rom 10 December, social media companies will have to take "reasonable steps" to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated or removed.
The government says the ban - a world-first policy popular with many parents - is aimed at reducing the "pressures and risks" children can be exposed to on social media, which come from "design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing".
A study commissioned by the government earlier this year said 96% of children aged 10-15 used social media and that seven out of 10 of them had been exposed to harmful content and behaviour. This behaviour ranged from misogynistic material to fight videos and content promoting eating disorders and suicide.
Read the full article on BBC.
As this 60 Minutes report discovers, you can have too much of a good thing. What's being called “Internet Addiction Disorder” is ruining lives and even changing the way our brains process information. Worse still, experts are seeing dangerous signs in toddlers.
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Video games have become so good, and provide such a sensory smorgasbord of action and colour, that children are becoming dangerously addicted. They’re playing for days on end, to the exclusion of everything else in their lives, including school, friends and family.
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Although many youth may not be harmed by heavy SMU, distressed youth may be particularly vulnerable. The aim of this study was to experimentally examine the effects of reducing SMU on smartphones on symptoms of depression, anxiety, fear of missing out (FoMO), and sleep in youth with emotional distress. Compared to the control group, the intervention group showed significantly greater reductions in symptoms of depression, anxiety, and FoMO, and greater increases in sleep.
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