General News
19 September, 2024
Comment: The fight to save children's childhoods from digital devices
Dr Anne Webster is worried children's childhoods are being stolen.
Comment
When I was elected as Member for Mallee in 2019 I never imagined that five years later we would be fighting to save children's childhoods.
As a mother and grandmother, I see how pervasive devices and electronic entertainment have become in children's lives.
I was out for one of my daughter's birthdays recently and saw a woman with her young children and her mother, with both children's eyes glued to two large iPads.
Just two metres away other children played on a large indoor playground.
We cannot simply stand by and watch our children's childhoods be stolen.
Imaginative play, physical activity and fitness are slipping away.
Children are coping with boredom by using a digital device.
In Canberra we are debating the influence of tech giants and the social media's negative impacts on children.
The cyber-bullying, body image messaging and lurid pictures are bad enough let alone the psychological disorders that the tech platforms fail to address - or even promote through their algorithms.
For centuries in Australia mum, dad, grandparents, the extended family and community formed children's values.
Now socialist governments are ascending the parenting hierarchy, wanting to control what people believe and think and - whether we intended it or not - tech giants like Meta (Facebook, Instagram), Google (Youtube) and Apple are fast pushing family and community values into oblivion.
I was a member of the Parliamentary committee that published a February 2020 report called 'Protecting the Age of Innocence'.
We recommended age verification for online wagering and online pornography.
As the tech giants design their apps and devices to be addictive, the age verification debate has broadened to social media.
The Coalition has committed that within 100 days of taking office we will require an age limit of 16 for social media and other potentially harmful platforms.
The Coalition tried to legislate for an age verification trial last November but the Albanese Government opposed it - and are still months away from any real action.
I invite and welcome readers' thoughts on this important topic by emailing anne.webster.mp@aph.gov.au