The Australian government has decided to pass new laws banning children under the age of 16 years from accessing social media. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said, the new laws will be presented to state and territory leaders this week, before being placed in Parliament towards the end of this month. Albanese said, “social media is doing real harm to kids and I’m calling time on it”.
The government will crack down on tech companies that fail to protect young users, he said. Tech companies and social media platforms will bear responsibility for ensuring that their users are above the age of 16 years. The Australian PM said, “parents are worried sick about the safety of their kids online. The onus will not be on parents or young people. There will be no penalties for users”.
If the laws are passed, Australia will become the first country in the world to ban social media for users below the age of 16 years. Already, parents throughout the world are worried over the rampant use of social media on smart phones by children, who gain access to content that they are not supposed to. These worries are justified, but we must remember that even those above the age of 16 years are also influenced by social media and they maintain distance from their parents.
It has been noticed that four persons sitting inside a room are usually seen busy either texting or watching content on phones instead of being engaged in one-to-one conversation. Merely framing laws will not be enough. If children are to be protected from social media, parents will also have to impose a self-ban. They should control their use of mobile and digital media. Only then can parents convince their children effectively.
Nowadays when a kid bawls, parents, instead of trying to soothe the kid, hand a cellphone to the child to stop him from crying. Until and unless we discard these habits, no force on earth can stop children from using cell phones.
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