Key Points
- Some Australian parents are uniting to restrict their kids' smartphone use and therefore access to social media.
- A media lecturer says young people today live out parts of their lives online.
- The Opposition has said it would raise the minimum age children could join social media in Australia to 16.
Ebony Hunt wants to build an alliance with other parents around a challenge most parents today will inevitably face: their children’s access to social media.
At three and six years of age, her daughters are not old enough to use Snapchat or ask for Instagram accounts but she hopes that, by forming a pact with other parents within her community, they will be able to delay their children’s uptake of social media.
Hunt, from Torquay in Victoria, is part of the smartphone-free childhood movement, which started in the United Kingdom and has since spread to Australia.
She placed a notice in her school newsletter this week encouraging others to join her to keep their children off social media and smartphones until some point in their teens.
"If you wait, then everybody in the class, just say in Grade Six, or going into Grade Seven, then most of the class will have a smartphone, and you won't be able to create that alliance or that island with parents in that class anymore — you’ll be too late," Hunt told SBS News.
Face-to-face social interactions over online
So, at which age would these children be permitted to use smartphones and social media?
Hunt said she envisions it being a group decision made by parents in the alliance, but she hopes her children do not have smartphones with access to social media until they are 18.
However, she said 14 would be a "good start" for an alliance and, if that age were chosen, she would see if her family could continue restricting access beyond that age.
Ebony Hunt wants her children to have opportunities to get bored and to be interested in what is happening around them, she hopes keeping them off social media will facilitate this. Source: Supplied
There are also concerns about online predators, unrealistic portrayals of everyday life, and mis and disinformation.
Hunt said she was not "against kids having phones completely" and understood her children would use technology for tasks such as accessing educational material, but she does not want them to have easy access to unfiltered content 24/7.
"Phones just make social media so unbelievably accessible, it's in your pocket," she said.
"Why would we want to expose them to the content on social media that they don't yet have the capacity to deal with?
"The algorithms are designed to keep you there for longer and longer. Even I fall victim to it as an adult, but I've had my childhood.
"I've had the chance to pursue my hobbies, work out who I am without an audience watching and assessing me, make mistakes without them being posted online, connect with friends and family without distraction."
She said she understood there would be challenges and that some of the families of her daughters' friends would do things differently.
"I'm just hoping to gain enough friends in an alliance who are holding out and value giving their children this real childhood that I'm speaking about."
Parents navigating their children's access together
Sydney father of five Dany Elachi formed Heads Up Alliance after speaking to other parents about the peer pressure his eldest daughter had felt to have a mobile phone in order to feel connected to her peers.
The group asks parents to make a commitment to delay smartphones and social media access for their children until the end of Year Eight.
"What we try to do is let parents know the truth behind the algorithms and that social media companies deliberately design their apps in a way to exploit the psychology of their children," he said.
Dany Elachi formed Heads Up Alliance after giving his eldest daughter a mobile phone, not wanting her to be the only one in her social group not to have one. Source: Supplied
"Everyone ultimately has their own choice," he said, but added that "it's important for other parents to know that a lot of parents are holding out."
"Just like what happened with my wife and I — we thought we were the only ones holding out and we felt a lot of pressure to conform, and we did initially give our daughter a phone," said, adding that this was a decision they later regretted.
Allowing children access to social media
Catherine Page Jeffery is a lecturer in media and communications at the University of Sydney and a mother of two.
She recognises there are risks associated with young people accessing social media, but believes in most cases it's unrealistic to try to hold children off from social media until 16.
"If parents really wanted to do it, and had a very compliant child, that might work, but then what is that child missing out on?
"What skills are they not given the opportunity to develop? How much resentment is your child going to have towards you? How much conflict is it going to create?" she said.
"If we're talking about minimising harm online, it should be about the continuing negotiation and discussion between parents and their children."
Many social media platforms have a minimum user age but little is done to verify the age of those creating accounts. Source: Getty / Picture Alliance / DPA
Her daughter had wanted to use the platform to socialise with friends already using it.
"There seems to be this assumption that the way that young people socialise through social media and online is somehow less authentic, that young people are losing valuable socialisation skills by doing things this way.
"Rather than adults trying to get young people to fit into adult conceptions about the right way of socialising or the right way of being in the world, I think adults and people in positions of authority need to try and do a better job of inserting themselves into young people's world and accepting that young people are simply living out parts of their lives online.
"It's no less authentic because it's mediated through the internet or through social media."
Page Jeffery admitted she had to lie about her daughter’s age to create the account, as users of the social media platform are meant to be at least 13 years old.
She said there were certain expectations around her daughter’s social media use.
"We talked about it. I follow her, she follows me, I can see exactly what she's doing and we're able to have conversations together and use social media together to actually learn how to use it beneficially."
Page Jeffery said she has open discussions with her daughter about the content she accesses online and topics such as pornography, body image, consumerism and healthy relationships to inform her social media usage.
She said while image-based abuse, grooming and bullying do exist online, research on other harms — such as the impact on self-esteem, brain development and attention span — was less conclusive.
"They may show some association between say, low self-esteem and social media use, but very rarely because it's very difficult to ... show any kind of causation
"So, we do need to remain fairly critical of these studies, which do purport to show significant harms."
She said that, as with anything, there was a need for balanced use of social media and placing limitations around access to devices with social media, while at the same time being realistic about these restrictions.
Communications and media lecturer Catherine Page Jeffery says there is often an assumption that young people socialising online is less authentic than how older generations have socialised. Source: Supplied / Bill Green
"So much of the discourse (in Australia) does focus on risk and harm, and I think we need a more nuanced conversation about this," Page Jeffery said.
"It's kind of going towards this idea that good parenting means protecting your children from screens, so it makes sense that parents are responding to that because parents want to do what's best for the children.
"The issue is the quality of the broader discourse around this issue."
Government considering role in regulating youth social media access
Mobile in all Australian states and territories.
The South Australian government is considering blocking children under 14 from opening social media accounts and last week the premiers of NSW, Queensland and Victoria launched a push to lift age minimums on platforms such as TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
A push to restrict social media access is also intensifying in federal parliament. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese referred to social media as a "scourge" on Thursday and said he is keen for bipartisan action on the issue.
Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the government was consulting about what the right age for social media access should be.
"We need the co-operation of the social media platforms ... we have to have social media platforms that are upholding Australian standards," Dreyfus said.
Opposition leader Peter Dutton said on Thursday sites such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok were profiting at the expense of young Australians. He has promised the minimum age for social media platforms will be increased to 16 if the Coalition wins the next federal election.
"Social media companies have let Australian families down because they don't enforce age limits," he said. "This is one of those issues where we can try and help protect kids online, try and help families and parents have the tools they need," he said.
Health Minister Mark Butler has said a potential age limit was still being worked out while a verification trial was completed.
"We've got to get the age right and we've got to get the technological implementation right," he said.
The federal government has committed $6.5 million to pilot "age assurance technologies" and part of a $43.2 million communications package will also be used to respond to "emerging and evolving online harms".
In May, the federal government announced an inquiry into the influence and impacts of social media on Australian society.
