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There have been many calls, by many governments, to get our teens away from the grips of social media. Biden has approved a potential ban on TikTok in USA citing teens’ addiction to the app as one of two reasons for it; the other reason being the collection of data by the Chinese based organisations who owns TikTok.
The South Australian premier has also called for the banning of social media for teens citing the need to protect children from the harmful impacts of social media on children’s mental health.
I research the impacts of social media and what I see is that we are missing the point of where the real damage is for teens now. Algorithms are now wound so tight now that we repeatedly see the same kinds of content. If a teen is fed content about sports betting, repeatedly, for months or years, then this idea becomes normalised for them. Get delivered lots of misogynist content then their views on gender role will be impacted. This echo chamber will influence the ways they think about gender roles or related.
To exacerbate the issue, AI content and excessive misinformation and notifications will step it up even more. Banning does nothing to help kids deal with this, and in my segment I offer a much better solution.
