The following is the text of the address delivered by Donald’s Youth of the Year, Curtis Rice,
at last Thursday’s meeting of the Donald Lions Club.

“Have you ever called someone you have not seen in a while or messaged someone just because you can? This is all thanks to our phones, and I will be speaking on the effects of the government’s social media ban or people under 16.

“Many teenagers use their phones to message their friends who that they have not seen in a while, to wish them happy birthday, to ask them about school or just chat. However, the new restrictions being impose by the government are set to jeopardise this important part of their lives. It is no secret that my generation spends a lot of time on their phones, messaging each other, a way of communication many take for grated. While social media can cause numerous problems such as insecurity, depression, and anxiety, completely banning teens from using any form of social media is not the way to go in this tech driven world.

“Firstly, the government introduced this ban because they were worried about the effects of social media on young people’s mental health. These worries were well founded as the unrealistic body images portrayed on social media platforms such as Instagram are causing eating disorders; for instance, according to eating disorders in Victoria 75 per cent of people diagnosed with anorexia are between 12-25 years old. While promoting unhealthy or unrealistic body images social media is also a gateway for cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is an especially big problem as it continues when you get home and it can be done anonymously, so it is easier to get away with. In 2023, 94 people took their own life because of cyberbullying.

“Secondly, by completely baning social media for people under 16 the government are not fully achieving their goal as the ban will only delay the inevitable. Once people reach sixteen, they are just thrown into the deep end, with no knowledge of how to use social media or to deal with the challenges it can cause such as promoting unsafe and unrealistic body images and cyberbullying that can occur. This makes the ban useless as it only served to delay the challenges faced by teens on social media. The ban also stops many teens from communicating over long distances as many people meet new friends through school camps, sporting events and teams. However, without social media they may have no way to continue to communicate with these new friends; this can lead to these friendships to die. By communicating via social media, teens are learning social skills they will not learn at school.

“A better solution would be to limit exposure to harmful content by limiting the apps that teens access. You can do this by using settings in apps such as Instagram, which has it so that any people under 18 signing up or already signed up have a ‘teen’ account and users under 16 need a parents permission to change their settings, this helps teens experience social media in a way that reduces the harmful effects. You can also use other apps that are more teen friendly, such as snapchat that make it easier for someone who is experiencing cyberbullying to get proof and seek help from a trusted adult. This allows teens to experience social media and message friends safely. Another way to mitigate the effects of social media on a teens mental health is to educate them on the risks of social media and how to combat them.

“In conclusion, the ban on social media for teens under 16, is a promising idea, as it is trying to protect vulnerable teens from the challenges that social media can bring such as the promotion of unhealthy body images and the risk of cyberbullying which can lead to eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa, and bulimia nervosa, depression and, in more extreme cases, suicide. However, this solution proposed by the government may be ineffective as it does not fully solve the problem, as it means that when teens do get social media, they are woefully unprepared for the challenges of navigating social media. Instead, parents should limit their exposure to harmful content through apps settings and more youth friendly apps.” 

This article appeared in The Buloke Times, 4 March 2025.