The co-author of a study cited by the nation’s communications minister in arguing for a teen social media ban says his research does not justify the policy, suggesting the government has “misunderstood” the paper.
On Monday, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland spoke in question time about why the Albanese government is proceeding with a plan to ban Australians under the age of 16 from social media.
Rowland mentioned a UK study she said showed the “hazards of excessive use” for young people using social media.
“In 2022 a group of UK psychologists the neuroscientist [sic] analysed longitudinal data on 17,400 young people. They found that young girls experienced a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11 to 13 years old; a negative link between social media use and life satisfaction when they are 11 to 13 years old; and for young boys it is when they are 14 to 15 years old,” she said, according to the transcript published online.
It appears Rowland was speaking about a 2022 paper published in Nature Communications called “Windows of developmental sensitivity to social media“, though she did not mention it by name.
One of the paper’s co-authors, University of Oxford professor of human behaviour and technology Andrew Przybylski, said he was unaware this work was being used in support of the policy and that its findings do not support a teen social media ban.
“I do not agree that it provides the justification for this policy. I think they have misunderstood the purpose and findings of our research,” he said in an email to Crikey.”
Rowland told Crikey that the government has taken a “pragmatic approach”.
“In arriving at the age of 16, the government has taken a pragmatic approach, we have consulted widely with experts, parents, youth organisations, academics and our state and territory colleagues,” she said in an email.
“Our approach achieves a balance between minimising the harms experienced by young people, while enabling connection and social inclusion.”
The paper found, as mentioned by Rowland, that there are age- and sex-specific windows of sensitivity to social media use at a population level. But the authors continued that these “most probably meaningfully differ across individuals”, meaning that each person responds differently to social media based on factors such as their personality, social circle and environment.
Rather than leading to the idea that we should blanket ban children from social media, the paper’s authors suggest these findings “could pave pathways for targeted interventions that address the negative consequences of social media while also promoting its positive uses”.
The authors’ nuanced conclusions comport with concerns raised by the eSafety commissioner — the government’s internet safety regulator — and in a letter from 140 Australian and international experts who took issue with the bluntness of a ban. A parliamentary committee looking at the impact of social media explicitly did not recommend an age ban in a report published this week because of “contrasting views” about whether it would make young Australians safer.
Przybylski told Crikey that he would be happy to work with the Australian government to help them understand their study and how it relates to the ban.
“It’s really too bad they did not reach out to Dr Orben or myself before including our work this way,” he said.
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