Opinion: Even the best parents can’t fight social media might

My first column was about the dangers to children lurking online, and the situation has only got worse, writes Kylie Lang.

It’s parents’ fault. If they were monitoring their children’s use of social media, no harm would be done. Kids wouldn’t fall prey to eating disorders, botched plastic surgery in the pursuit of Kardashian-crafted “perfection”, they would be bullied less and they sure as hell wouldn’t suicide.

Yep, if mum or dad just did their job, our young people would be fine.

Back in 2011, my very first opinion column for this newspaper was about social media.

“The net trap” was the headline – a clever sub-editor riffing off the movie The Parent Trap – and I argued that adults needed to step up.

Get computers out of bedrooms, install software controls, talk to kids about responsible usage and keep open lines of communication (the old-fashioned kind of talking face-to-face). I don’t think I was wrong – but 13 years later and with a son who is no longer 11, I know this is not enough.

Not even close.

The reality is that even the “best” parents cannot win against the might of the social media giants.

Tech-savvy or not, no parent can compete with algorithms that are increasingly sophisticated and ruthlessly targeted at vulnerable minds. The obscenely greedy social media industry is holding us all to ransom – and wiping its hands of responsibility.

Last week, Meta – which owns and operates Facebook, Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp – had the gall to say social media had provided tremendous benefits.

Antigone Davis, Meta’s vice-president and global head of safety (there’s an anomaly of a title), actually said: “I don’t think social media has done harm to our children.”

Kylie Lang and son Samuel in 2008

This is despite a litany of evidence to the contrary.

Psychologists, educators, police officers, doctors, academics – gosh, even kids themselves (the ones lucky to still be alive) – confirm it is toxic, invasive and dangerous.

Now, more than ever – and sadly too late for many families – our government needs to hold Meta to account. The Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society, appointed by the Senate in May, is due to present its interim report on or before August 15, with the final later this year.

The report must count. It must shout from the rooftops of every home in the nation that Australia will not tolerate unregulated and irresponsible platforms that create billionaires at the expense of healthy young people.

Last week I interviewed Mia Bannister. Like me, she’s a single mum of a son, and like me, split with the child’s father very early.

But unlike me, her boy is dead.

Oliver Hughes suicided in January, at age 14, after developing anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder Ms Bannister says was brought on by his obsession with watching social media posts of men “bulking up”.

She told me Oliver – once a healthy eater – grew to absolutely hate his body, and that after two schoolmates told him on Snapchat that he should kill himself, he did.

Mia Bannister was not an inattentive parent. Her son was her world. And now that world is shattered, and another child is lost.

Mia Bannister with a pictures of her late son Oliver Hughes. Picture: Liam Kidston

The Let Them Be Kids campaign, championed by The Courier-Mail and other News Corp mastheads, calls for the age children can access content on social media to be raised from 13 to 16.

This is not something parents can mandate – it has to be done by Meta and its ilk – and the campaign shows how critical the issue has become.

My column over a decade ago elicited strong support from readers that parents needed to do more.

“I have been waiting for and wondering who in the media would stand up against the massive tide of pervasive mass-communication,” wrote David Parker, of Maryborough.

“At last someone who believes children should be set boundaries! All too often today’s parents reach for the electronic childminder,” said Jill Ciprian, of Hervey Bay.

And this from Les Hannaway, of Goodna: “Sadly, parents seem to increasingly abrogate their responsibility to shape the lives of their children, including the use of technology. If we don’t set good standards to raise the next generation, who will?”

History has shown parents alone cannot save kids from “the net trap”.

We need our politicians to do more than state the bleeding obvious, as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese did recently, calling social media a “real issue for families that causes enormous concern”.

We need action. Australian lives depend on it.

Kyle Lang is a Courier-Mail associate editor

LOVE: A bit (or butt) of coverage. Gold Coast brand Full Bums Swimwear debuted at Miami Swim Week in the US, challenging the questionable new norm that skimpy designs look best. They don’t. Ashya McDonald’s business was the only Aussie in the mix.

LOATHE: Premier Steven Miles trying to spin that $700m for a second bridge to Bribie Island is a responsible use of taxpayer dollars – reminds me of the money he wasted as health minister on changing the name of the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital.