Banning social media
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Australia bans social media for children under 16.
Although I think it's a very good thing that children (and dare I say, adults) get off social media, I worry about the heavy handedness of bans. But maybe that's what it will take? Personally, I wish the world would just dump all their cell phones, to tell the truth. (I had to enter 10 zeros in a cell phone field when making a covid vaccine appointment a few weeks ago because the number was mandatory!) It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Who knows, maybe in a year from now young Australians will be grateful. Or not.
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I've been following this, too. Krugman had a piece on Substack today about it.
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It's only been two days, so polling so soon seems a bit ridiculous. But anyway, there are some interesting responses.
The one comment that stood out to me:
They (and I) would rather see regulation of the social media companies than the children.
Yeah, this. I think it's a shame that they had to include Youtube in the mix. There is so much really, really good stuff on YT. IMO, YT should be responsible for ensuring a safe platform so that everyone can enjoy its real benefits. I can't comment on snapchat or instagram because I've never used them. It seems to be 'profits at all costs' for these companies. If they'd taken their responsibility seriously to begin with, perhaps a ban would never have been necessary.
