Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Isolating Kids With Disabilities—Just Like Critics Warned

Comments

• Korkki@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  The real issue is that most social media is for-profit addiction machine breeding more and more anti-social behavior, not that kids have access to it. This is just a another example that liberals are incapable of seeing any ill in rampant capitalism or much less intervene in it’s mechanism for the common good. Everything is framed around profit seeking bringing out the greatest good and individuals choice. They are very at a loss when having to to do any systemic analysis why social-media has ill effects on social fabric. The best they can come up is that kids are not yet fully formed adults able to do the right choice, so they must be guided.

  source

  • MagicShel@lemmy.zip ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yeah. I’m pretty sure for profit social media isn’t good for anyone. Adults shouldn’t use it either. But we decided long ago that you can’t stop adults from drinking or smoking weed, so adults are just mature enough to handle it or approach lies and manipulation with more skepticism, but I look around and see it’s not true.

    I feel like at least things like Lemmy and Mastodon are much easier to filter or walk away from when you aren’t in the right emotional space.

    source

    • Uebercomplicated@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Because lemmy and mastodon don’t have manipulative algorithms! Maybe we should just outlaw those? /showerthoughts

      source
• FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Seeing as how the linked article is an editorial, I took a look at the link from the Guardian.

  And it’s all people saying how it’s more difficult to talk to their friends now. But how? You still have a phone that dials numbers. Your parents, presumably, have the ability to access social media and obtain any numbers you need.

  The last line reiterates how, while this is ultimately a parental failing, the parental failing has been so astronomical and the harm to kids’ cognitive abilities and mental stability so profound that regulation is essential.

  I look forward to the day when social media use is banned globally for all underage people, and if you need more information as to why, go speak to any schoolteacher in America who can’t get their students to pay attention for more than 60 seconds, or who can’t retain information that is literally written on the board in front of them.

  source

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Why are you here then?

    How the hell are you going to ban all underage people from social media and who gets the authority to decide the details of that?

    You are being intellectually lazy and it shows.

    source

    • rimu@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      I was not prepared, however, to find absolutely no evidence.

      Hold up, hold up.

      Here are plenty of studies - https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=attention+span+social+media&btnG=

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • not_that_guy05@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Ok so let’s use that logic of who gets the authority to decide.

      As a child would it be ok for you to watch porn all day? I mean what’s stopping you? The government with their R, MA, NR ratings? Why not just let children smoke? Who has the authority to question what we do with our bodies? We should be selling smokes and alcohol to minors cause why listen to anything the professionals and government says?

      Why are you following those rules? That’s just being intellectually lazy since others are telling you what to do.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
    • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      For starters, requiring ID verification. That is something that is very obviously easy for an adult to provide and for a child not to. At the end of the day, that will be for each individual country to decide.

      Though I imagine over the long-term there will be more nuanced solutions.

      The problem of people losing their cognitive abilities is far more consequential than a small group of people having a more difficult time because they don’t socialize easily. I’m just looking at the bigger issue here.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• Akh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Seems like something easy to fix considering the massive damage social media has been doing

  source

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Advocacy group Children and Young People with Disability Australia (CYDA) says social media and the internet is “often a lifeline for young people with disability, providing one of the few truly accessible ways to build connections and find community”.

    In a submission to the Senate inquiry around the laws, CYDA said social media was: “a place where young people can choose how they want to represent themselves and their disability and learn from others going through similar things”.

    “It provides an avenue to experiment and find new opportunities and can help lessen the sting of loneliness,” the submission said. “Cutting off that access ignores the lived reality of thousands and risks isolating disabled youth from their peer networks and broader society.”

    You sure about that buddy? Confident enough to maim the fragile social networks that young people living in hostile environments in favor of another solution you haven’t even come up with yet?

    Leave this place if this is how you see social media, by your own viewpoint digital communities aren’t good for people so why are you here?

    source

    • Akh@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Children. Tons of studies show that social media for people under 25 does developmental harm to the brain because the part that hits the brakes does not develop then. Instead, for teens it is a dopamine factory with doom scroll

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• BilboBargains@lemmy.world ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I want to ban everything conservatives and corporations love. All drugs legal except alcohol, ban billionaires, ban lobbying, keep doing that until their heads explode.

  We know that social media is designed to be addictive and needs to be regulated the same way any addictive or dangerous substance or activity should be. Harm reduction and education is the best way in general.

  source
• Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  This whole article seems fishy.

  While some young people were exposed to harmful content and bullying online, for Indy, social media was always a safe space. If she ever came across anything that felt unsafe, she says, she would ask her parents or sisters about it.

  If thats the case why dont her parents just use their I’d to verify an account for her? Also it only blocked a few platforms and there are still plenty of ways to communicate with friends.

  source

  • XLE@piefed.social ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    I don’t think that uploading a government ID makes anyone safer online, especially when those IDs are guaranteed to be exposed online, and used to abuse people the legal way (through hyper detailed profiles).

    Australia also lacks common-sense free speech protections, so it’s easy for powerful people to target anyone they dislike. Just ask Friendlyjordies.

    source

    • Fizz@lemmy.nz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Thats fine, uploading the ID doesnt have to be safer. The parents can judge the risk of their child using that platform and upload their ID to verify if they want. I’m pointing out that the child isnt prevented from communicating with friends or even using social media.

      source

      • -> View More Comments
• ianhclark510@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  Who could have possibly guessed that cutting kids off from means of communication would have negative consequences?

  source
• pycorax@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  I may agree with your point but you need to be a lot nicer with how you word your message. Stop insulting the people trying to read your post and calm the hell down. The fediverse isn’t your dumping ground for rage and abuse. Nor is anyone here obligated to respond to your vitriol. It only serves to hurt whatever you’re trying to convey.

  source

  • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Fair enough, but for the record I am not just arbitrarily mad about this.

    This is the fediverse.

    We should be excited about the possibility of social media when it is employed in a kind way for adults and kids.

    How am I supposed to feel optimistic when even here people resort to kneejerk reductions about social media moral panics without engaging with the nuance?

    Yeah it is frustrating, but you aren’t wrong. I am angry because I care.

    source