SINGAPORE – Social media safety should be tackled on three fronts – limiting the content children can access, restricting who can interact with them, and curbing platform features designed to keep them online longer, Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo said on July 25.
These aspects have emerged from feedback gathered from parents and youth, as the Government considers introducing tiered, or age-based access, to such platforms.
Speaking at the latest engagement session organised by her ministry on online safety, Teo said there is broad consensus that children below a certain age should not have any access to social media at all.
Feedback also consistently pointed to 18 and upwards as the age at which restrictions could be fully lifted, as users would be mature enough to use platforms freely, she said. But opinions were more divided on what restrictions should apply in the years in between.
The first consideration as to what makes a safe environment is access to visual and audio content, she said. The second was who could contact children online, given the risks posed by adults with ill intentions.
The third was platform features that encourage prolonged use, such as those designed to keep users scrolling.
She asked: “Sometimes we ourselves don’t realise how drawn in we are. If we as adults have difficulty extracting ourselves, what more, children?”
“I can’t count on the child reliably to figure it out for themselves that it is time to stop, and so we have to think in terms of what we can do to try and counter the way the features are currently designed, which is very much to encourage long use,” Teo added.
She said that besides parents and youth, the Government is also engaging social media providers.
While views differ on whether children should be banned entirely from social media, Teo said many recognise that social media is now part of children’s reality.
Those who take this view, she said, believe in exposing children to social media from a younger age, instead of expecting that they will become capable of dealing with such platforms when they turn 18.
Comparing this approach to learning to cycle with training wheels, Teo said: “I think it just reflects a very rational approach that we find among parents in Singapore, that cutting children off from social media completely isn’t going to be successful in the longer term.”
TOUCH Community Services chief executive James Tan, who was also on the panel, said such an approach would require a collective effort and cannot rely on parents alone.
While some parents can curate social media content consumed by their children, Tan said: “Not everyone in the audience is like some of you who have the bandwidth and the time. That’s the reality.”
The Government will hence have to set the rules, social media platforms have to ensure their products are safe for children, and community partners have to come alongside to provide resources and support to parents, he said.
Also on the panel – which was moderated by The Straits Times’ associate editor Karamjit Kaur – were Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam, chief of Institute of Mental Health’s department of developmental psychiatry Lim Choon Guan.
Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo observing the small group discussion on July 25.
ST PHOTO: CHONG JUN LIANG
Prior to the panel session, which was co-organised by the MDDI and ST, about 70 parents and grandparents joined small group discussions facilitated by MDDI officers.
Some spoke about challenges they face as they try to entirely ban their children from social media, which make them even more curious, and even resent their parents for the restrictions. Others said engaging their children in other ways apart from screens and devices was very time- and energy-sapping.
Participants were asked about their views on the levels of access to social media that children and teens should get, as well as what measures should be implemented, such as screen time limits or disabling autoplay functions.
Some participants asked for stricter regulations on the use of social media among young children, and whether rules could be devised given the effect of screen time on a child’s brain.
Lim said that while there is no clear answer on what this age should be, screen time guidelines that have been published by the authorities are a good resource for parents.
A father, Soh Gim Chia, 58, who works in the financial services sector, said he attended the session as he is concerned that his 19-year-old daughter was spending too much time on social media, at the expense of real-life interactions with her parents.
“I’m aware that there’s no way in today’s world to ban everything, and I think the consultative approach is the best approach – allowing parents and children to air their views and then find common ground on what is the best way to communicate with each other,” he said.
