We’re going to bomb the hell out of them if they violate the agreement.”
Israel: The Channel 14 TV station, which supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is openly attacking Trump over the Iran deal.
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