7 November 2024 - Brisbane, Australia – Australia wants to ban social media for under-16s, but first, someone might want to clarify what social media actually is in 2024. Is it Instagram? Sure. But is it also your kid's Year 7 Zoom class?
Their Xbox party chat while playing Fortnite?
The WhatsApp group where Nanna sends homework help?
The GitHub repo where your daughter's class is collaborating on their first open-source project?
Here's the kicker - try telling a 15-year-old they can't use YouTube to learn coding, or share their favourite bands with friends on Spotify, or Scratch to share their first game with classmates. And then tell their teachers the kids can't use these tools in the classroom.
Spoiler alert: these are all 'social media' platforms.
What's next - banning kids from using calculators because they might chat on them? As digital educators at Girl Geek Academy, we're all for protecting kids online.
But maybe before we start swinging the ban hammer, we should figure out what we're actually banning.
Because right now, this plan makes about as much sense as banning electricity to stop kids watching TV.
About us:
Girl Geek Academy is a social enterprise dedicated to achieving gender equality in the technology industry. We aim to bring one million women and girls into technology careers by 2030 through a range of programs, most recently teaching A.I. skills to over 1,000 high school girls. We work to tackle structural issues facing women and girls in technology by influencing families, corporations, government, schools, and the tech community. In 2014 we ran the first all-women hackathon in the world, #SheHacks, and our community has been based on making friends in tech globally ever since.
Contact details:
Lisy Kane - [email protected]