‘Shut up”, ‘f*** you’ and ‘what a loser’: teen tells of cyber-bullying horror as the Premier calls for social media ban

A teenager has thrown his support behind a potential social media ban for children under 14 after he was bullied on Snapchat.

Teenager Max has said he has been the victim of cyber-bullying. His father Nick Ljungberg supports a ban on social media for children under 14. Picture: Ben Clark

Parents, students and experts have thrown their support behind a proposal by South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas to ban children from social media.

Children under the age of 14 will be banned from holding social media accounts such as Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram and X under Australia-first legislation that could be proposed by Mr Malinauskas.

Currently, many social media platforms require users to be at least 13 to start an account.

Year 8 student Max Ljungberg, 13, said he would be in favour of a ban on social media after he was bullied by his schoolmates over Snapchat earlier this year.

“I sent a normal snap of my face,” said Max, who attends a leading Adelaide private school.

But the response to the innocuous picture left Max not wanting to go to school the next day.

“Shut up”, “f*** you” and “what a loser” were among the comments made by fellow students.

“It makes me think about what might happen at school,” Max said.

“I don’t understand why they do this.”

The school was contacted for comment.

Max Ljungberg said he was bullied on Snapchat by his peers. Picture: Ben Clark

But despite this, Max said in the last week he spent about 18 hours on TikTok.

His father, Nick Ljungberg, who reported the incident to the school, said he was worried his son was “focusing more on social media rather than his homework”.

Mr Ljungberg, 51, said he was in favour of a ban for children under 14 but said it would be difficult as it is “the way they communicate”.

“But there’s a lot of crap out there,” Mr Ljungberg, an IT manager from Blackwood, said.

“You start watching one clip and you go to another one and it’s crap.”

Clinical psychologist Darryl Cross, who has worked with children for more than two decades, said it was clear that social media has “had a disastrous impact on our young people”.

“It has been a precursor to anxiety and has led to an increase in depression,” Dr Cross said.

He said he supports the Premier’s potential ban and went on to advocate that children under 18 should not have smartphones.

“They can have a phone, but it doesn’t have to be a smart phone,” Dr Cross said.

“It’s hard enough getting to work out your identity let alone your digital identity and you get lost between the two.

“The online identity is not always their real identity and it’s often faked because they want to look good to people they may or may not know.”

Originally published as ‘Shut up”, ‘f*** you’ and ‘what a loser’: teen tells of cyber-bullying horror as the Premier calls for social media ban