Nice article. I think you know of course that how a policy or law is justified by politicians is not always aligned with why the public might support it. For instance, I'd wager most or some of the support from parents for the ban, is based on the addictive nature of social media and the time consumed, more than the mental health harms or whatever else the ALP is saying. I reckon this is the case because almost all parents have caught themselves just endlessly scrolling on alogrithmically catered content feeds and felt the weird pull of it. And so they are evaluating social media more on the level of aged-based bans for other content and activities like driving, or gambling, or alcohol. None of these guarantee mental or physical health problems, but are basically being seen as not helpful for the ideal development of kids and how they use their time. So I think there is a convergence going on like this.
I've also never really liked the "moral panic" framing of issues. It sort of assumes the status quo of an ever permissive society or hide genuinely different choices about how people want tsociety to be. But that's a separate issue not particular to this.
Agree for the most part. Some of it is just straightforwardly wanting to avoid the hassle of dealing with the downsides. There was a NSW survey on their smartphone ban that celebrated a decline in smartphone-related incidents, so in that sense it's much like school's banning Pokemon and Yugioh cards back in the day because they just didn't want the hassle of dealing with card game-related bullying disputes.
Nice article. I think you know of course that how a policy or law is justified by politicians is not always aligned with why the public might support it. For instance, I'd wager most or some of the support from parents for the ban, is based on the addictive nature of social media and the time consumed, more than the mental health harms or whatever else the ALP is saying. I reckon this is the case because almost all parents have caught themselves just endlessly scrolling on alogrithmically catered content feeds and felt the weird pull of it. And so they are evaluating social media more on the level of aged-based bans for other content and activities like driving, or gambling, or alcohol. None of these guarantee mental or physical health problems, but are basically being seen as not helpful for the ideal development of kids and how they use their time. So I think there is a convergence going on like this.
I've also never really liked the "moral panic" framing of issues. It sort of assumes the status quo of an ever permissive society or hide genuinely different choices about how people want tsociety to be. But that's a separate issue not particular to this.
Agree for the most part. Some of it is just straightforwardly wanting to avoid the hassle of dealing with the downsides. There was a NSW survey on their smartphone ban that celebrated a decline in smartphone-related incidents, so in that sense it's much like school's banning Pokemon and Yugioh cards back in the day because they just didn't want the hassle of dealing with card game-related bullying disputes.