Social Media and Children

by MurielVieux

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025 Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025 at 3:28:09am PST

Australia has now banned the use of social media by children under the age of 16. Once more instead of fixing the problem, people choose instead to place bandages on symptoms.

Technology is here. Social media is here. It now serves as a primary mode of communication. Denying children access to this channel of communication is not helpful, it will restrict their growth in technology and limit their exposure to current forms of communication.

Children are not the problem, social media companies and users are. So why not have stricter rules / laws for social media? Why not teach children how to use and navigate social media safely? Because doing so (and it is doable) would force companies to spend money on security and prevention, so of course instead we punish children.

It is utterly ludicrous to expect children to be restricted from social media in this day and age. Do people think teens and preteens do not have their own social needs? When forums first exploded, they had users that were monitors on these forums, I use to be a monitor on HerInteractive, the makers of Nancy Drew games. They had chat forums for their players mostly 12-18 year old girls. Why not go back to that, have trusted adults monitor social sites for teens?

The way we treat children instead of mentoring/teaching them, as that would require actual time and effort is beyond shameful. Seems we focus more on finding ways to reduce the time we spend with children under the guise of education, extra curricular activities, etc… instead of finding ways to spend more time with our children

Yes we work, but instead of petitioning for laws to bar children from social media, perhaps we should petition for laws to diminish the number of hours required to work and increase the amount of wages so we can do both work and spend more time with our children.