The Institute of Public Affairs’ Margaret Chambers appeared on 4BC Drive to discuss IPA research into the under 16 social media ban.
All media appearances posted onto the IPA website are directly related to the promotion and dissemination of IPA research.
Below is a transcript of the interview.
Gary Hardgrave:
At 5:10, and school’s well-broken up today, Christmas fast approaching. So here’s a big question. I want to try and nail this down. What do you think is the loneliest age group in Australia? Now, you might’ve thought it was the elderly, but in fact, elderly people have a little bit more self-sufficiency, a little bit more social skills, even though they may seem enormously socially isolated, don’t see the family and all that sort of stuff.
In fact, it’s suggested by reports that Australians aged between 15 to 20 are the loneliest cohort in the country, 15 to 24. Now there’s research out there that would suggest that social media could be the cause. Online interactions are replacing those face-to-face interactions. People are forgetting how to talk to each other. They just are. We’ve heard from all sorts of experts on this.
So what about asking somebody who’s actually in and around that age bracket? Margaret Chambers is a research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and she joins us. I mean, Margaret, it’s pretty amazing. You’re closer to 15 or 24 than I am. Is this a real issue as far as young people are concerned because a lot of older Australians are saying to their younger people in their family, “Put those devices down, got a device-free zone at my dinner table. If you want to come here, you’ve got to put the iPad away.” I mean, is that part of the mix as well?
Margaret Chambers:
Yeah. Gary, I suspect that we’ll be hearing similar things around Christmas, around the Christmas dinner table, but I wasn’t surprised to hear that that age group, 18 to 24, is reportedly the loneliest age group in Australia. And I think particularly coming out of COVID, it’s not that surprising. I’m dialling in from Melbourne, and we spent what it felt like in eternity locked up in our homes waiting for the lockdowns to end.
But Gary, I was very blessed in that the COVID lockdowns only hit when I was in second year university. Now for a lot of young people who are a little bit younger than me, they missed out on those seminal milestones like finishing high school and starting university on campus. And when I speak to people my age, they’re still wrestling with the idea that they had to spend a lot of their youth locked up by themselves, but I think apart from COVID, there are a lot of underlying social issues which are causing this loneliness. I don’t think that it’s just social media and mobile phones. I think it’s a lot deeper than that.
Gary Hardgrave:
I mean, the connectivity is terrific. I’m on Facebook, so therefore no one that age should be if I’m on it, but Facebook is a way of me reconnecting with people I haven’t seen for decades. People who I used to work with, went to school with, interactions with people who, some of them are famous, and you just know that you’re able to see a little snapshot into their lives through social media. So I don’t get TikTok and all these other things, but in the end, social media has some pluses, but if the kids are in devices, Margaret, and not talking to others, they’ve lost social skills. They’ve lost ability to relate to others, to understand facial expressions and to communicate. I think this is really a problem.
Margaret Chambers:
Well, yeah, I think that is partially a problem, but I also think that young people interact with social media in quite a diverse way. For a lot of people, it’s the way that they find their friendship groups, the way that they set up social activities that allow them to go outside and to interact with their friends. But what I think is really going on here is that while social media might exacerbate a negative feeling that you have, so for example, say you’re sitting home alone, and you see that your friends are hanging out without you, and then you start to feel lonely, I think the issue there is that you are feeling socially disconnected rather than social media itself, so that’s what I think about this.
Gary Hardgrave:
Okay. So what about this under-sixteen social media ban? Do you think that’s actually going to make a difference? Because personally I think the kids are going to find their way around it.
Margaret Chambers:
Yeah, so I think what we’ve seen is that the government has absolutely used it to justify, they’ve used mental health issues and loneliness to justify that social media ban, and I think they’ve just cracked down on it because they want to be seen to be doing something just before the election.
But no, I don’t think it’s going to really help in terms of the underlying mental health issues. I think we’ve got a broader problem here in terms of breaking down of our social cohesion in our society and the breakdown of communities.
There was this amazing book that came out over 20 years ago, and it was written by this political scientist called Robert Putnam, and he was describing a trend that he saw, and the book is called Bowling Alone, where he was seeing that more and more Americans were going to the bowling alleys by themselves, and he describes this breakdown of social glue where people in civil society organisations like churches and volunteer organisations, they were increasingly disengaged with those community groupings. And I think that that’s the real cause for a lot of these mental health issues in Australia and that banning people from social media is not going to actually address that root cause.
Gary Hardgrave:
So in other words, community activities, sporting activities, church activities, school activities, interacting with others, whether it’s family or friends, that really is still at the heart of building up people’s personal strengths from a mental health point of view.
Margaret Chambers:
Yeah, totally. I think that people are fundamentally relational. We need other people actually to feel good about ourselves but also just to develop that really rich social life where we’re focused on things outside of ourselves, and that’s the amazing thing about things like religious organisations. They provide a very vital sense of community to people where you’re interacting with the same people at the same time every single week. And sporting groups are amazing for this purpose as well and volunteer associations. It’s a very rich social tradition that we need to get back to rather than just thinking that we can solve this problem through banning phones.
Gary Hardgrave:
Yeah, because a few people, it’s all, “What’s in it for me?” People often joke to me, it’s the number one radio station in their mind, radio WIIFM, what’s in it for me, if you get what I mean. There’s this sort of self-centeredness that seems to be around a generation. That’s just what I hear. I’m not endorsing the view, but you are saying that in fact, we can break down any sense of self-centeredness amongst younger people by encouraging them to actually interact, go and literally play with your mates, go and interact with your mates, go and do things with your mates. Don’t sit at home alone.
Margaret Chambers:
Exactly. And don’t sit at home alone watching on social media when you could be out there really enjoying your life and hanging out with your friends and people who share the same values, who share the same interests as you. And I think as we go into this Christmas period particularly, there’s a great opportunity here for you to go out and enjoy the good weather, to hang out with your friends, but the government should be passing policies that are actually friendly to civil society and communities that allow them to do that. I think that policies like the social media ban show that the government’s sort of interested in stepping in to fulfil that parental role, but what we really need is law is that actually allow people to do that and allow communities to do what they do best which is facilitating great relationships between individuals.
Gary Hardgrave:
You’re telling me a village can raise a child? I’ve never heard that expression before.
Margaret Chambers:
That’s exactly what I’m saying, Gary.
Gary Hardgrave:
Yeah, I mean that’s the point, isn’t it? We really do, we want to be social creatures. I mean, some people are a bit phobic about others, and I get it, and that’s a pity for them, and I feel for them. And some of us like our own time and our own space, we like to settle down, but being always insular and isolated, that’s just not healthy.
Margaret Chambers:
No, I don’t think so. And I think part of what’s kind of amazing about my generation that we’ve been talking about, people aged 18 to 25, is that we’ve grown up with the internet, and that comes with amazing benefits, information access, access to ideas and people and being able to talk and create amazing connections online. The drop side of that is that it’s a very critical generation, and I think that if people are feeling lonely, I think what they need to know is that people do, that’s a normal human experience. There’s nothing wrong with you if you are feeling lonely, but in terms of what my advice to you would be is that you actually get out there and enjoy some communities, go and play some sport or maybe visit a church over Christmas to sing some carols. And if anything, social media is a super useful tool to help you find those communities and do that.
Gary Hardgrave:
Yeah, I think that’s good advice. Margaret, thank you so much. I know you’ve sponsored this discussion through a LinkedIn page, and I just saw it the other day, and I thought, “I think she’s onto something here.” It strikes me that it’s a discussion a lot of people should have over Christmas. I think we can save Australia one family at a time. So families this Christmas when they say, “Put your phone down, put your iPad down, let’s talk.” It’s probably not bad advice, is it, for family interaction?
Margaret Chambers:
No, I think that that’s one of the best things that we can do over Christmas is to spend time with the people who really love us, and you know, what better country is there in the world to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s than Australia? I mean, it’s an amazing country. So yeah, I’m excited about this Christmas period.
Gary Hardgrave:
Good on you, Margaret. You have a Merry Christmas. Great to talk to you. Margaret Chambers. She’s a bright young woman, research fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs, and it’s extraordinary to think 15 to 24 are reported to be the loneliest cohort in the country, and they’ve got to get the skills of interaction.
This transcript with Margaret Chambers talking on 4BC Drive from 13 December 2024 has been edited for clarity.
