TORONTO — A new law in Australia is poised to ban social media platforms from offering profiles to teens 16 and under, but some experts are calling the measure misguided.
The legislation passed this week is meant to protect young people from the potential mental-health harms of social media use, but those who study the issue say it's not quite so simple as kicking kids off the apps.
"There's a couple big splashy studies that very small negative effects, but most studies, either there was no finding or there were small positive effects small negative effects," McEwan said. In terms of the negative effects of social media on teens' well-being, it's mostly to do with"upward social comparison: Looking at people's feeds that look like this amazing life, and then comparing your own life and going, 'my life's not that amazing all of the time,'" McEwan said.
But these policies aren't mandated. Australia's law is a world first, so there's no blanket ban like that in this country. But some school boards have moved to ban social media platforms on their wi-fi networks, and several provinces have banned the use of cellphones in classrooms."I don't see any problem with saying you have to leave your phone in your locker and concentrate on this particular task," she said.
“In the evening, before I go to bed, I say to myself, ‘one last look at Instagram and then I’m going to bed,’” she said. “And then I might spend an hour on it.”Kate Maddalena, a media theory professor at U of T, said she's of two minds about a ban.
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