Crying Need for Social Media Restrictions

Several years ago I did some developmental editing on a book by a Midwestern pastor. He was addressing the need to take limits off ourselves that God never placed there.

However, he also wove into his message stark warnings about the damage social media is doing to young people.

The statistic that I remember so well from his manuscript was him citing the tripling of the teenage suicide rate between 2007—the year of the iPhone’s introduction—and 2014.

The pastor talked about the serious need for parents to place limits on their children’s use of smartphones and social media for their protection.

Idea Gaining Momentum

It would seem that pastor’s point is making its way into countless forums, books, and now legislation.

Come January (provided no legal challenges strike down enforcement in the meantime), Florida will ban social media accounts for children under 14. And, require parental permission for those 14 and 15.

“A child in their brain development doesn’t have the ability to know that they’re being sucked into these addictive technologies and to see the harm and step away from it, and because of that we have to step in for them,” said state House Speaker Paul Renner at a March signing ceremony for the bill, according to a report.

Ironically, six weeks after this story, the same British newspaper, The Guardian, carried another high-tech news item.

This one told of Australia’s federal government and opposition saying they were on board with the idea of banning teens under 16 from using social media.

A Guardian poll taken the week before found two-thirds of voters favored raising the age for allowing teens to access social media from 13 to 16.

Phone-Based Damage

The aforementioned pastor talked about the hazards of unfettered social media usage. He was particularly concerned about its amplification of the comparison syndrome that leaves millions of teens unsure of themselves and their identity.

Not to mention the cyberspace bullying that goes on 24/7 instead of only in the school hallways or on the playground as in years past.

Of course, it takes time to amass data and scientific studies proving the harm that emanates from the handheld devices that now govern too many lives.

Hopefully, social scientists and others will soon collect the information that will support restrictions on young people’s use of social media.

Indications are already appearing. One I read about in the spring is the new book, The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

In it, author Jonathan Heidt recalls the words of his six-year-old daughter: “Daddy, can you take the iPad away from me? I’m trying to take my eyes off it but I can’t.”

In a story reviewing the book, Chelsea Boes of World magazine wrote: “Gen Z, Haidt argues, ‘became the first generation in history to go through puberty with a portal in their pockets that called them away from the people nearby and into an alternative universe that was exciting, addictive, and…unsuitable for children and adolescents.’

Boes also noted Haidt’s outlining of the four-foundational harms of a phone-based childhood: 1) social deprivation, 2) sleep deprivation, 3) attention deprivation, 4) addiction.

If we require young people to be at least 16 to acquire a driver’s license and 21 to drink liquor, it seems high time we also a require minimum age to wander into the high-tech jungle.