Social-media platforms that want exemption from the ban need to address algorithms that push content tailored to teens’ individual preferences and other features designed to keep them hooked, experts say.Hollie Adams/Reuters
Addictive features of social media, including infinite scroll and auto-playing videos, should be the focus of measures to reduce harms for teens in Ottawa’s forthcoming digital safety bill, according to tech experts and psychologists researching social media’s impact on children.
The federal government is planning Wednesday to introduce a social-media ban for under-16s, but with exemptions allowing platforms that meet safety standards to retain teens as users, according to a source familiar with the bill.
A digital regulator established by the bill would set standards for social-media platforms in order to mitigate harms to children, said the source, whom The Globe and Mail is not naming as they were not authorized to speak publicly about the proposed legislation.
As with other bills, regulations established after the legislation’s passage are expected to be a key mechanism in putting the changes into effect.
Social-media platforms that want exemption from the ban need to address algorithms that push content tailored to teens’ individual preferences and other features designed to keep them hooked, experts say.
Psychologists say harmful content is affecting children’s self-esteem and mental health. This includes apps reinforcing eating disorders or illustrating how people could look with cosmetic surgery, as well as content about self-harm and suicide.
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Gary Goldfield, a child and adolescent psychologist and senior scientist at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute, said social media activates dopamine reward centres in the brain.
He said infinite scroll, deliberately timed notifications and the “likes” people get on their posts or pictures are driving excessive or addictive use.
Young teens may be particularly susceptible and less able to self-regulate their use of social media because their brains are still developing, Dr. Goldfield warned in an interview.
“In the early teen years … a process called cognitive control, or self-regulation, or emotion regulation – all those mechanisms are still developing, but with these constant notifications and personalized content and algorithms, it makes it really, really difficult to regulate,” he said.
Dr. Goldfield has published multiple papers demonstrating that cutting back on social-media use reduces anxiety, depression and loneliness in young people experiencing distress.
He said social media can rob teens of sleep and affect their mental health. Some people, he said, are using the platforms to self-medicate, but they can also make them vulnerable to addiction.
“You go on with an intention, maybe wish someone happy birthday, and all of a sudden all these videos pop up, one after the other, and there are no stopping cues at all,” he said. “And what happens is people go into this immersive state where they kind of lose their sense of surroundings, and they just get completely immersed in it.”
He said “fear of missing out” is a strong driving factor in addictive use by young people.
“Teens know rationally they won’t miss out much if they don’t check their phone for 30 minutes, but they do anyway, which speaks to the addictive qualities interacting with fear of missing out,” he said.
Ottawa is preparing to propose a ban on social media for children under 16 as part of a comprehensive digital safety bill to be introduced Wednesday.
The Globe and Mail
John Matheson, an adviser at Reset Tech, a global non-profit that researches digital media exploitation, said, “The most harmful features are the ones the industry dresses up as convenience: the recommendation engine that decides what your child sees next, autoplay that removes every reason to stop, infinite scroll and notifications timed like a slot machine.”
“Each one is engineered to override a child’s own decision to put the phone down,” he added.
Canada’s social-media ban is expected to only apply to major platforms that have large numbers of users and that do not meet safety standards. Some experts fear a ban could drive some younger teens to unrestricted smaller platforms subject to less regulation.
In Australia, an under-16 social-media ban took effect six months ago. Amanda Third, a professor at the University of Western Sydney who advised the Australian government on the ban, said some teens have migrated to platforms not covered by it.
Prof. Third spoke Monday in Ottawa at an event held by the non-profit think tank Canada 2020.
Among the social media not covered by Australia’s ban are online gaming platform Roblox, instant messaging and video/voice calls platform Discord, messaging app WhatsApp and instant-messaging interface Steam Chat.
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Emily Laidlaw, Canada Research Chair in cybersecurity law at the University of Calgary, said in an interview that she is worried that a ban could “incentivize kids to go to smaller, more dangerous platforms.”
“The big policy question is: ’Do we think that social media is inherently dangerous for kids under a certain age?’ – and that really goes to some of the addictive design features.”
She said that curating algorithms for younger teens, preventing them from being shown harmful content, or restricting the hours they can use platforms, even turning off access at night, are among the changes that could make social media safer for them.
Bolu Ogunyemi, president of the Canadian Medical Association, said he is pleased to see the government acting on social-media use. In an interview, he said it is affecting mental health and people’s social lives, as well as teens’ attention spans.