Laws on protecting youth from social media gain momentum

"This one is for the mums and dads. They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online,” said Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last Thursday (local time), announcing plans to table the law on banning social media use for children under sixteen years old to the parliament. The Australian government explained that the law would be applied regardless of parental consent and that social media platforms would be accountable for banning children’s access to social media.

Australia is not the only country pushing to restrict children and adolescents' use of social media at the national level. Norway raised the minimum age to use social media from 13 to 15, while the United Kingdom banned children under 13 from creating social media accounts. The U.S. state of Florida is pushing a bill to ban youth under 14 from creating social media accounts and require 15 and 16-year-olds to use only with parental permission.

There are divided opinions over restrictions on the use of social media by children and adolescents. Some oppose regulation on the grounds that it violates the freedom to obtain information or express views. One of the biggest reasons why the mental health of children has been rapidly deteriorating in recent years is overuse use of smartphones and addiction to social media, which is why there are calls for national regulation to protect children.

“With social media distorting and exaggerating everyday life, ceaselessly suggesting harmful content, the mental health of adolescents has exceeded intolerable levels. It is time to require a warning label on social media platforms, just as for tobacco or alcohol,” said Vivek Murthy, director of the U.S. Public Health Service, in June this year. Attorney generals from 42 states in the United States sent letters to Congress urging the bill to be passed as soon as possible.

Teenagers' addiction to social media has reached alarming levels. According to a ‘2023 Smartphone Overdependence Survey’ by the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Intelligence and Information Society Agency (NIA), four out of 10 Korean teenagers were at risk of smartphone overdependence last year. As many as 37% of teenagers responded that they had difficulty controlling the urge to view short video clips.

The harmful effects of social media have become ever more apparent in elementary, middle, and high schools. As a result of the National Police Agency's recent special crackdown on cyber gambling, 4,715 youth gamblers under the age of 19 were arrested, which is 47.2% of all cyber gambling offenders, of whom many started gambling out of curiosity after viewing advertisements on social media. Cyber violence and deepfake sex crimes through KakaoTalk chat are also spreading through social media.

A bill tabled to the National Assembly would set daily limits on the use of social media for youth under the age of 16. We hope that discussions on regulating the ever-evolving social media occupying our children will be developed in detail. The bill might not only be for the sake of children but also for the whole country.