So YouTube will need to go down

the tube as well will it?

Downunder is supposed to be getting some of the most stringent rules with respect to those under sixteen accessing "social media" and the internet. How this will work and whether it will work are questions which are yet to be answered. 

Now our so-called "e-safety Commissioner" wants to include YouTube in the list of things which under sixteens are banned from accessing. The Commissioner is trying to tell us that teachers, the vast majority of whom apparently use that video streaming site, will still be able to use it in the classroom. It is simply that, outside that, students will not be able to use it. 

This is bordering on the ridiculous. 

I am not a parent but I hope I am as concerned as any parent about what this means. That huge resource which has been used as the means of obtaining information about all sorts of things will no longer be available. Yes, a few young ones might go out and kick a football instead of searching the internet but I doubt the ban is going to have much of an effect on the physical health of the young. 

Will it have a positive effect on their mental health? It might seem like that for a short while. There will be a novelty period where it is claimed it is working but smart "kids" are going to find their way around any ban. If they can break into supposedly secure sites now then breaking into sites which have an age ban is going to be just another challenge. Banning something will simply make it more desirable.

I am guilty of using YouTube myself. I used it to find out how to replace a battery in something yesterday. I then passed the offending item back to a woman who is in her nineties and not confident using a computer. In future am I going to have to log in using a passport type photograph and my birth certificate to prove that I am more than sixteen? 

I have had children tell me that some of their homework has consisted of trying to find information about a topic and doing that research on the internet. Is that going to stop? I have been concerned, and remain concerned, about the quality of some of the information available. There are many things on the internet which are quite frankly wrong. They misinform rather than inform. Banning the young from finding those things might seem like a good idea but is it going to teach them to discriminate? Will they actually be more likely to believe everything they read because they think all the "harmful" material has been filtered out?

The idea that this will stop the other very harmful social behaviours which extend far beyond teasing is another nonsense. It may reduce such behaviours for a while. Those responsible for the ban will tell us it is a success but, having discovered the power of it, students will find a way around it or invent even more harmful ways of hurting.

I doubt banning YouTube or other forms of social media is going to solve the problems that have been created by another generation of over-protective parents who want their children to be "top" of everything and Olympic athletes with it while also not allowing them the freedoms we had in childhood.  Children who are constantly supervised and entertained are never going to learn the social skills necessary to negotiate and compromise and care for each other. We need children who can entertain themselves. We need children who can create their own play and their own games.  I think we should start with that and start early. That way YouTube and social media will return to being a tool for sometimes and not a way of life.