The Australian government’s proposed social media ban for under-16s has sparked widespread debate, affecting millions of young Australians, their families and educators. But will it actually work?
While the aim behind this ban is to protect children from online harm, it appears to be more of a kneejerk reaction to win votes.
In a world where technological advancement is accelerating and online communication is part of our everyday lives, teaching children about safe online use, rather than imposing bans, is a more effective way to protect them from harm while still allowing them to be technologically savvy.
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The Finnish approach
Finland’s approach to digital literacy education is comprehensive and integrated. It aims to equip citizens of all ages with the skills to navigate the digital world effectively.
Finland’s education system embeds digital literacy as a fundamental component of its curriculum, integrating technology across all grade levels to prepare students for the digital age.
From preschool education, students are introduced to digital tools, safety and technology to learn responsible online behaviour. As Finnish academics Sirkku Lähdesmäki and Minna Maunula highlight:
creating a secure and empowering connection with media is a shared educational responsibility that necessitates the active participation of both schools and families.
Integrating digital literacy into the education system ensures skills are not taught in isolation, but embedded across the system.
Digital literacy in Finland extends beyond formal schooling. Public libraries and community centres offer programs to improve skills among adults, ensuring that digital literacy is a lifelong pursuit. As they say, digital competencies are civic skills.
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In addition, the education system was reformed to emphasise critical thinking. This taught students to identify bots, understand image and video manipulations, and recognise half-truths and false profiles. The approach has been practical, with Finland ranking first out of 35 countries in a digital media literacy index measuring resilience six times in a row.
This is such a good approach. I suspect that countries like the US and Aus don't want their citizens to be media literate so that they can be easily manipulated.
I had unlimited internet access and a smartphone from a very young age and had no idea about cyber security and why free apps are free because of their selling of data. I fell for a fair amount of scams and got some viruses. I'm sure that there's embarrassing stuff online about me that I posted as a kid out there somewhere. I spent most of my teen years on YouTube and Instagram (around 12-15 hours a day of screentime, sometimes more).
It wasn't all bad. The internet helped educate me on puberty and identity when I had little to no sex education. I was exposed to many different types of people and perspectives. I am much more tech savvy than almost all of my peers and am skilled at troubleshooting and fixing things for people. I somehow broke my social media addiction this year and am able to help my friends learn better internet hygiene too. I think that by having that extremely unhealthy relationship with technology it helped me realize that I need to live in the present moment and how much better I feel without social media in my life (still use Lemmy tho).
One thing that's horrifying to see is that a very large portion of my peers at college are completely addicted to TikTok and Instagram reels. Sometimes I'll walk into a room and there's a large group of people and everyone's sitting in a circle and scrolling on their phones. Sometimes in the middle of conversation people will start scrolling and shove something they found on Instagram on their phone into the middle of conversation that has nothing to do with it. It's like people can't sit with themselves and be bored for a second without that massive dopamine hit that short form content gives them.
I don't think that it's entirely a personal issue/failure, although at the end of the day you're the only one who can truly control your actions. Instead this is a common pattern that I've observed and these apps are intentionally designed to be as addictive and distracting as possible even at the cost of expierencing life. It definitely resembles drug addiction. Not to mention that they prey on people with mental illness and who are in bad life situations.
The point is, young peoples' relationship with tech and specifically social media is a huge issue and I get the need to do something about it. There has absolutely got to be hard regulation about the way these apps are designed to prevent the level of addiction seen today for all ages. I wholeheartedly agree with the Finnish education model and think that my life would have been a lot better if I'd had that, but holding social media corporations accountable is of equal importance.