Keir Starmer this week announced a ban on social media for children under the age of 16, according to a report in The Guardian. The policy, which the British prime minister described as “Australia-plus,” covers Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X, Snapchat and YouTube, though not the children’s version of the video platform. The measure is modeled on a ban currently deployed in Australia, which the Guardian report noted has “holes wide enough to drive a fleet of vintage Sherman tanks through.”
The Guardian piece was written by Dave Schilling, a Los Angeles-based writer and humorist, who opens with the admission that he does not believe he can save his son from modern technology. “It’s ubiquitous, seductive and deeply ingrained in every aspect of middle-class life. Worse yet, I’m also addicted,” Schilling wrote. He described spending hours scrolling through apps from his living room couch, while his son watches “brainrot videos” and basketball tutorials on the family’s internet-connected TV.
Schilling wrote that he could model better behavior by putting his phone away, taking his son on walks, or doing arts and crafts together, but that he does not want to. Instead, he said he wants to post clips to his Instagram Stories and hope for attention. “When do I not have my iPhone out, desperately scrolling through a suite of apps, hoping they’ll offer me some manner of comfort from the security of my living room couch?” Schilling wrote.
Despite his own technology use, Schilling said he is aware of the effect screens have on his son’s understanding of the world. He argued that YouTube has “obliterated the concept of financial hierarchy,” telling his son that success comes from clout rather than work. “When I was his age, I understood that money comes from work. What you can afford is dictated by the boundaries of your bank account,” he wrote.
Schilling said that watching YouTube together on the family’s television screen, without the visible comments section or trolls, represents a modern version of the shared viewing experience his own parents provided. “Instead of restrictions or draconian surveillance, I sit there with him while he watches a guy get hit in the groin with a Slim Jim-branded baseball bat to win $15,000,” he wrote.
The writer suggested that “the basic shame of transparency” may be more effective than government regulation at breaking the cycle of social media addiction. “Whenever my son peers over my shoulder to ask me what I’m doing, I’m snapped out of my own neuroses and placed back into reality,” Schilling wrote. “The lure of the infinite void of the internet will come back soon enough, but for at least a moment, my son and I can share a bit of joy.”