Raffy Zamora backs social media ban: Save youngsters’ psychological well being

Watch Raffy Zamora’s full episode on PGMN’s Youtube channel right here.

“It’s about giving them again their childhood.” This was the message parenting advocate and LegenDaddy founder Raffy Zamora hammered on in his newest episode on Peanut Gallery Media Community’s YouTube channel, the place he strongly endorsed latest bans on social media for kids beneath 16 in Australia and a number of other U.S. states. Zamora argued that social media is damaging younger minds, fueling a psychological well being disaster, and depriving youngsters of real-world experiences.

“The query now just isn’t whether or not social media is hurting them—we already know it’s,” Zamora acknowledged.

Citing social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Zamora highlighted how the widespread use of smartphones and social media from 2010 to 2012 coincided with a pointy rise in nervousness, despair, and self-harm amongst youngsters, notably women. “Psychological well being points began climbing—nervousness, despair, and even self-harm—particularly for teenage women,” he stated, explaining that Haidt blames not the youngsters, however the platforms themselves for exploiting insecurities and reinforcing social comparability.

“As an alternative of constructing confidence, it makes them really feel smaller,” Zamora warned. “As an alternative of connecting them to buddies, it traps them compared—scrolling via unattainable magnificence requirements, airbrushed lives, and influencers who at all times appear to have it collectively.” Haidt’s analysis presents a disturbing development: social comparability has risen by 75 p.c, dopamine dependency by 80 p.c, and psychological well being points by 60 p.c. In response to Zamora, social media is intentionally designed to maintain customers addicted. “Teenage brains simply aren’t prepared for these things,” he stated. “It’s not simply messing with their psychological well being; it’s really rewiring how their brains work. That’s an enormous deal.”

Past psychological well being issues, Zamora additionally pointed to the risks of ‘social contagion’, a time period utilized by writer Abigail Shrier to explain how dangerous on-line tendencies quickly affect weak teenagers, notably women. “Shrier calls this ‘social contagion’—when concepts unfold like wildfire in on-line communities. Essentially the most weak youngsters get swept up in these tendencies, and social media amplifies all of it,” he stated. Statistics present that influencer-driven tendencies have an effect on 75 p.c of teenage women, real-world experiences have declined by 60 p.c, and social contagion is influencing 85 p.c of younger feminine customers.

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Some argue that youngsters ought to merely be taught accountable social media use, however Zamora dismissed this as wishful pondering. “Would we hand our 12-year-old a pack of cigarettes and belief them to ‘smoke responsibly’? Would we depart a bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter round our teenager and hope they make the suitable alternative? After all not. Their brains should not prepared for that. Social media isn’t any totally different. In reality, it’s worse as a result of the harm is more durable to see—it’s psychological, and it’s sneaky.”

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To counteract these dangers, Zamora backed Haidt’s four-step plan to guard youngsters: Delay smartphone entry till highschool, ban social media for youths beneath 16, implement phone-free faculties, and create screen-free zones at house. For teenage women, Shrier recommends further measures corresponding to encouraging offline hobbies, fostering mentorship from trusted adults, and implementing family-wide social media breaks.

Zamora pressured that these options should not about punishment however about defending youngsters’s well-being. “This legislation just isn’t about punishing youngsters or taking one thing away from them. It’s about giving them one thing again,” he stated. “It’s about giving them again their childhood. Their psychological well being. Their likelihood to determine who they’re in the true world, surrounded by actual individuals.”