Will Anstee is the CEO of the Online Safety Agency, and shares the issues and opportunities to deliver the benefits and minimise the harm of social media for children and teens. With many years of experience in media and advertising across Asia, Will has spent the past 5 years focusing on creating and managing safe, relevant and effective ways of engaging children and teens online.
While the internet has revolutionized the way we live, work, and play, there is growing concern about its impact on children and teens, particularly social media.
Cyberbullying, misinformation, addiction, declining face-to-face communication, self-esteem issues, social isolation, polarization, cyber stalking and cyber harassment, decreased privacy, and more are issues many parents are dealing with, leading to calls to ban the use of social media for those under the age of sixteen.
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So, you’re saying it’s a big issue. This is a big issue and it’s having a major impact.
Transcription:
Darren:
Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of TrinityP3 Marketing Management consultancy and welcome to Managing Marketing. A weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.
If you’re enjoying the Managing Marketing Podcast, please either like, review, or share this episode to help spread the words and wisdom from our guests each week.
Now, while the internet has caused a revolutionary change in the way we live, work, and play, there’s a growing concern about the impact the internet and particularly social media is having on children and teens.
Cyber bullying, misinformation, addiction, declining face-to-face communication, self-esteem issues, social isolation, polarization, cyber stalking and cyber harassment, decreased privacy and more, the list goes on, issues many parents are dealing with leading to a call to ban the use of social media for those under the age of 16.
But on the flip side, there are those who point to the benefits of social media and point to the difficulties of enforcing an age restriction ban. My guest today has many years of experience in media and advertising across Asia and has spent the past five years focusing on creating and managing safe, relevant, and effective ways of engaging children and teens online.
To discuss the issues and opportunities to deliver the benefits and minimize the harm of social media for children and teens, please welcome to the Managing Marketing Podcast, CEO of the Online Safety Agency, Will Anstee. Welcome Will.
Will:
Great to be here, Darren. Thank you.
Darren:
Look, Will, this is a hot topic, and we have seen calls for a ban, the government is clearly looking at creating age restrictions for social media. I guess before we talk about that, what really is informing you and your agency on the current state of play with social media?
Will:
So, let’s look at it on a few different levels. So, the first thing is social media is one dimension of what is a kid’s online environment. Now what we look at is obviously the online behaviors, but where we get a lot of our data from is the work we do in schools.
So, we spend a number of days each week talking to kids, literally helping them understand or navigate how to manage some of the harder issues. And when I say the harder issues it’s things like cyber bullying, it’s things like sextortion, it’s things like deep fakes. There is so much happening in a kid’s life, social media is just one aspect of it.
But yet, on the other hand, social media also too, is their tribe. It’s what holds them together. It’s what galvanizes them. When you start to look at more sort of minority groups and the minority groups could be neurodiverse, it could be LGBTQ+, social media is actually critical of helping these kids connect. So, there is so much benefit of what is social and yes, there’s also the dark side.
And I think that if you look at that generally from what happens online and you look at, when you and I were growing up and not saying that we are anything different to young people, but there is so much light that comes in from online.
So, you think about how much easier it is to learn, you think about how much easier it is to be absolutely I guess excited and hopeful for what’s coming through, whether it be entertainment, movies, games. You think about even how games now are helping kids get off their HDHD medication, yeah, HDHD.
Darren:
ADHD.
Will:
ADHD, thank you. That’s obviously my ADHD. But I think the thing that’s interesting for me is there is so much utility happening online for kids and for parents and yet there’s also then the balance of the dark side.
So, as we start talking to kids and having a really sort of, I guess, upfront and personal experience with them, you realize that it’s really complicated. It’s a challenge on many, many levels. Schools are not equipped to be helping our kids navigate the issues. Even the education system doesn’t train teachers in any way, shape or form of what they do next.
There are a number of departments that are set up by the Australian Police Force, and that is one of them is the ACCCE which literally is there if a kid falls into any problems, and it could be a sort of sextortion case, they’ll call in 10 minutes and start to get things sorted.
So, I think the biggest thing we have to do is first of all, get kids to talk to their parents, because a lot of them won’t, a lot of them will say that their parents will probably cause more of a problem if they are going to confide in them. But I think the other thing too is let’s actually arm parents with the right information so that they know what to do and at this point in time, they’re none the wiser.
Darren:
And look, it’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because as a parent of seven-year-olds, I didn’t grow up in the digital age. I know there are parents out there that were born and grew up with the digital age, but to one of your earlier points, because there’s a lot to unpack in what you just said.
But to that earlier point, it is really interesting because in many ways the issues of being a child and growing to a teen and a young adult are fundamentally the same. It’s just complicated by this hyper level of connection that didn’t exist when most … my generation and your generation were children.
You say it helps them connect into their tribes or their groups but there was not that always own aspect, when you went home before the smartphone, you could escape. If they phoned you, it was the phone on the wall, it wasn’t in your pocket. You weren’t sitting in your room with a computer or a tablet or a television that was connecting you to the world.
Will:
Well, the thing that we see is, again, so if we talk to the business community, they’ll say, “Oh look, these guys are digital natives.” The fact is it’s actually beyond a digital native. Because the way that we see it is that it’s more of a digital orphan in the fact that their parents have really no understanding of how to relate to them in this digital world and even to the point that it is more the way we see it almost nutrition for them as opposed to wellness.
So, the parents’ understanding of even what it does for these kids, and it is a little bit like a drug and again, I don’t like to use these terms because I think there’s so much fear in this space and the thing we have to do, Darren, is take the fear out of it and start looking at it in a matter of fact way of what it is and what we do as business leaders, as communities, as societies to start to move in and help this.
But the fact is, if you think about your kids on YouTube, which would be probably their preference they would spend literally all day on it if you allowed them. Now that’s-
Darren:
And they do. Sorry.
Will:
And they will.
Darren:
And they will. And what I’ve noticed is depending on what they’re watching, and they have a particular style, because I’m very aware of what they’re watching. They have a style, which is this sort of older teen, “young adult YouTuber” who I feel like is screaming at me while some game is playing in the background.
And what I’ve noticed is their energy and aggression levels actually get higher the longer they watch this stuff. That there’s almost this visceral response that happens and so, we’ve had to limit as much as we can their exposure to it.
Will:
But you think about just how exciting that content is. And again, this generation going through with the first generation, not even growing up with iPhones, it’s the first generation that will grow up in the metaverse.
And that is everything is on tap, everything is available, and therefore, how does your brain naturally start to almost weed out what isn’t needed? Now at a younger age, there actually, it’s like a sponge. So, it’s full on, full throttle and it’s going to be absorbing everything.
We do know, though that, well, and again, it’s probably not everybody, but a lot of parents will probably use their iPhone to plicate a child from the ages of two and I’ve seen kids of 18 months swiping iPhones.
They know exactly what they’re after, they know exactly what sort of content, they get annoyed or frustrated when they’re not getting what they want and the first thing a parent does is actually come in and help them.
Now we also know that myopia (as you and I are wearing glasses), is becoming more of an issue because the way that the eye develops is in our three-dimensional world and spatially it needs spatial dimensions as opposed to a flat screen.
So, there has to be some level of moderation and that’s where we do start talking about this whole term of phygital, which is sort of the physical and digital combined. And it is important that as a parent, we don’t simply, I guess give away all of our responsibilities to another parent or to a school.
We have our own role to parent. We have our own role to be that person that does set rules. But the fact is there has to be some level of your interaction online as well, so that there’s an appreciation, you get it.
And I’ve had grandparents say to me at various sort of conferences how do I get my kids to stop gaming? Well, my grandchildren to stop gaming? “And I don’t like it (as you were saying), I find that it’s yelling at me and it’s noisy and it’s disruptive for the calm energy of my home.”
Now the fact is there’s no way you can stop a child gaming, but there is a way that you can say, “Look can we play some games together?” And there are so many games out there that are absolutely phenomenal when it comes to mindfulness, problem solving, critical thinking.
And if you also think about the education system, and again, I don’t want to get into a damning of that particular system in Australia. But the idea here in terms of the games that are coming through, that the education system is, is that it’s not setting our kids up necessarily for success either.
We have a situation where a lot of the curriculum isn’t actually meeting their interests and expectations. They come home, they get online, they’re absolutely overwhelmed with how exciting the online world is.
So, we are giving them these two different worlds of one that’s boring and not really meeting their expectations and there’s another world that’s actually highly exciting. So, when you start to look at games, for example, and games that are about problem solving, this is actually wiring their synapses to take on jobs of the future that we have no idea that will exist.
So, I get very excited and when parents say to me, “I’m completely despondent by what my kids are up to online,” I’ll say, “Pause and breathe. Have you taken the time to look at actually how that game works? And have you taken the time to understand that it’s actually giving your child various skills that maybe other systems aren’t, that are going to help them in later life?”
But lean in and support and don’t just simply say, “Oh, you’re playing Fortnite again, you’re playing some sort of shooting game again,” now to help navigate some games that we know are going to have a much longer lasting impact and more positive benefit on the child.
Darren:
It is interesting that there are a lot of games that are problem solving games, whether it’s spatial around puzzles, even puzzles, solving puzzles and things like that. Then there are other gains, which — and they’re competitive games where you’re competing against the system and they’re the ones that seem to have most tapped into the dopamine reward system.
That the solving the problem is a great thing, and as you say, is good training, but there seems to be less of them that give the dopamine hit that some of these competition games have and that’s the thing is that when they’re playing those games where it’s deliberately being designed to give them that emotional reward, that it becomes addictive because all of us become addictive to that very positive rush that a dopamine, a hit of dopamine has on the brain.
I think it’s interesting from our perspective, we manage that by, you can have half an hour of this if you do half an hour of one of these games, is trying to get some sort of balance between and using it as the reward that it is.
Will:
No, it’s really, really important. And if you think of it from what the gaming space is, you’ve got well games that are … there’s sort of three ways you play. It’s going to be you’re playing with your family and that could be more educational based, depending on sort of how you’re as a parent, there’s going to be playing with your friends and then playing by yourself.
Now, you’re right, the dopamine levels are going to be far more enhanced when you are talking about playing as a tribe or playing with your mates. Now, that environment I think is fantastic because that is all about community, it’s actually all about coming together as a tribe and I think there’s some sort of basic human elements there that I think we sort of all go back to.
But what you also have to be aware of then in the tribal space is that there often are people that come into those environments that are actually not necessarily positive in their advances. And I hear so many times the parents saying, “Who are you talking to?” Because it’s not actually one of the friends that they know the voices.
And it’s some dude generally in there that’s almost, well, he’s seemed to groom. So, I think it’s important that there’s a parent still around and there’s a parent that does step in and say, “Hang on, who are you? I need you to sort of show yourself.”
And I think a lot of brands will come in and say it’s up to the platform to do that and you think about Roblox as one of the key sort of gaming platforms. Now, the fact is Roblox have a lot of parental controls in there, but what they can’t stop is when there is some type of grooming person or a predator that comes into those environments.
And again, you don’t know who they are because again, the age verification doesn’t work, and I know that that’s for another day. But the fact is that they will then be taken out of there and said, “Look, do you want to meet on Snap? Do you want to meet on Snap maps?”
And as soon as you then get a child out of that Roblox environment into Snapchat and onto the maps, anyone can see exactly where they are and that’s what you want to stop. And that’s why it’s the importance of data privacy, data regulation and it is critical for all of us as business leaders and as societal leaders, that we protect that data with an inch of its life because it is very easy to do that.
But I know a lot of brands will say, “Well, that then becomes, again, the onus back onto the gaming platform or whatever it is.” But the fact is, the onus has to eventually sit with a parent. No matter what is done from a technical perspective, there is always going to be ways around it and that’s even with this whole ban on social media, which is going to have lots of longer lasting issues.
And I think it’s a challenge to all of us, given that we know that of our 13 to 17-year-old children basically one in three or two in three are actually on those platforms. So, there’s a lot in there, but it’s up to the parents too, to have a big say.
Darren:
Well, your team’s engaged over 19,000 young people with this ongoing research, and it’d be really, well-
Will:
Well, that in the last few months.
Darren:
It’d be really interesting to get a sense of what are the platforms that are popular with the different ages. I know my seven-year-old, seven to nine-year-olds very much YouTube is the go-to place for them but what’s a typical seven to nine-year-old doing?
Will:
Well, first of all, actually, there is age restriction already, so that you shouldn’t allow anyone under the age of 13, not any social platform. So, that was actually a legislation passed in 1998 under the Australian law that actually prohibited on the age of 13, unless of course that’s where the age verification piece comes in. So, the biggest platform without a doubt is YouTube.
Now there’s even some debate. Is YouTube a social platform or is YouTube an entertainment platform or education platform? So, you can already start to see that when we start talking about banning social media, there’s going to be a lot of I guess exemptions, dare we say.
So, YouTube then is still going to be full flight and the reason for that is it has such a depth of incredible content and it doesn’t matter sort of what your excitement is, if you even like arts, crafts right through to building games yourself.
There is a video on anything you can possibly get that’s going to start to help you shape your passion and maybe even possibly your career choices in life, so YouTube is quite an incredible place.
But then when you start looking at some of the other challenges around sort of the Metas of the world and the Instagrams of the world we know that children really are more — well, we know that kids are starting more like 11 years of age or 10 years of age, we also have anecdotal discussions from Meta that they know that a child under the age of 13 is worth $270 for them in terms of the data they can trade in that child.
So, we’ve got this terrible sort of inconsistency in life and a moral dilemma in lots of ways, because the big tech on one level will say, “We’ll age gate and that’ll be under 13 and not age verified and above,” the new social media ban, so that everyone’s clear on this chat is that it’ll be banned for anyone under the age of 14 and there’ll be parental consent for 15 to 16 year olds, or 14 to 15 year olds. So, anyone sort of 16 and above, it’s all still fine. Now, that then goes into the debate around terms and conditions.
Now, terms and conditions on any social media platform and it’s interesting, I’ve got some data points here just to share with you. Because when you look at the terms and conditions for any social media, basically the average time it takes to read them, and that would mean that even your proficiency and understanding legalese terms, so probably you’d want to be a lawyer takes approximately 38.4 minutes on average to read the terms and conditions.
Now, going back to your question about what are the most popular platforms, TikTok is absolutely huge. TikTok, ironically, has the longest terms and conditions reading time of up to 56.5 minutes. So, what kid is going to actually read that and automatically they’d understand even what it means to give away their data privacy.
And yet, on the other hand, we know that Meta and Instagram are saying to us that in their new AI, they’re actually going to go back and use data from all of our accounts back to 2007 because we all said that we actually knew what we were doing, giving away our data. So, we ticked the box to opt in.
So, you’ve got this situation where you’ve got these platforms and then the big ones for the kids are going to be the TikTok, the YouTubes you’ve got obviously Snap, which is big, but Instagram, they’re sort of like the big ones.
What we’re seeing coming through the system now though, was more like the Telegrams and more of I guess, the Messenger channel, the Messenger apps. Now, Telegrams of the world is really, really rife for challenges and we’re seeing a lot of radicalization help being created on those platforms.
We’re actually seeing a lot of very strange minority groups coming together and finding sort of like-minded people that are not about sort of in the wellness of society.
So, I think we’ve got to be watching what our kids are using as the apps, and I think we’ve got to be very comfortable sitting down and saying to them, “What are you using? Let’s go through your phone right now. I’m not going to say no to it, but do you understand this is what this app does? Do you understand what happens behind the scenes with this app?”
And again, I think the biggest thing for all of us is help our kids understand what they’re actually giving their consent to. And I think all of us, the way we want to raise our children is to sort of be the most confident, resilient person in this new digital world but on the other hand too, we don’t actually give them the tools to arm them, or we don’t actually sit down and say to them, do you understand what this actually does?
And when we sit down in schools particularly, you would be amazed at the number of children, whether they be kids that are 8 or 10, or whether they be 16, they have no understanding of what they’re actually using or what’s in their hand. They see it purely as a function of socializing. They see it on basic levels.
Darren:
I would say there’s a lot of parents that don’t know what they’re actually using. So, where can anyone get a very clear idea, where do you educate yourself? Because certainly terms and conditions are a nightmare.
First of all, apart from the fact that it takes so long there’re also in a point size that you need unbelievable eyesight in both of us is without myopia. But this is an issue, isn’t it? Because we did all ticket it back in 2007 because it was the new thing, and everyone wanted to be part of it.
Will:
And also too, I think even more none the wiser back then, but I also too don’t like the fact that it’s now being thrown back in our faces of, well, your naivety is then actually your problem as opposed to ours.
Anyway, back to your question and one thing that I do is that I put terms and conditions through ChatGPT ironically and I will get a summary within, I know like, let’s make it be useful for us. But I will get a summary within a paragraph of saying, “Look, this is where the real challenges are and this is what you’re signing up to,” and that will take literally seconds.
So, crunching down the 55 minutes of the TikTok into literally a paragraph of reading does start to arm us with the power of knowing what we are signing ourselves up for. But on the other hand, too, I think we’ve got to put pressure back onto the social media platforms and what we’ll all find out there is that if we do opt out, then our user experience is massively challenged.
So, you sort of say, you’re damned if you do, you’re damned if you don’t but the fact is, that’s also becoming illegal. So, it’s up to us to go to I guess the ombudsman, I mean, in Australia there’s lots of options. And again, if you want to put into ChatGPT, what are actually my options of complaint, that’ll actually give you the quick five to do, so be comfortable with AI as well.
But also, what we are doing as a business and particularly off the back of the government saying that they want to ban social media is creating snackable pieces of content that do start getting parents up to speed.
And again, go to our website https://www.theonlinesafetyagency.com. But in there, there’s actually a number of programs that could be on, if my child is bullying, if there’s deep fakes happening, what do I do? What does it mean in terms of AI and what are my kids doing with it at school?
So, there’s a plethora of subjects in there and what we’re also doing is creating almost like cheat sheets off the back of that and hundreds of them of just trying to keep parents up to speed because there is something new happening every day.
And we know that being a parent at this point in time is tough. We do know that the parent has very little understanding of what’s happening. We do know that literally change is happening at break next speed, and it would be impossible to keep up.
And then, I mean, from the other side, you’ve got then businesses, you’ve got then the brands, you’ve got then the media agencies, they are even more well lacking wisdom of what’s going on because they’re so far from the coalface of what’s happening and they’re relying on each other to give each other the answers they need.
So, we are at an amazing point in time in history where we have so much information at our fingertips, we have so much content that is incredibly charged and incredibly educational to help us, yet on the other hand there’s the dark side.
But I do, I think one of the easiest things to do is start to make it your interest to know what is Telegram or understand what your kids are using and say, “Why would you use that for-
Darren:
Well, sorry, but just on that, some of your research, 57% of children own an iPad or some sort of tablet and then there was, YouTube and Roblox are the most popular for that seven to nine-year-old. The bit that was concerning, 36% are on X formerly Twitter, and 29% have used Reddit.
I mean, Reddit scares me sometimes. The idea of a seven to nine-year-old then a 10 to 12-year-olds, you’ve got 47% have got smartphone and to your point, that’s where top kicks in. On average spending two hours a day there, despite age restrictions, Roblox has become the most popular and X use rises to 42% which is just terrifying, that’s 10 to 12-year-olds.
From that age onwards, 13 to 15, Spotify becomes the top app, Snapchat, and TikTok’s in the top three, 16 to 18-year-olds, Instagram is up in third place with 65 minutes daily and Snapchat continues to be popular.
But to your point, you’ve now got Telegraph and all of these other … Telegram sorry and all these other apps that are constantly evolving in the marketplace and yet they all fall into different categories. There’s Messenger, there’s social sharing, there’s gaming, even keeping across this, it must be incredibly difficult.
Will:
Well, I mean, each platform is skewed to its own particular niche or its own particular value proposition and I think it’s important for parents to keep a tab of what their kids are using and what they’re using it for. And the one thing we always say to parents is understand the digital footprint of your child.
And it is something that should be quite simple, but you can see it on their phones and I know that we’re like, there’s this whole discussion around not only this banning phones in the school yard, school system, but also to just generally not having access to smartphone until you are over 16 years of age.
Now, again, I don’t think it’s possible, I think it’s an ambition. But I think there’s better ways of doing it, and it comes down to all of us being responsible. So, understand the digital footprint would be one of the first things. I think even Google yourself and see what’s out there on you.
And even for a parent to do that, they may be absolutely surprised at what’s out there. And again, because you’ve given your permission away on so many of these aspects and some of these apps, the apps like the Reddits of the world I don’t think have really any integrity whatsoever.
You can see some of the content that’s put in, and they can be quite dangerous, a kid shouldn’t be on Reddit necessarily. There’s other ways of finding information. As you say X, I mean, just the shenanigans with looking at Elon Musk, taking on the business from Twitter, now calling it X, for — a crazy place.
So, if you see that that’s what the owners are there behaving in their real world then what are we up against? And we do know that in the likes of the Twitters, the exposure of what kids are seeing when it comes to content, and it could be as terrible as somebody killing themselves.
It is stuck in the kid’s brain forever. But the other thing too, it’s just to normalize it. And that’s something that I think is becoming more of a problem of what’s normalized. We’re seeing the issues in the U.S. of course-
Darren:
Yeah. Desensitizes them.
Will:
The behavioral issues we’re seeing. And we were sitting in a principal’s office the other day, and this girl of 16 came in absolutely abusing the principal, every swear word under the sun, no respect and literally then sort of stormed out and we sort of, “What’s that about?”
And this principal said, “Look, these kids, they’re living in fear. They’re on the edge. Behaviorally we’re not given anything in the system to help even know what to do with that. So, we just simply listen.”
So, again, the problem is systemic in terms of no one knowing what to do. So, that’s why go back, understand a kid’s digital footprint under, Google yourself unfollow irrelevant accounts, like get them off your device. You don’t need them or harmful but start to curate your feed to be positive. And you can help a child do that.
So yes, you can say, “I’m going to ban the screen, I’m going to ban the smartphone. I’m going to ban, ban, ban.” But banning, first of all, I don’t think helps. It just makes … I’ve always known, if someone tries to impose a rule on myself, I try and find a rule around it.
So, if I divided that, imagine that’s probably most people what do we then do to help these kids and actually understand of how we also dialed down the drummer? How do we get them involved in these decisions? And stop saying, “You’re not doing this,” as opposed to how do we actually tell them about these things? How do we tell them about the impacts to mental health.
And a status I saw the other day on GWI and I just want to … this sort of scared the life out of me. So, GWI is obviously one of the largest sort of global research panels and it said that basically mental health now for kids that are Gen Z, so that’s kids age 14 to 24 in essence is actually bigger than those that claim hay fever.
So, mental health and hay fever is now put in the same area. But what they also then led on to say is that social media seems to have the greatest impact on mental health than we’ve actually seen since the atrocity of World War II or the Vietnam War. So, again, if we are going to let-
Darren:
So, you’re saying it’s a big issue. This is a big issue and it’s having a major impact.
Will:
So, we have to lean in as parents as-
Darren:
But what you’re saying is we can’t ban it because it’s in the marketplace.
Will:
It’s there but also-
Darren:
So, what should parents do? I mean, I’ve noticed here that you’ve got improving your family’s digital wellbeing, the first thing is signal change is coming and invite them to be part of it. What’s that look like?
Will:
It is as simple as sitting down and saying, “What do you and your friends need to communicate? What are you doing on these apps? Do you understand how they work?” You’ve got to do some research on what are the apps.
And again, some of the upsides, downsides, we put out newsletters all the time on this stuff in terms of helping parents understand to sign up through the online safety agency and get on our database and we’ll send you literally updates on what’s happening with Telegram, what’s happening with Snapchat, what it means for banning.
We will aim to give you the most moderate thought or approach. Because again, I just think if we start to keep pedaling fear, if we keep pedaling this drama, we’re not going to help them.
Darren:
Well, that’s point three, dial down the drama. Because there is a lot of tension both for parents and kids in this discussion.
Will:
Well, even, again, talking to the kids in schools one of the biggest reasons why they don’t tell their parents is again, the drama that’s created. Because the parent, I think in their own way of, I think fear for their children react badly as opposed to someone saying, “Hey, we’ve got this. We’ve got this together and let’s hear.”
So, take of that drama, take of that fear, but also do some, a little bit of fun with it and even show them what’s out there on yourself. So, again, do the Google searches, do basically the reverse image searches of what you’re seeing.
Show them how these sites actually work and even if you’re uncomfortable in that space, there must be a friend, there must be an uncle, there must be an auntie that you can bring into the family that maybe is that person that can become the go-to for this space, but it is terrible.
Darren:
What about explain the brain to empower their mental health? What age do you think that’s appropriate at 5, 6, 7?
Will:
Well, if you talk to our pediatric psychologist, it is absolutely fascinating that the mental process even around brand loyalty can start as young as two or three. So, obviously it’s not going to be the relationship that what a 13 plus year old has but when you start to, again, think about these kids, you think about a world of firsts.
So, as they’re growing up, and if we remember how we all grew up, there’s going to be our first real friendships, our first love, it’s going to be the first pimples, it’s going to be the first fight, there’s going to be the first … all these sorts of things.
So, in a world of firsts that’s where you develop, I guess a lot of, like, a lot of sort of cognitive process and synapses, all sort of wiring in certain ways. So, I think, it does start young but I think the real, sort of the critical years is when I think everyone’s hormones go crazy from sort of like from 10 plus up and that’s-
Darren:
Puberty, it’s called.
Will:
It is called puberty. But what is also fascinating, it’s happening younger now. And again, I don’t the medical facts as to why that’s happening, but we’re seeing it coming on in a much younger age and, yeah, hormones help within that.
Darren:
Now, well the last two points about improving your family’s digital wellbeing is hold steady on boundaries and walk the damn talk. Now, I think there’s self-evident accept that I have heard parents championing a government ban, age ban on social media being lifted to 16 on the basis that, “I’m sick of being the bad guy. I need the government to put in legislation banning the use of social media until 16 years of age so that I’m not the bad guy.”
It’s understandable because parents can often feel dealing with teenagers that they’re in a constant battle of wills and that that would give a short circuit to break that tension a bit. It’s not me that’s saying this, it’s the government, but is it going to work?
I mean, you’ve said this earlier that age restrictions are in place now and they’re not working. How’s it going to work?
Will:
Well, I mean, first of all I have heard a lot of parents say that if they could actually shirk responsibility off the government, then that would actually get them off the hook. But I also know too that that doesn’t actually create any more harmony in the house.
And what I also see, which again drives me crazy, is here we are with all these sort of meticulously developed parental controls, and yet I’ll hear parents say, “Look, just get on my account and use it if — just sort of like get around that piece.”
So, it comes down to who’s got to take responsibility and it’s not just for the government. I think it’s important that the government has a role to play in protecting our kids absolutely. And I know that there are lots of I guess legislation coming into play that does help us on that level. But again, it doesn’t actually create the peace in the home.
And as you say, there’s so much happening for these kids. It is culturally wired into them as an age that their phones are critical. And I sit often at a dinner with my family, and it could be with my, I guess my niece and my nephews, they’re on their phones and I will always say, “Leave the phones out of dinner.”
Like try and have some out of phone or put phones away time but don’t make a big fuss of it. Just say, “Listen, I want to talk to as a family, I want to communicate we have lots of talk about just get the phones away so we can have all your attention.”
But a lot of parents don’t do that. They think it’s too hard. The fight’s too hard. If you wanted to further to government, you think that’s an easy fix, look it is potentially. But I also know that it’s not going to help anybody longer-term either.
Darren:
Well, thank you for your time. The clock has got away from us. There is so much more that we need to discuss, particularly the role of government, the role of the technology platforms and the role of marketers in all this.
Because in many ways, almost all these platforms rely on advertising and advertising revenue as a way of making it work. So, I’d like to invite you back to let’s do a part two on this because I think it’s absolutely fascinating.
Will:
I’d love that and I’ll also try and keep it as non-biased and informative as possible. Because again, we have to really take out this whole sort of fear energy in this space and dumb it down, so we know what to do with it. So, I’d love that, Darren. Let’s do it.
Darren:
Well, your agency is theonlinesafetyagency.com, isn’t it? If people are looking for resources.
Will:
Correct.
Darren:
And thank you Will Anstee for being my guest today on Managing Marketing.
Will:
Thanks for having me, Darren. Appreciate it.
