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.

Transcript

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.