KIIS FM’s Kyle and Jackie O can go to air with audio recorded from the “girls” in the office urinating while declaring that “the boys will try and figure out whose flaps made that wee.”
The show doesn’t get cancelled, nor do governments suggest that kids be banned from listening in. Some complaints are made, Media Watch runs a segment, outrage is shared and the harmless radio fun continues.
The urinating contest that aired on KIIS FM at 7:50am on a weekday is merely the latest example of overstepping the lines of decency in a bid to pursue radio ratings. It’s not just KIIS FM, but plenty of other “traditional” and well-established platforms allow their on-air talent to dismantle basic decency standards.
Meanwhile, watch a Rugby League game on TV with your kids, and they will be bombarded with ad after ad for gambling.
Across free to air television, an astounding 1200 ads are aired promoting online betting ads every day — with more such ads featured across other platforms. Kids watch it and, in many cases, have a punt themselves. Today, the Gambling Research Centre has released new research finding one third of children under 18 have engaged in gambling.
But no one wants to talk about banning gambling ads beyond the current parliamentary crossbench and some weak proposals on gambling reform from the Albanese government. Nor is there much appetite for asking traditional media to lift their standards on what goes to air.
Rather, the talk of bans is reserved for social media, with the Albanese government announcing plans to support a national ban on social media for kids up to the age of somewhere between 14 and 16.
Social media can certainly be fraught with danger for young people. It’s hard to ignore evidence showing a rise in eating disorders and mental health issues in young people coinciding with the rise in the prevalence of access to social media. Social media platforms, especially Meta, must be responsible for what’s shared and what their algorithms send to users, especially minors. There is also plenty of evidence regarding online bullying, in some cases leading to absolutely devastating results.
But can a blanket ban on social media for young people really solve the issue?
First, it’s unclear how such a ban could work, with the Albanese Government pushing to have a national agenda for the ban to avoid having different rules and systems for managing such rules across different states.
Will kids be asked to complete a quiz to manage such access? Will governments introduce some kind of attempt at facial recognition?
An age-based ban ignores the fact that social media is with us whether we like it or not. Turning 14 or even 16 will not magically make social media safe for users, nor do kids lose interest in online bullying at this age. Concerns about body image and appearance also don’t disappear in the teenage years, they following kids well into adulthood.
As the director of the Australian Association of Psychologists, Carly Dober, told the Australian Associated Press, a social media ban is a “band-aid solution” to the problem.
She also suggests such a ban could cause harm, by taking away the benefits that online spaces can present to young people, especially those from marginalised communicates like refugee youth, disabled youth and LGBTQI people.
Social media can also provide a platform for young people learn about issues and news that concern them, especially issues that may not be covered across traditional media platforms, or covered in ways that include a diverse range of opinions and voices. Social media has also been a place where younger voices can get heard and grow their audiences around key issues.
While there are deep concerns about misinformation across social media, the misinformation that does appear on the web is hardly limited to social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok. If anything, these platforms can at least provide some sort of guardrails regarding such information — while it goes unpoliced and unchecked across less formal online environments.
Social media is not going away, nor is the internet more generally.
In a dream scenario, a social media ban would be easy to implement, and kids would lose interest in all forms of harmful content online, perhaps even to the point of getting rid of their smartphones altogether.
Perhaps in this future utopia, kids will spend more time listening to commercial radio, including the likes of Kyle and Jackie O discussing the urinating sounds of their significantly lower paid and less powerful team members.
Or maybe these social media free kids can learn more about the latest odds for their favourite Rugby League team and learn exactly where to place bets, as they sit down to watch a game?
If the kids keep the devices, they could spend more time in virtual gaming universes like Roblox or Fortnite, which carry addictive mechanisms and are continuously evolving to tap into new and improved tech and tricks to keep kids playing.
And once these kids have consumed endless gambling ads and classy commercial radio commentary from the likes of Kyle Sandilands — along with everything else they can watch and hear online that isn’t social media — they can officially meet the age requirement for social media and start connecting and interacting.
The problem, then, is that they will have had no training, awareness or understanding of what social media is — and will be diving head first into such tools at a time when it’s suddenly considered age appropriate, but when they are very much still growing, and still vulnerable to the mental health risks and addictive aspects of social media.
Talk of a ban that would be difficult, if not impossible, to police is a distraction.
A more immediate and game-changing approach would be to accept that social media is part of life, but it is something that young people can personally develop their capacities for understanding and using safely.
Joanne Orlando describes social media as being “like sex” — young people are likely to pursue and do it anyway. What they need is education, rather than being told they can’t participate at all.
She describes social media literacy as being about “understanding and critical thinking about the context you see on social media — and why it’s there.”
“It’s about understanding that the images and videos which appear in your social media feed are not there by chance. They are there because of algorithms which use your personal data to better understand your interests and what kind of content you are more likely to engage with … This is why everyone’s social media feeds are different.”
She also highlights the opaque nature of algorithms and the benefits of understanding that platforms are keeping these secrets.
Right now, this type of social media literacy is lacking. Indeed, Orlando shares how she recently spoke to an audience of more than 300 university students and realised that the group knew very little about the algorithm social media platforms use to keep their content sticky.
She adds that the education she does come across is limited and overly negative. There are numerous opportunities to improve the education that is out there to introduce this kind of literacy and to teach young people to use social media in positive and useful ways while understanding and managing the risks involved in using social media.
A milestone birthday alone won’t provide a user with the social media literacy they need. Rather, it comes with education and experience.