Social Media: Connection vs Consumption.

 With the recent ban on social media for under-16s in Australia, there has been an uptick in discussion that has polarised people's viewpoints. Here, I will discuss the pros and cons that I have seen addressed, and also some personal issues I find with the policy and what I believe could be a helpful way to apply the policy if it were to come to the UK.

To discuss the pros and cons, it is important to understand what influenced the government to come to such a swift decision. The book Anxious Generation, which outlines how smartphones have led to a negative health epidemic for younger children and how it has caused loneliness among them, was a leading spark in the debate. However, we have seen many other ideas spread recently, including the TV show Adolescence, which showed a more personal look into the damaging side effects of social media. The combination of all this media pushing against the early adoption of these services does raise the question, are they right, or is there something they are missing?.

Before we get into the cost-benefit analysis, I would like to express my view, as it is important for you to understand any bias I may subconsiously include in my writing. I grew up in a country where friends came and went fairly often. Social media for me, was a way I could keep in good contact with friends (and family) even after they had moved on, and the use of social media in this aspect, I think, has been the main social benefit of this new technology, and we have had this aspect for a while now so saying that this constant connection to everyone all the time I dont believe is the main systemic cause of this epidemic, we can see underneath is a graph from Free-Range Kids that highlights how this issue has worsened since the introduction of the smartphone, but messaging apps did preexsist this so it cant be seen as a primary cause, there must be something different about the use of social media now, which I believe is the distinction of what I will call 'active socialisation' and 'passive socialisation'. Before to socalise, you needed to reach out, you needed a connection from the get-go. Whereas now, with most of the newer apps, the shift has been towards a more passive approach where you release content to everyone, and the social aspect comes from others to take the initiative in reacting to them, and this is where issues stem when you get to see everyone, including the people you don't really care about, which creates pressure to compare and alter ones image to fit in.

Let us start out with a con of the social media ban, as politically, the way Australia has initiated their ban has some big issues that should be remedied. The biggest issue is the loss of information, as a society we have never been more informed (although misinformation has become a main issue), the free access to humankind's knowledge has been a main benefit to society and children, it has reduced governements ability to shift certain narratives which we have seen time and time again with younger generations using this to cause positive change in society and causing political change, in congunction to being able to persuit knowledge from a young age which previously would have to be introduced to you by someone else. This has been a main counter-argument to the introduction to the ban as especially with the inclusion of YouTube as social media, will widely impact this key benefit the internet has provided, especially to younger audiences.

Having said that it is evident that something regarding social media has led to this epidemic of loneliness and a ban for the younger generation may be beneficial to regain in-person connections, and the literature does sound pretty concrete on the harmful aspect it has caused, and it is 100% necassary that we take action in helping the younger generation as theyh are the most maliable and suseptive to these harmful impacts and can cause long term issues for the rest of their lives, and more recently with the advancement of algerthims deciding what content you see we are getting radacalised into certain beliefs and the thing that was supposed to bring us together is creating wedges between us, which has been seen online with the gender wars, far right media creating a sense of superiority in some people, and far left ideologies creating over simplified identities. These harmful views have increased recently as social media is able to slowly attract you to one side of the extreme, often seeing young men go far right and women left, which in and of itself isn't so much of an issue but the way it has reduced us being able to see the whole picture which is harmful especially for younger people who have not decided their political identity yet.

Overall, I think the discussions of the ban is a great thing. There are issues currently with how media and socials are being consumed, and I don't think it is just an issue for teens but for society as a whole. It is my belief that short-form media has been the most damaging with many studies showing the impact it has on the brain and bans on such content is beneficial for young people but also old, I do believe that it shouldnt be banned for older people but apps that provide other services such as instagram messages or youtubes long form content should have endless scrolling features turned off by default and those who want to use such features would then be nudged into not consuming the harmful short form media. When it comes to the younger generation, we should also limit passive socialisation, such as with Instagram and Snapchat, but those whose value is from direct messaging, be it groups or individuals have benefits that far outweigh the costs they induce so limiting Discord or Whatsapp may not be necessary.