The Moral Panic Is Spreading: Think Tank Proposes Banning Teens From Social Media; Texas Rep Promises To Intro Bill

Overhype

from the yeah,-like-that-will-work dept

It truly is incredible just how much of a moral panic the media and politicians have created around social media. Once again, the actual research is basically inconclusive that social media is bad. If it were truly awful, it should be showing up in the data, but for the most part it’s not. At all. As we’ve noted, so much of the blame targeting social media are people completely overreacting to social media shining a light on activity that has basically always been happening, and now rather than dealing with the underlying causes, people want to attack the messenger for revealing the behavior.

We’ve also noted that it appears that some people have issues with social media, but for many, many others it’s quite helpful. But little research has been done to figure out why a small percentage of people have trouble with it. Instead, the media often just hypes up the bad stuff. We’ve pointed it out a few times already, but last year, when the WSJ reported on internal research leaked by Frances Haugen, they focused on the report noting that Instagram made teens feel bad about themselves… but left out that the research actually showed it made many more feel better about themselves.

It would be good to investigate why some percentage felt worse about themselves, of course, and to see if there were ways to minimize that impact. But the rush to blame all social media as bad for all teenagers is just without a basis.

And yet… policy folks are taking this moral panic to new, and even more ridiculous heights. The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s “tech policy fellow,” Zach Whiting, has suggested that Texas should ban all social media for teenagers. This makes me wonder if Whiting has, you know, ever actually met a teenager.

Enacting a minor social media ban in Texas is not a novel concept. Two prominent commentators recently wrote articles on a social media age limit and a ban on minors. It is clear our consumer protection laws need to be enhanced to better protect minors online, hold accountable the companies that fail to do so, and punish those who harm or attempt to harm minors online.

A state-driven social media ban on minors is the most effective way to protect kids from the harms of social media. Anything short accepts the premise that social media is not that bad. It is that bad.

I’ll note that Whiting brags about how he got rid of all his social media accounts, and like the temperance prudes of a century ago, he seems so insecure with himself that he can’t just accept that he doesn’t want social media himself — he needs to take it away from all teens as well.

Of course, there are many problems with the unfathomably stupid idea.

First, as noted above, for the vast majority of teenagers, the evidence seems to suggest that social media is neutral or actually beneficial. Banning it for all kids actually does more harm to many teens.

Second, anyone who has any experience with teenagers at all knows this kind of thing won’t work. Already, under federal law (COPPA), most social media websites ban children under the age of 13. And yet, even for kids that young, many websites are useful. So the end result is that parents help their kids lie to get around the blocks, teaching children that lying is okay and not to respect silly, poorly reasoned laws.

Third, the kids themselves will find ways around this. Teens communicate. It’s what they do. When I was a kid, it was via notes and telephones, and we even cooked up elaborate codes and tricks to be able to communicate by phone even when our parents didn’t want us to. Teenagers want to communicate, and they’ll find lots of other ways around these bans. A few years ago, there was an article about how kids who had social media banned in school had basically fashioned a shadow social media system… using the chat feature in Google docs.

The point is that kids (teens especially) will find a way to do this. Ban Instagram for them, and you just know that within days someone will have hacked together a way to replicate Instagram without it being “Instagram.”

This is nonsense prohibition to do what…? To stop kids from talking to each other.

It’s a silly moral panic, based on nothing by apparently adults own insecurities about teenagers actually being able to communicate.

And… of course, Texas politicians were apparently quick to embrace this fundamentally ridiculous idea. State Rep. Jared Patterson is already promising to introduce just such a law, meaning that in Texas, as a teenager you may be forced to give birth to a child… but forbidden from posting about it on social media. Land of freedom?

Filed Under: moral panic, social media, teenagers, texas, zach whiting