Answer me this (a simple yes or no will suffice): If there was a product that had the potential to cause your child serious and demonstrable harm, would you expect the Government to place controls on it?
The logical answer is yes. And there are many such products that the Government does control to prevent harm to children. Age restrictions on the sale of alcohol and tobacco are the most obvious examples.
Three news items I saw in the past week convinced me that the Government – and society as a whole – is falling tragically short in the control of one product that does more harm to young people than liquor and cigarettes combined. It is social media.
No parent could have read the lead story in the Weekend Herald without feeling enormous empathy for Cambridge Middle School principal Daryl Gibbs. The headline on that story was ‘I put to tool in her hand’: Principal shares daughter’s online ordeal. It told of how within three weeks of giving his 13-year-old a smartphone, she had downloaded Snapchat and received her first ‘You should kill yourself’ message.
He shared his feelings of guilt and admitted he was naïve to think that placing limits on her connections would keep her safe. It did not. She suffered anxiety, depression, and absenteeism from school as a result of what she saw on her phone. What was most disturbing was the fact that her contacts were being monitored by her parents. The harm was coming through people she knew. Continue reading “Time to treat social media like a cancer-causing industrial chemical”
