Insider Q&A: High hopes for Australia social media ban and channeling parental ‘fury’ over tech

Julie Scelfo started MAMA — Mothers Against Media Addiction — earlier this year to assist parents fight back against the harms of social media on children. A former journalist, Scelfo says she was inspired to receive action after reporting on the youth mental health crisis and how screens and social media are affecting youthful people’s lives.

The throng has 28 chapters in 17 states, with waitlists to commence other chapters. Scelfo says the throng wants to establish chapters in every state, provide parent education about technology, “ensure the school day remains intelligent-phone-free for students and overcome the ”inertia in our state capitals and Congress so technology is safeguarded like other buyer products.”

Scelfo spoke with The Associated Press recently about her work with MAMA, as well as a recent Australian law banning children under 16 from using social media. The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

QUESTION: What are the biggest issues you listen from parents about technology, anything recent that hasn’t been talked about as much?

I’m not sure it hasn’t been talked about, but what I listen the most from parents is that they are extremely stressed about the ubiquity of technology in their children’s lives and they don’t recognize what to do about it. Whether it’s the massive social pressure to get kids their own phones, or the truth that kindergartners are handed tablets on their first day of school, it can feel almost unfeasible for parents to do what they intrinsically recognize is better for their kids — which is to be outside in the globe as much as feasible and not parked in front of a screen. But parents cannot possibly bear the entire responsibility of keeping children off screens and keeping them secure online because the problems are baked into population and into the design of the products.

Parents and kids face a polycrisis — multiple crises happening at the same period which creates an result even more devastating than each one would be individually. At a period when children should be building their social skills and attention span, they are increasingly interacting with the globe through technology that can impede the advancement of both – and on platforms without adequate safeguards. Social media companies relentlessly target our kids with hidden algorithms that exploit their emotions for returns, and I don’t ponder there’s a real understanding of just how pervasive that exploitation is.

Q: Is Australia’s ban on social media for kids under 16 the correct shift by a government? Why/why not?

Australia’s social media ban for children under 16 puts the responsibility of regulatory adherence where it should be — on tech platforms, not parents. With more than half of teenagers spending nearly five hours a day on social media platforms and our heart-breaking national youth mental health crisis, it’s unconscionable that governments around the globe, including here in the U.S., have failed to pass meaningful social media regulation since the days when AOL still distributed CD-ROMs by snail mail.

Much like the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) would do here in the U.S, Australia’s ban represents a crucial first shatter in the long-standing logjam on any type of internet regulation and I applaud Australia’s legislators and Prime Minister Albanese for having the courage to stand up to large Tech.

large Tech is personalizing content to pull our kids into a globe where addiction, anxiety, and even depression are side effects. To keep them on the app longer, children are shown more and more extreme content, leveraging the mountains of data they are collecting on our kids, with no ordinary-sense safeguards or basic protections every parent expects. They are making billions while having the nerve to declare it’s the parents’ job to make their products secure for our kids? It’s period for governments to step in and force Beg Tech to receive responsibility for the effects of their products. large Tech has spent more than $51 million this year alone to prevent KOSA from passing.

Q: What are the reasons that teens should wait until 16 to be on social media?

A: Today’s youth spend nearly 9 hours on screens daily and it’s not well or secure for their hearts and minds. For example, Meta in September acknowledged taking action on 12 million pieces of suicide and self-damage content on Facebook and Instagram this year — just between April and June. Our kids’ compulsion to check their phones is exposing them to unsafe content and displacing critical, real-globe experiences they require to properly develop socially, emotionally and academically.

Q: Won’t kids just get around the restrictions, as they always do?

A: Every other industry is safeguarded. From toys to food to buildings to cars, we have regulations in place to keep children secure. Why should social media products be any different? Kids may try to get around the restrictions — just like they do for alcohol, tobacco or drugs — but nobody is saying that because they try, we should provide them unfettered access to them. Parents cannot possibly bear the entire responsibility of keeping children secure online, because the problems are baked into the design of the products, and so we require policies that hold large Tech accountable for ensuring their products are secure.

Q: What is your ultimate objective with MAMA?

A: Just like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the genesis of this movement is fury and rage at the injustice of youthful people being robbed of their lives just because they happen to be at the incorrect place at the incorrect period.

I desire to direct that vigor into cultural transformation — we can’t continue to tout the benefits of technology without having an open and real-period talk about its significant, and widespread harms and without ensuring that powerful corporations, just like large Tobacco, are forced to make their products as secure as feasible for humans.

The ultimate objective for MAMA is to put tech products in their place: as powerful, and often helpful tools – but just a part of human life, not the center of it.