Australia prime minister to introduce bill that would ban social media for under 16

Government overreach is never the answer, and I think social media is the devil.

This is basically an attempt to force people under 16 to only read government news propoganda rather than what they find on social media. (And to force people 16 and older to give away their ID in order to read something other than government news propoganda.)

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You get forbidden from merely going on Instagram at 15 years and 364 days, and people wonder why you're not financially dependent just 2 years and one day later?

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You know, I can honestly say I’ve never considered the link between Instagram access as a child and financial independence as a young adult.

It's part of a general coddling trend that Haidt used to discuss before he suddenly did this weird 180 on social media. You can't go around banning people from playing outside without an adult until about 16 years old, going on social media until 16 years old, etc., and then expect people to have financial independence at 18 years old.

Yet you are on it all day everyday..,,

I can deal with this.

As a school administrator that hates government overreach, this is so badly needed. The freshmen in high school aren’t mentally mature enough to handle what happens on social media platforms and it causes so many issues.

You’d be wrong.

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It's part of a general coddling trend that Haidt used to discuss before he suddenly did this weird 180 on social media. You can't go around banning people from playing outside without an adult until about 16 years old, going on social media until 16 years old, etc., and then expect people to have financial independence at 18 years old.

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There’s a lot to unpack here, not the least of which is the fact that people are entering the full-time labor force later in life due to education trends.

That being said - with respect to coddling, specifically, I think you’re placing far too much emphasis on the government’s role, and not nearly enough on the parents’ roles. And it’s not nearly as simple as saying more freedom for children = better.

To put it another way, I would argue that the reason kids aren’t prepared for adulthood is because their parents failed to prepare them. I don’t think the government should be dictating something like kids’ usage of social media, but I also don’t think a lack of freedom is really the problem.

In many ways, a government ban on social media usage by young kids is just a symptom of a larger problem - parents abdicating their responsibilities. Lots of parents, maybe even most, agree that social media is bad for kids. But few are willing to outright ban their kids from it, due to fear of the resulting stigma. The government, by banning social media for kids, is taking on the burden actually parenting instead of.. well, the parents.

That type of mentality among parents, in my opinion, is a huge part of why kids are unprepared for adulthood. But it’s not really about freedoms/restrictions. It’s about the philosophy of parenthood, and the efforts parents make to ensure their children have the right skills, knowledge, etc. to survive on their own.