Post by Christian Montag

Thanks to Sarah Platz for the balanced article on ntv.de about social media regulation in childhood and adolescence featuring also my views. I think the framing of the article with the title is not helpful though. Why should a social media ban for children fail? Already now most of the platforms should not be used before the age of 13 years. Finally - after years of slow progress - we are speaking of much needed legal enforcement of age restrictions in this context. This said, the ban will not be effective without anchoring it in the Digital Services Act by the EU, which is the relevant legal text for Germany (this is mentioned in the article). As this becomes not absolutely clear in this article: I am an advocate for banning social media use in CHILDHOOD with the current social media platform business models and their associated problems in mind. In adolescence discussing these matters regarding the right age entry remains a thorny question to answer - at least on the current based scientific evidence. I also think that we should discuss age barriers for entering social media in adolescence by investigating each platform independently. For instance, ResearchGate is a very different social media product than TikTok. And yes: A ban alone solves not the problems (this is discussed good in this article). Of course, adolescents have to be prepared for the online world and here digital use guided by parenting and the education system play an important role. In this context I also mention our concept of a digital school uniform again, which we described among others in "Das Digital Dilemma" (with Dr. Rüdiger Maas and Klaus Zierer). #socialmedia #regulation #childhood #adolescence https://lnkd.in/eeQ9UqVR