Community

[RachSANECEO]

Hi Recovery Community

If you've read the news lately you will see there is talk of a social media ban for children / early teens - details still to come on the proposed minimum age limit,

A number of other Australian mental health organisations have come out against the proposed age limit. I'm interested to know what your lived experiences are? 

Has social media impacted you - have you experienced difficulty stopping its use, or bullying or anxiety in relation to self harm? is it positive? does it help combat loneliness or increase it? 

We haven't put out a formal position on the issue but I am interested in the lived experience of people with complex mental health issues and trauma and also those of you who are parents/family members supporting someone with complex mental health issues or trauma. 

Where do you stand on the issues?

[Ainjoule]

Overall, I think it's an over-reach. People should be able to decide for their children what social media their children consume. Having said that I can also sort of see the other side. I'm glad I didn't grow up with social media. I use social media very little and what little I have used I think is positive for the most part. The only time it has bitten me is when I had a psychotic episode where I wrote some social media posts. But I still think parents should have the choice for their children. 

[SkySeeker22]

I recently listed to a pod cast where a teenage was asked about what they thought about social media and how it has affected them from a body image/fitness perspective.

This young lady seemed to have a greater insight into their own mind and body that I had when I was a teenager.  It made me wonder if some of the content that they were being exposed to had actually shaped their ideas and understanding of overall health, wellbeing and mental health.

She spoke about some of influencers she followed using filters and making them selves look "better" than in real life and even some of them saying that they had turned off filters even though it was evident to her that there was still some kind of image distortion going on.  She also talked about how se perceived that there was a lot of competition among younger people on social media to "look and perform the best" which she said had a negative impact on her mental health when she did not meet the "standard" that was being shown.

She in now on a social media cleanse and has removed herself from competitive sports because of this.  Again, this young lady seemed to have alot more self reflection and insight than I did at her age.  I found it interesting that it was her in the driving seat that lead to her removal of social media apps from her devices.

I think that its important for these young people to be able to make their own choices and decisions like this young lady did, but it is also just as important for their support systems and family to be in tune with their attitudes and behaviours and also be able to have open and honest converstations about how the content may affect these younger people.

[MJG017]

I fear the genie is already out of the bottle so to speak.  It's such a major factor in peoples lives now, especially younger people who don't know a life without it, makes it difficult, if not impossible to restrict access to it now.  Didn't facebook have an over 18 policy?  Do they still?  I just know it would be easy to get around because its not in their interest to restrict anyone from joining.

Social media is a reflection of the internet itself.  It's an amazingly useful resource in modern society, but can also be incredibly damaging.  So similarly, social media can an incredible resource, but it can also be extremely toxic.

I remember in my school days, if you got bullied at least you could go home at the end of the day and get a break from it... until the next day anyway.  Now with social media it can be impossible to escape.  Yes, parents should be involved in what their kids do with social media but a lot of parents dont understand it or their kids know how to hide their activity.

I remember when the government brought in laws force ISPs to block access to piracy websites.  It was one small setting on your home router that got around it.  The ban was tokenism at best.  Any social media ban would be just as easily gotten around, or worse driven to more underground and extreme platforms.  Yes, these bans can make a dent, for people not tech savvy, but word gets around and eventually becomes common knowledge.

Obviously I haven't been to school in a depressingly long amount of time, but i know there's been a big push by schools for years saying they're cracking down on bullying.  Which is fantastic, but has it actually done anything?  I doesn't sound like it.

As for does social media help combat loneliness or increase it?  More social people probably get a lot out of it, lonely people probably not so much.  It does make it easier for lonely people to connect with other people, especially other lonely people but we could do that on the internet before social media came along. 

If we're going to make a big change to social media that might actually do something... take away the anonymity.  Make people use real names and require proof to setup an account.  There would still be ways around it, but most people wouldn't be as toxic if they were easily identifiable.  It would also make it easy to ban them for being toxic.  If you get banned now, you just create yet another random account and rejoin.  Social media companies like it this way because it boosts their numbers.

I really wish there was a solution to the problem of bullying and toxicity on social media.  There certainly isn't an easy one.  I think just more awareness for parents to know when their kids may be having issues, and more resources to help them when this happens is a good start.

[Alex9]

I don't think social media should be banned for kids. Firstly, I am curious to know how they would even effectively ban it; even with a verification process, kids will find a way around it. 

Secondly, I think it is up to the parents to decide how to limit their child's online media consumption. In this day and age, parents are well informed about the risks social media has for kids. 

However, personally, I think kids or early teens should not be on social media. 

I think I first got social media when I was 12. For years, it caused me severe body dysmorphia that spiralled into something like an ED (I don't think I had a full ED, but just very restrictive eating), and I am still dealing with the mindset and consequences to this day. 

I also learnt other unhealthy coping methods (SH) from social media that I, unfortunately, have not been able to shake. 

I don't know if things would of been different for me if I wasn't on social media as a teenager and wasn't exposed to all these things. I probably would have been exposed to these ideas eventually but maybe at an older age where I wouldn't use it as a crutch.

[chibam]

I'll respond briefly:
I think this is bad policy. It seems to be based on the assumption that "the demons are outside the walls" - that the internet is a medium through which evil enters the home. Whereas my belief is that, a significant percentage of the time, the evil is already inside the home, and the internet offers a means of (partial) escape, if not a means of calling for help.

During my last years of highschool, social media was very much in it's infancy (ICQ, MSN, and the like). Thankfully, the internet was so brand new that parents hadn't yet been taught to fear it, so me and my peers were able to use it with a lot more freedom, and less scrutiny, then modern kids enjoy.

It gave us a chance to speak freely about our problems, in a way that we would never have been free to do in the presence of an adult. I'll never forget one night, while I was in an MSN chat, when a good friend of mine confessed that she planned to commit suicide very soon. It was a conversation that could've only taken place on the internet, as there's no way we ever would've felt safe enough to have it in the schoolyard, with all those tyrannical, judgemental adults lurking around every corner.

I know it was a different time back then, but the internet wasn't the source of our problems; it was a possible avenue of rescue. The anguish that plagued us didn't come from the internet, it came from our own cruel parents! The suicidal girl I mentioned earlier? Her mother was a notorious monster! Micro-managed every facet of her poor daughter's life, even at 17! My family life wasn't a whole lot better; and neither were many of my miserable friends'.

There seems to be this new fad kicking in now of painting society and it's government as the great evil threatening kids, while lifting parents up on a pedestal as these heroic defenders of kids and their wellbeing. But my experience has taught me that parents can be the most awful of things; and that this is a common enough phenomenon that we shouldn't just dismiss it as being some trivial side-issue.

It truly sickens me to think that we are sealing kids up, in their own awful homes with these monsters, with little if any means of reaching out for help.

Aren't we supposed to be a society that cherishes free speech? I say we let the kids speak; and we aren't doing that if we prohibit them from the platforms that give them the only serious chance they'll have of being heard.

Dolly Everett supposedly said: "Speak, even if your voice shakes." The government just told her modern peers: "You have no right to speak."

[Alex9]

You bring up a really good point about how this new policy looks externally, seeing social media as a boogie man and the family home as the safe haven. 

People find solace in the internet and social media, a place where they can talk through their problems like we do here and that was saved lives.

It is important to remember, though, that once the internet gained popularity, I would probably say that from the 2010s onwards, children and teenagers who were getting groomed online were insane.

From personal experience, many of my friends were talking to older men online when I was in high school. 

The internet is a double sided coin and I'm afraid there is no one correct approach