I didn’t get to write a blog in September, I’m not sure what happened but life seemed to take me away from my laptop and into a lovely world of friends, parenting support and grandparenting. With a good dose of oxyticin I feel like my brain has been reactivated

On September the 28th the Age Newspaper published and excellent article ‘What If it’s Not Social Media’ by Liam Mannix and Broede Carmody.

The impact of the social media ban is something that I have been thinking about since the idea of a ban for under 16 year olds was first put on the table. Now it’s on the horizon set to start December 10th.

There was an excellent article in the Sunday Age on September 28th titled What If It’s Not Social Media, by Liam Mannix and Broede Carmody. Whilst I absolutely believe social media plays a role, I too believe it only a step in the deterioration of the mental health of our youth and it’s not just our youth – anxiety and depression amongst adults seems to be also escalating. But for this blog I’ll focus on our youth.

What is happening to our youth is a complex reflection of what is happening across our culture. If we think about our young as providing a crude mirror to our cultural values we have the guidelines for what we could do differently. Whether it’s youth crime or a mental health issue it reflects our cultural/political lack of willingness to invest in care.

Over the course of my lifetime I’ve seen an erosion in the quality of care. Much of the service delivery today has been reduced to bandaids. Let’s start with birth – new mums chucked out of hospital after 24 hours. Maternal and child health services stripped to the bare bone. Then off to childcare, a lot of children are in inadequate profit making childcare. The relatively well resourced community childcare centres have all but disappeared. Then we’re off to school. Schools have also been stripped of funding.

Expectations on teachers are ever increasing in terms of delivering a complex curriculum concurrently with the deterioration of class room behaviour. Teachers are often trying to manage both dis-regulated pupils and parents.

Families are stressed and stretched. Hospitals, aged care, the list goes on – the good will to fund quality services has been lost somewhere along the way. I believe the philosophy/religion of economic rationalism has a lot to answer for the situation we now find ourselves in. Profit over care.

I’m not suggesting that we spend endlessly on care but maybe we need to do more research on what is actually needed before funding is cut. Overtime I witnessed many wonderful programs for youth lose their funding and be replaced by a bandaid service that many youth don’t find helpful. I need to add that this isn’t true just in the youth arena. If it costs less it must be better. When a politician declares this is better it would be nice if a journalist persistently asked ‘how exactly?’ If the politician managed to answer we might discover that the it will be better belongs in the domain of funding – it will be cheaper! Sadly this has been such a positive political vote winner both major parties have pursued it. Labour maybe in a slightly modified way but nonetheless following the same economic rationalist philosophy. Of course funding is often a little slippery and what is lost may not be apparent until it’s either gradually eroded or just disappears as has been the case with many municipal youth programs.

Meanwhile we know many major companies and extremely wealthy Australians get generous tax exemptions. This contradiction is playing out in the behaviour of our young. I do believe social media has significantly contributed to working this core contradiction, as has substandard, dishonest journalism.

There’s a wonderful statement on page 22 in the article from The Sunday Age made by Community Mental Health Australia chief executive Kerry Hawkins: “We have effectively been institutionally gaslighting a whole generation of children and young people by telling them the problem lies between their ears, rather than in our economic and social policies,”

The youth crime statistics also reflects the same contradiction but rather than turn that on themselves as in those who have a mental health issue, they take their rage out on the community. Challenging us directly with our cultural value of wealth and self gain at the expense of others (and the environment) is the way to go!

We’ve seen plenty of examples of individuals often defined as entrepreneurs, and corporations being rewarded for doing something that has trashed the environment and with it the hope of a future for our young. This is another significant variable – hope for the future – their future. The underlying anger generated by this innate, often denied knowledge, is very easily manipulated by various social media influencers.

At this level parents feel powerless and the social media ban does help give some guidance and assistance by putting down a line. Emotions are contagious and so restrictions on some of the hate or sexual exploitation witnessed via social media will definitely improve a sense of wellbeing especially if other interests are supported.

Which leads me to the question – what do you do with the extra time? Unfortunately most children don’t do as we say but do as we do. It’s very distressing to see your worst traits play out in the next generation. The weekly or daily tally of how much time we’ve spent online, I believe, is a regular shock for all of us. So us adults might also need to set an example by restricting the use of devises.

Conversations about what your offspring would like to do instead are important to be had now before the ban comes in. After the very likely f..k off response – which needs to be ignored, think about how to have ongoing conversations and supporting their ideas for using time in a satisfying way. This might just happen in small fragments when you have the kids trapped in the car. I’m also not suggesting they should get what they want, but if it’s something that’s not possible, give the dilemma to them to think about. As much as possible if parents can remain curious rather than slide into advice giving that also would be helpful – sometimes we don’t know our children as well as we think we do.

Parents can blame the government holding the ‘it’s going to be illegal’ line, whilst listening to what their children might like to do. I think all adults could also participate in this exercise. What could they also be doing if they were’t spending as much time on their devises. Listening to podcasts is great but it does force your brain in a particular direction – not a day dreamy space for thoughts to float in.

For our youth I believe it needs to be something creative that stimulates an ability to think abstractly. Whether that be music, gardening, craft, painting, cooking, sport, drama etc etc, and of course pottering. Many of these activities can also incorporate a spiritual dimension. Take for example if a young person decides to grow vegetables, assuming they manage to get a crop of something, watching the growth, the regular attending and then the bringing in the produce to feed the family, literally feeds the soul and links them to something greater than themselves as individuals.

Most of these activities create a mess in a way that being glued to a devise doesn’t. And if adolescents aren’t tucked up in their bedrooms on social media or gaming, then where are they? How do parents manage their own anxiety of children being out in the world with groups of other people they don’t know. These are important considerations. Now that the technology is available to in effect track your children’s every move, where is trust? How do our young build a sense of competence and confidence in the world. We all know things can go horrible wrong, any of us can be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but the majority of us manage to go out and come home safely. It’s this experience that builds resilience and gives courage to build a life independently of family.

Parent fear a significant factor

The combination of parental fear, anxiety and lack of time is an awful mix and it plays a part in the addiction to devises. Both for parents and children. Most of us want the best for our children but many of us lose our way on how to get there and the bombardment of information that overrides intuition is not always helpful.

A decision making guide could be to always hold in mind that the job of parenting is to raise adults. Part of that journey is gaining a belief in the sense of one’s ability to overcome adversity – this is the foundation stone of resilience. As parents our fear for our offspring can cripple them inadvertently sending the message that they are not competent to take a bus or train, go on a school excursion or camp or even to go to school!

Whilst the social media ban is geared towards the under 16s it’s a golden opportunity for all of us to reflect on our social media use and how it impacts our mental health and/or our anger and potential lawlessness – the pings of our favourite social media site have such a powerful draw…