00:00Unpack for us, first of all, this idea right now that seems to be spreading around the world that social
00:06media harms youth.
00:09Yeah, so I think this is a fairly easy idea to grasp.
00:13I've heard the previous person on the program.
00:16And so, you know, many of us are old enough to remember when kids hung out and they talk to
00:21each other and then we all see them on their phones instead of talking to each other.
00:25And so they're just not getting the in-person socialization that they need to.
00:29It's displacing other activities.
00:31So 45% of kids in the United States say that it displaces their sleep.
00:3540%, I believe, say that it displaces their activities at school.
00:39There was one study that kids were using phones 90 minutes at school, oftentimes on social media.
00:46So it's displacing a lot of other activities.
00:48There are also these acute effects.
00:50So I remember the previous person talked about self-harm.
00:54The people are seeing content they're not ready for.
00:56They're also being contacted by strangers who they're not ready for.
00:59Like most of us probably have gotten messages from a stranger purporting to be maybe someone who wants to give
01:05us a financial opportunity, maybe someone who wants to, you know, be romantically attached.
01:10We understand that that's not real, that we have to ignore those messages.
01:13But kids are not sophisticated enough to necessarily understand that.
01:16And so there's, for a variety of reasons, these products are not, they're not meant for kids.
01:21And so people are responding appropriately to reduce access for kids to these products.
01:28But really equating social media to, say, alcohol or just an addiction like it comes with smoking, for example, is
01:39that not too extreme?
01:41How do you view the idea that these products are as addictive as those chemically, physically altering products?
01:52So I'm not an expert in addiction, but what I will say, I'm a social psychologist.
01:57But what I'll say is that 45% of kids in the U.S. will say that they use these
02:02products too much.
02:03And so some part of addiction is, one, using these things more than you want to, right?
02:07So this is not adults telling kids that they are using it too much.
02:10These are kids themselves saying, I'm using these products too much.
02:13There was a study in the U.S. where 70% of kids said they felt manipulated by these products.
02:17So they're using these things too much.
02:19They're regretting some of their usage.
02:20Not everyone, but many kids are regretting their usage.
02:23And they're using it despite knowledge of the negative impacts it's having on them, right?
02:27So, again, many of these kids are saying it's negatively impacting their sleep.
02:30It's negatively impacting their studies.
02:32They know that.
02:33And so, you know, and again, it's not all kids, but there's a large number of kids, right?
02:37So there's 40 million kids in the U.S.
02:39Half of them are on Instagram.
02:41You know, if 45% of them are saying that it's impacting their sleep, well, that's, you know, you can
02:46do the math.
02:46That's millions of kids.
02:49Big Tech says that they're actually putting safeguards against all of that.
02:53How do you respond to that?
02:55I mean, not many people use these safeguards, right?
02:57So these are parental controls.
02:59People have done studies on these safeguards.
03:01You know, the numbers as far as, like, the experiences that people are having haven't really gone down.
03:06You know, people test these safeguards.
03:08They don't work as well as they should.
03:09They're not well-maintained.
03:11They're not used, right?
03:12Parents are busy.
03:13They're not looking for, you know, how do I use the safeguards on, you know, the 12 products that my
03:18kid is using.
03:19They need someone to help them.
03:20And that's why these laws are popular all around the world, because parents need help.
03:23They're tired of fighting with their kids about cell phones and social media.
03:27And they want someone, you know, and, you know, parents have an option.
03:31They can either isolate their kid or they can, you know, have them exposed to all these products.
03:37And, you know, it's just there's no win situation.
03:38So what parents need is help from their governments, and governments are giving them that.
03:44We have seen Australia, of course, take the lead here.
03:46But at the same time, some of the shortfalls around what they're trying to do, loopholes with teenagers, just getting
03:52around the bans.
03:54What is the right way to regulate and help parents help teenagers that, as you said, might now feel that
04:00they're on social media too much?
04:02Yeah.
04:03So I think Australia's law is going great.
04:05And so, you know, you can look at it as glass half empty or glass half full, right?
04:10So there was a report that Snapchat usage dropped from 34% to roughly 20%.
04:15So it lost roughly 40% of its audience.
04:17And so, you know, that's 14% of kids.
04:20It's, you know, I think roughly 120,000 kids who are no longer being subject to, you know, unwanted sexual
04:27content advances from strangers.
04:29They no longer have Snapchat streets where they're, like, feeling like I have to get on and talk to my
04:33friend, not because I want to, because I have to keep this streak up, right?
04:36So there's a lot of benefits for those kids.
04:38And there's an article, there's a poll by YouGov, 43% of kids in Australia, parents in Australia are noticing
04:45that their kids are having more in-person social interactions.
04:48And there's another article where people who are running phishing programs were noticing a boom in phishing, and they were
04:54attributing it to the social media ban.
04:55So for many kids, it's actually working out really well.
04:58Now, yes, there are some kids who are still getting around these, you know, the protections, and they're getting on
05:04these products.
05:05But, you know, just because it isn't working for every kid doesn't mean it's not helping a lot of kids.
05:10And these will get better, right?
05:11Age verification is getting better.
05:13The norms are changing.
05:14So, you know, when today's 11-year-olds are 15, those numbers will go down further still.
05:18And when today's 9-year-olds are 15, it will be further down even more.
05:23But then I guess at the same time, you have to think about the extent of the restrictions, right?
05:28You're talking about outright bans, especially in the case of Australia.
05:31But what about other cases like parental supervision, more oversight, like they're trying to do in Brazil and Portugal as
05:37well,
05:37especially if you're thinking that perhaps just an outright ban on social media could lead children to go to darker
05:45corners of the Internet,
05:46not to mention that it could marginalize some parts of youth that are more vulnerable?
05:51Yeah, well, let me just correct something.
05:53You know, a lot of people call it a ban.
05:55But if you're in Australia and you're under 16, you still can go watch whatever you want on YouTube.
06:00You can go onto TikTok and search for your favorite dance video.
06:03You just can't do it without an account, without the inappropriate business relationship between a company and a platform, right?
06:09So it is not something which restricts content.
06:11And it also doesn't restrict the Internet.
06:13Like there are lots of places on the Internet that you can connect with other people.
06:16They don't have, for example, Snapchat streaks, which sort of gamifies your interactions.
06:20You actually interact with people, you know, not because you're trying to keep up some metric, but because you actually
06:25want to talk to them, right?
06:26So there's lots of ways you can interact with people in person on the Internet that you can watch content.
06:32And so I don't call it ban.
06:33I usually call it an age limit because, you know, you can go in Australia under 16 and go watch
06:39whatever you want on the Internet.
06:40So I actually think it's a perfectly appropriate policy.
06:43I know that some people have some places have talked about parental control.
06:48I think parents need help.
06:49Like they don't want to be the bad guy.
06:50They want somebody else to say, like, look, you can't be doing this because otherwise, if other parents don't enforce
06:57it on their kids, then you're back into that same problem.
06:59We're like you're the one person trying to isolate your kid.
07:01Everybody else is on it.
07:03So let's talk about that point on gamifying interactions, because what we're seeing in California, for example, with the lawsuit
07:09is really about addiction and how these platforms have been designed to keep the youth engaged and really trying to
07:17continue to get their attention.
07:19Is this a new way of looking at product liability that could actually spread across the U.S.?
07:25A hundred percent.
07:26I mean, I think it's a it's a very appropriate way to look.
07:29I mean, in the United States, we very appropriately have, you know, a strong free speech tradition.
07:34But companies are not speaking when they, you know, optimize an algorithm for as long as they can get you
07:40to use it.
07:41Right. Or when they gamify, you know, how many days in a row you've talked to your friends.
07:44Right. Like that there's no idea they're trying to express in those ways.
07:47Right. So the idea that this was covered by speech or free speech is just not it's not what, you
07:54know, the First Amendment in the United States was intended for.
07:56So we're very appropriately seeing courts realize like, you know, this isn't speech.
08:00This is more akin to a law saying that, you know, you can't play your radio at 3 a.m.
08:05outside of your neighbor's house.
08:06Right. It has something to do with speech, but it is not about speech.
08:09It's about the way that people interact with our kids.
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