Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Sport) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Spence for his question and his commitment to keeping South Australian kids safe online.

Delaying access to social media until the age of 16 will protect young Australians at a critical stage of their development. Don't just take my word for it—last sitting week, the PM and I met with 12-year-old Florence from the Friends' School in Hobart, her mum, Romany, and her idol and mentor, neuroscientist Dr Lila Landowski. Last term, Flossie did a school assignment on the scientific understanding of brain development through neuroscience prompts. The motivation for her assignment was to help her schoolfriends better understand the evidence behind our social media minimum age laws, to show that parliament didn't just increase the minimum age because we're all old and boring and out of touch, but because we want what's best for them.

In her research with Dr Lila, Flossie found out about the dopamine loop. Dopamine is a hormone that makes you happy, and it triggers your reward system. Flossie found the problem with social media is that it's like we're hooked up to a dopamine drip, getting constant hits, watching videos and getting likes and comments. But this is bad for our brains, because we get used to feeling happy all of the time, and it can make real life feel boring.

Flossie's findings were backed up by Dr Lila, who shared that young brains are particularly vulnerable to social media because they're developing brains and they're going through a huge rewiring process, learning how to navigate the world and be the best versions of themselves. During these vulnerable times, young people are driven to doing risky things that feel good. They learn, 'if I behave this way, people will like me, and if I behave this way, people won't like me.' That's necessary to becoming a fully functioning adult, but, because young brains are so attuned to needing social approval, they're more likely to be influenced by the content that they are consuming.

That is exactly why, last year, the Albanese government legislated a minimum age to access social media accounts. It will give young people like Flossie and her schoolmates three more years to build their community and their resilience in the real world, to become the best version of themselves and to find out who they are before platforms assume who they are. And it will give parents like Flossie's mum, Romany, a bit of peace of mind that their child isn't the odd one out in their class because they don't have social media. Because from 10 December nobody under 16 should have a social media account.

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