Brisbane mum Jane Rowan’s plea for underage ban on ‘dangerous and obsessive’ social media

A Brisbane mum is calling for anyone under 18 to be banned from social media slamming it as obsession that is “as dangerous in young hands as alcohol”.

Brisbane mum Jane Rowan says some teenagers are so obsessed with social media that taking it out of their hands is like removing it from someone who has an addiction.

The mum-of-four thinks social media is as dangerous as alcohol and has been campaigning for children under 18 to be banned from accessing it.

“We have tried every strategy to monitor our children’s use of social media and its endless dangers,’’ she said.

“We have locked the phones in a box and have banned them from the bedroom at night, but parents everywhere are struggling to keep on top of the newest scam or disturbing content and it’s time for the government and the tech giants to step in to help control the toxic wave that’s destroying the mental health of our children.’’

Jane Rowan with her daughter Charley Breusch. (Image/Josh Woning)

Ms Rowan knows all too well the harm social media can cause.

Her older daughter Charley, 23, was diagnosed with anorexia nervosa as a 15-year-old, with her eating disorder fuelled by false information about diets and unrealistic body image pictures.

Charley said social media wasn’t the cause of her eating disorder but it didn’t help.

“I didn’t have the skills to work out what content was positive,” she said. “I would see a diet and say to myself, ‘I’ll do that but I will ramp it up’.

“If I would post a photo on social media, I would doctor it and make my waist smaller but it didn’t compute to me that others were doing the same thing and I thought their bodies were reality.”

Ms Rowan said Charley’s eating disorder “came out of nowhere” and turned their family life “upside down’’.

“It was fast and came out of nowhere when she started to say she was going to eat healthily,” she said.

“I found her breakfast stuffed into her pocket and that is when I knew we had a problem. Family life was turned upside down and the whole family was living in hell.’’

Charley Breusch has suffered from an eating disorder. (Image/Josh Woning)

Ms Rowan is now executive director of Eating Disorder Families Australia where she supports other families, who she says are also struggling to protect their children from harmful content on social media.

“A 14-year-old is at their most vulnerable, controlled by peer pressure and the need to fit in,’’ she said.

“They are afraid of being isolated. They are not equipped to deal with today’s social media onslaught.

“Just like alcohol, social media is dangerous in a young person’s hands.

“When social media was first introduced we had no idea that the floodgates were open and a tidal wave of toxic content would eventually hit.”

Butterfly Foundation’s 2022 research found nearly 50 per cent of young people never or rarely unfollowed pages or people that made them feel bad about their bodies. 

Butterfly Foundation’s Melissa Wilton said social media could influence the development of eating disorders or body image concerns.

“We do know that excessive social media use can result in body dissatisfaction and that there is a link between spending more time on social media platforms or engaging with more appearance-related content (eg images) on social media and greater body image concerns and disordered eating among young men and women,” she said.