rom 10 December, social media companies will have to take "reasonable steps" to ensure that under-16s in Australia cannot set up accounts on their platforms and that existing accounts are deactivated or removed.
The government says the ban - a world-first policy popular with many parents - is aimed at reducing the "pressures and risks" children can be exposed to on social media, which come from "design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing".
A study commissioned by the government earlier this year said 96% of children aged 10-15 used social media and that seven out of 10 of them had been exposed to harmful content and behaviour. This behaviour ranged from misogynistic material to fight videos and content promoting eating disorders and suicide.
Read the full article on BBC.
This pre-post study recruited 50 adult gamers from New Zealand to test the feasibility of a brief internet-delivered intervention. Completers (n = 35) reported a significant increase in well-being and reduction in severity, intensity, and time spent gaming, which reduced from an average of 29 to 11 hours per week.
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There's a new addiction in New Zealand - more than a third of Kiwis say they are hooked on their screens and many are blaming Covid for it. As the country enters its second week of lockdown, New Zealanders have been averaging five hours of screen time a day on top of using devices for work and school since the Covid pandemic started last year, a new NortonLifeLock study has found.
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A brief 4-week intervention using screen time trackers showed that reducing social media use (SMU, experimental group) yielded significant improvements in appearance and weight esteem in distressed youth with heavy SMU, whereas unrestricted access to social media (control group) did not.
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