Experts hail Australia’s new social media age laws as ‘world-leading’ at UN

Australia’s new social media laws are being hailed globally at the UN with experts predicting a world-changing impact for children across the globe.

Exclusive: Renowned child safety advocate Jonathan Haidt believes Australia’s world-leading social media age laws are the biggest step ever taken to protect children and will set the world on course to win the fight against tech giants causing harm to kids.

The social psychologist and author of The Anxious Generation attended Australia’s United Nations event in New York where world leaders gathered to hear about the legislation that will raise the age of access to social media from 13 to 16.

“What the Australians have done is world changing,” Dr Haidt said.

“This is the biggest step ever taken to protect children.

“Australia got the ball rolling. So it’s a very exciting morning here at the United Nations, because now it really seems like it’s really going to change. We’re going to win.”

Renowned child safety advocate Jonathan Haidt believes Australia’s world-leading social media age laws are the biggest step ever taken to protect children online. Picture: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company

In Dr Haidt’s best-selling book, he investigates the dramatic decline of mental health among the world’s youth in line with the rise in smartphone and social media use.

The European Union is investigating following Australia’s world-leading legislation to keep children off social media and EU President Ms von der Leyen and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis both spoke at the UN event lauding the Albanese government’s leadership.

Dr Haidt said real change required collective action.

On one level to make sure parents weren’t alone in denying their children access to social media, and on a broader scale making sure countries like Australia weren’t on their own in going up against big tech.

“We all got pushed into this horrible situation around the world – test scores are going down, intelligence is going down globally, because we’re all pushed into this disruptive technology, and the way out is through collective action,” he said.

“If any one family tries to make a change, they impose a cost on their child. But if we all do it, then all the kids go out and play.”

He said the same was true of global action.

“Meta is gigantic and devious, and they will do what they can to hurt you,” Dr Haidt said.

“But if lots of countries do it at the same time, they can’t, they can’t get away with it. They can’t do it.”

Dr Haidt said while it was unlikely the federal government in the US would follow suit, he was hopeful individual states would implement similar legislation, saying in a deeply divided United States, protecting kids online was the one issue that enjoyed bipartisan support.

Mr Haidt says like Australia, many US schools have already implemented phone bans and he said freeing kids from their devices had a dramatic impact. Picture: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company

Like Australia, many US schools have already implemented phone bans and he said freeing kids from their devices had a dramatic impact.

“The universal comment we hear from all the schools is ‘we hear laughter in the hallways again, we haven’t heard that in 10 years’” Dr Haidt said.

“We hear the lunch room is really loud – kids are shrieking, laughing, playing games.”

Picturing a world that adopted laws similar to Australia’s, Dr Haidt said: “the image I have in my mind is all these kids all around the world crawling out of bunkers and saying, ‘wait, there are other kids out here, hey, let’s do something’.”

Originally published as Experts hail Australia’s new social media age laws as ‘world-leading’ at UN