Social Media and Kids: Generations in Danger

[Stephen3141]

Christians need to be dealing with the problems caused by hours of
surfing entertainment sights, online, by kids.

We need a thread that collects many articles, on multiple issues, dealing
with the "electronic screen" generations, and the damage done by kids
living in little fake online worlds.

Note (already posted) that Australia has passed legislation bannning kids
under 16 years old from using social media.

But associated problems are ...

1 Degraded language skills
2 Degraded face-to-face social skills (this is hurting employment opportunities)
3 Degraded attention spans in kids
4 Recently, kids do not want to read books at all. This cuts them off from a huge
repository of knowledge. It takes away one of the major venues for kids to
discover what the great thoughts in human history have been.

American professional healthcare researchers have raised the alarm, for many
of these dangers. So far, America has not responded in legislation, except that
some schools have banned cell phones from the classroom.

https://apnews.com/article/australia-social-media-children-ban-online-safety-307d57916dbbc9cf0f56f47561fe3e8b

Australia has given a number of social media platforms a year to figure out how to
identify users under 16 years old, and ban them from their platforms.

Australia wants to ban kids from social media. Will it work?

The government has just tabled laws to block access to under-16s - but the proposal is divisive.

www.bbc.com

Some kids do not feel safe going to school, as they have received threats on
social media becasue of disagreements they have had with other students.
Australia is struggling with how to implement the ban. They plan to exempt
game sites. One problem is that in society, kids who are not on social media,
apparently have lost the concept of playing or spending time NOT being on
social media.

Snapchat banned, YouTube spared: More details about the government's social media ban for kids revealed

The government has introduced its bill to ban children and younger teenagers from social media to parliament, revealing some of the platforms that will be captured under the changes.

www.abc.net.au

"Parents lie awake at night worrying about what their kids are being exposed to on Snapchat, or TikTok, or Instagram," he said.
We've seen very disturbing mental health trends for Australian children — especially girls — over the past decade."
Apparently, YouTube may get an exemption from the ban, in Australia.
The example was given that you can go to YouTube, and find out how to change
the oil in your car.
My questions are...
"When was changing the oil in your car, ever taught in K12 anyway?"
"How many under 16 year old kids have to change the oil in their car?"

The societal discussion over how to regulate the negative effects of social
media sites, is made worse, as multiple generations of electronic screen generations
have lived addicted to their electronic screens. and now, parents do not read, and
do not teach their children to read. A multi-genertional change in cultre is needed.

 

[Stephen3141]

Test scores for 13-year-olds continue to plunge in math and reading, new data reveals

New data reveals that test scores among 13-year-olds have continued to plunge — with math down nine points and reading down four from 2019, before the pandemic, to the fall of 2022. NBC News’ Stephanie Gosk has more on what some experts call an “educational crisis” that’s spreading across all...

www.nbcnews.com

This is serious.
AND, it correlates with the loss of critical thinking skills and attention span
that is caused by constantly looking at electronic iPhone screens.

 

[Stephen3141]

Social media ban for under-16s passes Australian Senate, soon to be a world-first law

The Australian Parliament has passed a social media ban for young children in a world-first law

abcnews.go.com

There is a LOT of evidence from the CDC, that hours spent on social media by
underage kids, leads to all sorts of negative effects. This includes mental health
disorders, a lower level of language skills, a lesser ability to sympathize with REAL
people, and lowered social skills (in face-to-face encounters).

But, Australia is the first country in the world to effectively ban children under the
age of 16 from using social media platforms.

There are unresolved questions about how this should be done, and whom is
responsible for upholding the ban. Social media companies can be fined in
Australia for "systemic" failures to enforce the ban. (Many American K12
schools are already banning kids from using cell phones during school hours,
or at least in classes.)

Social media companies have historically objected that they do not have the
infrastructure or employees to carry out these bans. (This is a poor excuse.
If social media usage is as dangerous as the studies demonstrate, then the
ban should be put in place, even is it cuts into the profit of social media
companies.)


Curiously, in Australia, it is the gay/lesbian/trans activists who are objecting to
this ban. They don't seem to care about the disastrous effects of social media
on young kinds, and are focussing on social media being a meeting place where
"marginalized" groups can meet. (No doubt, Islamic terrorist groups would also
object to thissort of ban. It would cut into their recruitment tools....)
---------- ----------

For Christian parents, they should stop believing the conspiracy theories that
undercut the studies of the CDC, and keep their kids off social media. The
challenge for Christian parents, is again re-inventing venues for REAL socializing
and interaction (such as baseball and soccer leagues, and changing Christian
culture to set aside the fake cultures of online socializing.

I would like to see Christian congregations start regular study groups in the evening,
where kids would learn historical study skills, and reading, and language skills, and
formal logic, and real socializing.

For many younger parents, who were raised in the fake culture of electronic screens,
this will be a difficult change in culture.

 

[Bob Crowley]

But, Australia is the first country in the world to effectively ban children under the
age of 16 from using social media platforms.

I think it's a bit early to judge how effective the proposed legislation will be.

It hasn't started yet as far as I'm aware.

How Australia’s tough social media ban compares to laws in other countries

Laws will bar under-16s from accessing social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and X

www.theguardian.com

The laws, which will come into effect from late 2025, will bar under-16s from being able to access social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and X.

People can be quite creative when it comes to getting around bureaucratic hurdles. When it come to tax there's an entire industry devoted to avoiding it.

how much do tax evasion loopholes cost governments world wide? - Google Search

Tax havens collectively cost governments between $500 billion and $600 billion a year in lost corporate tax revenue, depending on the estimate (Crivelli, de Mooij, and Keen 2015; Cobham and Janský 2018), through legal and not-so-legal means.

 

[Stephen3141]

The Anxious Generation: How the Great... book by Jonathan Haidt

An award winning book, about the problem of kids growing up on
electronic screens.

 

[RileyG]

Praying for the protection of my young niece and nephews!

 

[jas3]

Sen. David Shoebridge, from the minority Greens party, said mental health experts agreed that the ban could dangerously isolate many children who used social media to find support.

“This policy will hurt vulnerable young people the most, especially in regional communities and especially the LGBTQI community, by cutting them off,” Shoebridge told the Senate.

Oh the irony. So much of the mental health issues caused by social media, including the dramatic rise in kids who are confused about sexuality, is driven by the ability to form "communities" or echo chambers with people who encourage one another in their destructive behavior and assure themselves that their ideas are normal, when normally these people would be encouraged by their actual, local communities toward healthy behavior.

Good on Australia for passing this. Hopefully other countries will follow suit.