In recent months more and more reports have appeared about the dangers of Social Media. Worldwide, several countries are making far-reaching choices in this regard. Norway is considering a ban for children up to the age of 15. The Australian parliament recently agreed to a ban for youths up to 16 years of age. In the Netherlands, too, the discussion about the use of social media is gathering momentum.
The question on many people's minds is whether we in the Netherlands should also go as far as Australia or Norway. Or are there other solutions? How does social media affect young people? What is the impact in a negative and positive sense? We would like to discuss this with each other. We will do this at a session at the ICT&health World Conference 2025.
What will we highlight in this session?
The use of social media by young people can have negative effects:
- The health of our children and young people, who themselves do not always experience limitations in their use (and if they do the use is difficult to reduce), suffers. The problems that are identified are significant. Think of vision problems due to frequent and long stares at a monitor on a small screen, psychological problems such as addictive behavior, depression, low or distorted self-esteem, bullying and exclusion. And those are just the measurable and noticeable effects.
- What can be expected in the long term? What effects will we still be able to reap as by-products? And if those are going to be there in x years or so, are we still thinking about the influence on this from the Socials? In addition, more and more noises are being ventilated that, because of the algorithms and revenue models attached to Social Media and because of advancing and rapid digital developments, it is no longer possible for the average adult to follow or control it.
On the other hand, there are also arguments in favor of using Social Media.
The reported benefits of social media use among young people are that they learn more quickly and easily to make (online) connections with their peers. In this, they do not feel limited to their own neighborhood, area or bubble, but make global connections faster.
- The frequent use of digital devices and applications teaches this generation the digital skills essential for the future, the so-called 21st century skills. They are digital natives; they do not know a world without digital tools. In the future, they will increasingly need to be able to relate to this, to hold their own. Young people learn to present themselves through social media, they can showcase their skills. That can give a boost in self-confidence. From that perspective, allowing Social Media would be natural.
From a young person's point of view, the message is, “Through social media, we push each other to do things you wouldn't otherwise be comfortable doing (weird dances, vaping, etc.). As a result, we are not ourselves; fortunately, sometimes our environment sees that. It even takes a detox in some cases to get back to somewhat normal use of phones and social media.''
Responsible use
As usually, the solution, the best way to deal with this, probably lies in a little of both. Awareness and choice make the difference and lead to more responsible use of social media. But what then is that responsible use? And can our children and young people already do this for themselves? Is their brain already developed enough and their self-reflection? From what age is that more or less present in young people? And where can support be given?
Support systems can certainly help in this, such as adults, the parents and family, the school and teachers. Can we do that with enough power and strength, given the algorithms with which the BIG Tech companies know how to engage our children and young people and the huge interests they have in keeping it that way? Do we ourselves have enough knowledge to guard against this? But it is mainly in young people themselves, which starts with awareness and making choices in the use of social media. Are there other ways to represent the interests of young people in this, together with them?
Join us in a dialogue about this and come to the session on this topic on January 29 at the ICT&health World Conference 2025
