What harms does the social media rabbit-hole pose to children and teens?
The average Australian teenager 14-17 spends about 4.5 hours per day on the internet, with approximately 1.5 of these hours spent on social media¹. In using these platforms, they forfeit their privacy and data without realising the potential consequences, from being targeted online to having something damaging attached to their digital identity. Still developing, they are more vulnerable than adults to being deceived, becoming addicted, being exposed to graphic content, or being pushed in extreme directions by the algorithms.
Parents are now more worried about their children using social media and technology than drugs, alcohol or smoking², with a large portion of the Australian public also in agreement, with 85.6% viewing that social media is having having a negative impact on the mental health of young Australians.³
How and where this is happening
So how and where is this happening in Australia? We’ve collected a few examples which show social media is leading to the erosion of privacy for young people and is pushing them down the rabbit-hole in extreme and unsafe directions.
Facebook boasted of capabilities to exploit children's vulnerabilities
A leaked Facebook document prepared by Facebook Australian executives outlines to advertisers their capability to target vulnerable teenagers as young as 14 who feel ‘worthless’, ‘insecure’ and ‘defeated’ by pinpointing the “moments when young people need a confidence boost” through monitoring posts, pictures, interaction and internet activity in real time.
Source: “Facebook targets ‘insecure’ young people” by Darren Davidson, The Australian (May 1, 2017)
Children are a higher risk of becoming addicted to their screens
Australians are highly attached to their mobile devices: 78.8% of teens and 53.5% percent of adults have what psychologists refer to as high mobile phone involvement. This can involve behaviour like using a mobile phone for no particular purpose and being unable to reduce mobile phone use.
Source: “Digital Me survey” by Australian Psychological Society (Nov, 2019)
Children and teens aren’t confident they can spot fake news
One third of children and two thirds of teens often or sometimes get news from social media sites. Facebook was the most preferred social network site to get news for teens (48%). Children preferred Youtube (48%). Just one third of young people believe they know how to tell fake news from real news (34%) with children being much less confident about this than teens (27% compared with 43%).
Extremists target vulnerable children to radicalise them
British preacher Abu Haleema who has a reputation of radicalising teenagers and supporting the Islamic used Facebook and Youtube to attack moderate Sydney sheikhs, spreading hardline sermons through rap videos to quickly grow a local audience, with counter-terrorism police being able to do little aside from monitor his online interactions.
Children are regularly receiving unwanted contact from strangers
The Office of the eSafety Commissioner found 33% of young people experience receiving unwanted contact, contact with strangers and unwanted content, making it the most common negative experience online. Additionally, Digital Me survey found that 15% teens are contacted by or make contact with strangers via Facebook on a daily basis.
Sources:
“Digital Me survey” by Australian Psychological Society (Nov, 2019)
“State of play — youth, kids and digital dangers”, Office of the eSafety Commissioner (May 3, 2018)
Children are exposed to sexual content
A NSW study found that over 40% of young people 13–16 years have seen some form of sexual content online in the past 12 months, with exposure on social media primarily occurring through networks of ‘friends’ or followers and paid-for advertising. Content ranged from subtle messages or photos to explicit pornographic pictures/videos. Most of the exposure young people described was unintended.
Screen addiction reduces kid’s drive to achieve their goals
A study of 2,809 adolescents over a 4-year period revealed that compulsive internet use (CPU) precedes modest decrements in hope and self‐esteem and has a larger effect on perceptions of the self that relate to goal self‐efficacy, with this potentially being due to CPU narrows the range of a person’s opportunities for experiencing mastery in their lives.
References
¹ “Roy Morgan Single Source” by Roy Morgan (Oct18-Sep19)
² “Parents rank social media and technology worse than drugs, alcohol, smoking” by ReachOut.com.au (Mar 11, 2018)
³ “Social Media and Regulation Attitudes Survey” by Roy Morgan, Responsible Technology Australia (Dec, 2019)
Responsible Technology Australia is advocating for the ethical progression of technology for a safer, fairer, and more democratic Australia. If you’re keen to hear more, get in touch via hello@responsibletechnology.org.au
