Shame on you Australia
Children are our future
What can Australia possibly be thinking? Banning children from accessing social media!
Children spend too much time on social media. They should read more books and play more sport. They need to be more outgoing and stop relying on social media for contact with the outside world. They are exposed to too much sex and violence from social media.
I hear this all the time, just like when I was a kid.
Children spend too much time watching TV and reading comics. They should read more books and play more sport. They need to be more outgoing and stop relying on TV/comics for contact with the outside world. They are exposed to too much sex and violence on TV.
Well, fuck all you grown-ups! I learnt to read by reading boys' comics. I learnt about history, science, drama, art, and all sorts of other things from watching TV. TV brought me fun and laughter and brought friends to me when I felt alone. Was my education perfect? No, of course not. There was a whole lotta stuff missing. What did you do, teachers, parents and other grown-ups, to put that right? Mostly you just moaned about how ignorant children were or how ignorant they would become by doing things, reading comics, watching shows that you were too old and stupid to appreciate.
Are there lots of risks from social media that we need to protect children from? Of course there are. What do we need to do to protect them without destroying their lives and their futures? Yes, this is the question that representatives in the Australian Federal Parliament should be asking themselves.
It needs to find answers, as other legislatures and governments around the world need to do. There is no three/four-word catch phrase that can solve this kind of problem. It can't be solved with a "stop the boats" or a "make America great again." Waving flags, marching with burning torches, plastering grown-up social media with silly slogans and memes just will not help.
If Australian legislators cannot grasp this essential truth, it can only be because they are too old and out of touch with the real world.
The author respectfully acknowledges the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters of Australia and pays his respects to Elders past and present.
The average age of representatives in the Federal Parliament is 52. A mere 12% of representatives are under 40 years old. Thankfully two brave young Australians have taken up the cause of returning young people's voice by entering a legal challenge to this absurd piece of legislation.
Noah and Macy deserve our support. If the courts do not back them, Australians should demand that their representative resign as one, and give votes to 14, 15 and 16 year olds so that they can elect a government that is able to support the future of young people.
As an elderly person, I am ashamed of my contemporaries. I am ashamed of those who think that they can dictate what young people should and should not be permitted to do.
You think social media is a bad thing? Physician, heal thyself!
Are you a supporter of the old grey men who run your country? Americans, your country is run by a man who is now 79 years old. His only viable opponent at the last presidential election was 81 years old. He stepped down at the last minute leaving an impossible choice for his supporters.
The current prime minister of the United Kingdom is 63 years old. Young by comparison with his American counterparts, but perhaps still too old to understand and appreciate the future from a young person's perspective. The only other contenders at the next election are of similar age or older. As a British subject I can only hope that, if the idea of banning social media for children spreads to these islands, our representatives have more sense than to follow the lead of their Australian counterparts.
Where are the forward looking young people in government?
There is nothing wrong with older people having roles in government. One would hope that age and experience may help bring wisdom to government, as long as it is balanced by youthful vision of the future and young ambition, enthusiasm and optimism.
Sad to think that Australia has put a great big boot down upon the necks of its young, stifling their ambition, gagging their ability to interact with the world.
It is not often that I criticise an entire country, but in this case I feel I have no choice but to say:
Shame on you Australia
About the Creator
Raymond G. Taylor
Author living in Kent, England. Writer of short stories and poems in a wide range of genres, forms and styles. A non-fiction writer for 40+ years. Subjects include art, history, science, business, law, and the human condition.
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Comments (7)
You've made a brilliant connection between how grown-ups talk about social media now and how they used to talk about TV and comics back in the day. It's so true that new technology always gets blamed, and people forget the good things kids learn from it. The point about the age of politicians is spot-on, it totally explains why some solutions feel so out of touch. It takes real courage for those two young Australians, Noah and Macy, to take on that challenge.
Some excellent observations here
Whoa. That's extreme with a capital E. I hope someone among the legislators sees sense soon.
I'm not sure how they plan to police this and what the penalties would be. Access to the internet is everywhere. I agree with this insight: -One would hope that age and experience may help bring wisdom to government, as long as it is balanced by youthful vision of the future and young ambition, enthusiasm and optimism.- I don't think that some of the older generation understands the importance of shaping the future. Sex and violence, yeah, I get that. Banning is not the answer.
Another example of the nanny state going too far! I really hope that these kids win the case and that the government realizes that this is the reality we live with right now.
Now even Malaysia wants to follow this but it hasn't been implemented yet. The Internet can be highly educational when used correctly. But youngsters rarely use it for that purpose. Compared to the TV during our time, the Internet is far more dangerous. I don't know what is the right way to go about it, but all I know is that this implementation would cause a retaliation
I completely agree with you Ray. Banning young people from using the Internet is not the answer. There has to be a better ways to safeguard the Internet, child proof it and so forth. The Internet is part of our daily life and our youth need to know how to use it in order to get along and the day today. Most of our jobs were loud skills on using the computer and so forth. It is an important tool. Many of the governments around the world are very out of touch with the everyday person. And I feel the United States at this point in time is one of the worst governments in the world.