US psychologist: 4 reasons why social media should be banned for children
A leading expert has congratulated Australia for leading the way in slaying social media "monsters". Video by South Australia Government.
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00:00I'm thrilled to see that South Australia is leading on this.
00:04The French report I thought was brilliant.
00:05I read it and was so pleased to see how he worked through, how do you define social media?
00:11How do you make exceptions for certain things?
00:13What might legislation look like?
00:16Now, I want to give a little justification for doing this,
00:20which is we rely on government to set minimum ages in four kinds of situations.
00:25Addictive activities, we don't let companies push addictive activities on children.
00:30Social media is addictive in many ways, both biologically and especially socially.
00:35Graphic sexuality, we don't let children buy hardcore pornography,
00:38but if they're on social media, they're going to see it.
00:41They're going to see all kinds of very disturbing things.
00:45Graphic violence, we try to protect children from the most horrible violence.
00:49But if you're on social media, and especially TikTok, you're going to be getting,
00:54boys in particular end up getting lots of videos of people being run over by cars,
00:58falling out of buildings, getting punched in the face, getting shot, getting stabbed.
01:02Horrible, horrible things are just routine.
01:06And the fourth reason why we require age minimums is when an activity has some physical danger.
01:14And the number of kids who have died because of viral TikTok challenges alone,
01:19I don't know what that number is.
01:21It is certainly hundreds.