Post

James Ball
@jamesrball.com

Since the government is about to introduce a social media ban for under-16s based largely on vibes – and Jonathan Haidt's shitty book – in the hopes it boosts its popularity (it won't), I'll re-up this. If we're banning under-16s, why not over-60s?

James Ball@jamesrball.com

On almost everything – fraud, polarisation, radicalisation, misinformation – evidence suggests that over 60s are in much more urgent need of online protection and education than teenagers. But that issue gets zero political attention, and is a total non-starter. Nothing good will come of it.

James Ball
@jamesrball.com

Let me stress: banning over-60s from social media is a terrible idea. It's just not as terrible an idea as banning under-16s.

17 reposts117 likes

LondonDiscuss
@londondiscuss.bsky.social

It's working fine in Australia, in the main, and will roll out across many EU countries. It's the start of push back against the platforms and will save kids lives. I work in this area. It's needed.

Dom
@dom94.bsky.social

Social media bans don’t work- it’s not hard to get round a social media ban especially for young people. We should be educating young people about social media not banning them. The government could just be tougher on social media companies but won’t in case they upset the twat in the White House.

Cindy
@cinderoak.bsky.social

Disagree without social media I would not be getting real news from independent journalists only corporate media propaganda. I’m 72 and maybe before we start worrying about social media we need to put a ban on certain guns amount of ammunition you can purchase etc. What happens if house is on fire?

James Ball
@jamesrball.com

The government has discovered regulating social media is Hard (it's good at passing Tough Laws and then useless at enforcing them), so it's now going for the much easier job of just restricting the freedom of teenagers.

James Ball
@jamesrball.com

Life is lived online now. Instead of encountering the Internet and growing up with it with parental supervision, the new plan will just drop them online at 16, and this will mysteriously fix things for them because ????

Anonymous Don
@anondon.bsky.social

I’m going to guess you don’t have kids. Your point is otherwise excellent, logical and reasonable and something I would probably say if I didn’t have children coming of age in the social media shitshow we currently have (group chat bullying, nudes, revenge porn, etc etc).

Anonymous Don
@anondon.bsky.social

At 16 you’re old enough and responsibly enough to do a great many things that you wouldn’t want ppl doing at 10 and 11. I think we have a lot of evidence to back this up.

Kyle
@wright-thoughts.bsky.social

I agree with all the problems you identify for over-60's online, but I would like to point out that the problems you seem focused on are all sociological, whereas I think social media's harms to children are primarily psychological (attention span, self image, behavioral) and matter for development

Kyle
@wright-thoughts.bsky.social

Like it's straightforwardly obvious at this point that short-form video destroys attention spans, and letting kids in particular center their lives around it is a moral failing on the part of adults because it robs *them* of something. It's not about what their phone does to the rest of us

Blueski-by-sea
@tweet-by-sea.bsky.social

Not going to dismiss the representations of our educators and SEND specialists as 'vibes'. Like the gambling lobby, there's interests lined up to fight this. Australia will be an interesting test case, will we see less instances of suicide and depression? Will learning outcomes show improvements?