EDITORIAL- Social media and the young

Australian legislators are now mulling banning people under 16 years old from accessing various forms of social media like X, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram.

The proposal, which is gaining popularity there, is meant to protect children from the dangers of social media such as child predators and other online criminals, as well as to address impairments like digital addiction among the young.

Perhaps we should consider coming up with a similar law here.

Yes, there are criminals lurking online for victims and, yes, many people here have become victims of them.

Digital addiction is also real and isn’t really seen here as something as impactful or destructive as the dependency on drugs, nicotine, or alcohol. Kids and young people these days are so absorbed in their cellphones and gadgets that they cannot put them down. Not even while they’re eating, not even while they’re talking to others, not even while they’re commuting, heck, not even while they’re walking.

Prolonged exposure to social media at such a young and impressionable age has resulted in kids who cannot concentrate, who have short attention spans, and who have misplaced priorities. They cannot even socially interact properly with others or form lasting bonds with actual people in their everyday lives. Some cannot even maintain proper eye contact when talking with people, eyes glued to their phone if not somewhere else.

Don’t get us wrong here, we aren’t saying that social media is bad outright and that we should never let our kids near it. In this day and age it has its practical uses, even for the adults who grew up without it. It’s the fastest way to share information, and the quickest way to reach out to someone on the other side of the world. Social media has replaced what we call the grapevine, for better or for worse.

But perhaps we should let our kids develop strong characters first before letting them access social media, that way they grow up knowing how to deal with reality first and the digital world second. That way they can cope with today’s anxieties and unique difficulties better.

That way they do not build their entire world around something as inconsequential to real life as social media is.