Banning children under the age of 16 from social media seems like an attractive idea. For parents worried about their children’s lives in the digital age, this move by the Australian government may seem like a relief.
However, the evidence suggests that there is little chance that restrictions will have a positive impact on the youth mental health crisis in this country. In fact, restrictions may make our children even more vulnerable online.
Children and young people go online primarily to socialise with their peers. Online spaces are one of the few ways for our busy children to communicate openly with each other, which is vital for their wellbeing.
Not only safe, but also optimal
Security by design is not the whole solution. Building on efforts to develop industry codes, industry and government should work together to develop comprehensive standards that are not only secure, but also Optimum Digital Environments for Children.
How? High-quality, child-focused evidence can help major platforms develop industry-wide standards that define what types of content are appropriate for children of different ages.
We also need targeted education for children that builds their digital capabilities and prepares them to cope and thrive in online engagement.
For example, rather than education that focuses on extreme harms, children are demanding online safety education in schools and elsewhere that helps them manage the low-level, everyday risks of harm online: such as conflicts with friends, inappropriate content or feeling excluded.
Focus on the evidence
Some official, evidence-based guidance already exists. It tells us how to make sure children can minimise the potential harms and maximise the benefits of the digital environment.
Where evidence doesn’t yet exist, we need to invest in child-centred research. This is the best way to gain nuanced insights into children’s digital practices and can guide a coherent and strategic long-term approach to policy and practice.
Drawing lessons from the COVID pandemic, we also need to better align evidence with decision-making processes. This means accelerating high-quality, robust research processes or finding ways for research to better anticipate emerging challenges and generate evidence. This way, governments can assess the benefits and harms of particular policy actions.
Technology is not beyond our control. Rather, we must decide together what role we want technology to play in childhood.
We need to move beyond a protectionist approach and work with children to create the best digital environment we can imagine. Doing so does not put the future at risk.
Amanda Third, Co-Director, Young and Resilient Research Centre/Professorial Research Fellow, Institute for Culture and Society, Western Sydney University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
