Social media age restrictions are in force, but too many students are missing out on media literacy classes in school.
Today a new law has been enacted in Australia that requires designated social media platforms to deactivate existing accounts held by under-16s and prevent under-16s from creating new accounts.
If the social media age restriction is intended to ensure young people first develop critical skills and knowledge about social media before they use these platforms when they turn 16, then it is incumbent on Australian governments to ensure every school-aged child receives adequate media literacy education. This requires coordination between ACARA (the national curriculum body who recently created a new resource to support media literacy education in schools), state education departments and schools.
In the lead up to this ban Australian researchers and journalists have spoken to young people across the country about what they think needs to happen to prepare them for social media. Young people are frequently calling for more holistic and consistent media literacy education in schools that reflects their diverse use of social media and prepares them for when they turn 16.
“I think media literacy is very important, especially for our generation. We need to be taught the right methods to deal with the online world in ways that don’t become harmful – and that includes the bigotry that is often disguised as “opinions” on social media. Eliminating [access] without doing anything about building our media literacy is the equivalent of the government banning books until we are 16 and expecting us to magically start reading critically.”– Sarai Ades, 14, The Guardian, Dec 07
“By the time they’re 16 they will still get access to social media and this time around, they just won’t know what to do, and they won’t have the experience. I’d rather they just like implement more media literacy programs instead of just banning it altogether, because it just makes things a lot more complicated in the long run.” – Trans boy, 15, Young Australian’s Perspectives on the Social Media Minimum Age Legislation report
AMLA’s mission is to support media literacy education for all Australians. To achieve this, sustained funding and support is required to develop and implement accredited media literacy teacher training and resources for teachers.
AMLA Chair, Professor Michael Dezuanni, said ‘We need to develop high quality media literacy learning resources that are mapped to national and state curricula”.
“These resources must go beyond a narrow focus on harms, to also increase knowledge about media technologies, platforms and environments while building digital skills and critical thinking”, he said.
“We welcome the Australian Government’s 2024 announcement of $3.8 million for Australia’s first National Media Literacy Strategy. It is essential that this strategy establishes how high-quality and comprehensive media literacy education can best be delivered to every school student”, he said.
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