What you need to know:

• Erica Thomas, Principal at private girls school Kincoppal in Sydney's Rose Bay, sees daily, first-hand, the negative impacts of social media on teens. It’s not pretty.
• Across a 30-year career in education, she says social media is “the most damaging influence I have ever seen”.
• In the last five years, “it’s got worse”.
• Concentration levels are plummeting with teachers struggling to find a fix, girls are being conditioned to perfectionism from a young age, boys exposed to increasingly extreme violence, toxic influencers and now bot and AI-created highly sexualised images of girls and young women.
• She thinks government should land on 16 years as a minimum threshold for social media access.
• Others, such as former Facebook ANZ MD, Liam Walsh, suggest regulating algorithms and making them “dumb” would be a more targeted intervention, without costing teens their entire way of communing.
• But Thomas thinks dumbing down algorithms in conjunction with a raised lower age limit, not instead of it, would be a better approach.
• If the ban happens, Thomas acknowledges a huge program of education and infrastructure will be required across society. But she says it will be worth it to enable a “healthy, cohesive society where intellect helps to solve the many problems that we're going to face in the future”.
• Erica Thomas was speaking as part of a five-strong podcast panel, alongside ex-Facebook ANZ boss Liam Walsh (get his take here); head of influence agency Kindred, Katie Palmer-Rose; and Rob Galluzzo and Greg Attwells, two of the driving forces behind 36 Months, a campaign pushing for the minimum age for social media access to be raised to 16 (get their takes here).
• Get the full story in one hit via the podcast.

Damage limitation

Erica Thomas, Principal at private girls school Kincoppal in Sydney's Rose Bay, has almost 1,000 pupils under her watch from kindergarten to year 12, including circa 150 boarders. Across a 30-year career in education, social media is “the most damaging influence I have ever seen”, she says.

“Social media is having such a great impact on our young people. At the moment, in education, we're seeing concentration levels fall. Classroom teachers report that in actual fact, the concentration levels of children is going downhill all the time,” says Thomas. “It's affecting their learning.”

At the same time, “we’re seeing a rise in perfectionism, particularly in girls”. For boys, “that exposure to violence that they're getting just in their everyday feed – I have this awful feeling that it's going to have a terrible impact on both genders at this stage”, warns Thomas.

“Obviously, we see things like cyber bullying in schools, students doing terrible things that will keep their digital footprint looking really negative in the future. They're being exposed to toxic and harmful advice through their social media feeds on a daily basis, and the algorithms that are now being used in social media are ensuring that feed continues to expose them to a lot of toxic ideas and advice.

“I'm also really concerned about the stereotyping of women, particularly now bots are entering social media and the impact that will have both on young boys and on young girls.”

Eight year olds exposed

While there is heated debate on the merits of a ban – and whether it could be technically implemented – Thomas is convinced it is necessary, because of the high number of even younger children on social media, despite platforms stating users must be at least 13 years old.

“When I said it's the most damaging thing that I've seen in my long educational career, I can see where this could lead our society … We know that eight year olds are on there. We know 10 year olds are on there. And once they see things and are exposed to them, it changes them, and it changes their brain. So I've got severe concerns at the moment.”

Over the last five years, Thomas says the situation “has got worse”, with pandemic lockdowns pushing more kids “down rabbit holes” on their devices.

She fears things are about to get worse still as now "bots are creating, and AI is creating, a stereotype of women that boys are seeing that is highly sexualised. I think we're on the absolute precipice of gender-related problems," warns Thomas.

“We already see huge problems in our society with domestic violence … I don't like where this is heading and I could see that this will actually perhaps get worse.”

Grades affected

In the classroom, the implications continue to play out.

“In terms of student learning, the concentration levels when they go down, when kids can't now sit still – and kids just feel that a novel or something to read if they can't scroll it and they can't see it instantly, it's not appealing,” says Thomas.

“We know that learning is going to be important to solve future problems in our society, and that's something that I'm really concerned about as well.”

Asked if it is starting to affect grades, and potentially ATAR scores, Thomas says it is “definitely being reflected” despite teachers’ best efforts to tackle the problem.

“Schools are doing all sorts of things to try to make sure that kids can concentrate for longer periods of time. We're doing our absolute best at the moment in classrooms – and the teachers that are out there that are also experiencing this are all saying that they've got to have absolute strategies now in their classroom that helps kids to sit for longer, to be able to read for longer, and to be able to engage with the material. At times they find that very, very difficult.”

Then there’s the “huge time waster” impact outside of the classroom when kids can be on their phones “from the moment they leave the school grounds until they go to bed at night. They wake up, they start looking at their feed”, says Thomas. “They're not getting the right amount of sleep either.”

Ban warranted

Thomas agrees with concerns articulated by ex-Facebook ANZ boss Liam Walsh that society is perhaps woefully underprepared for the impact of a rapidly implemented ban on teenagers’ lives.

She also thinks Walsh’s suggestion of making algorithms “dumb” to reduce increasingly extreme content being pushed to kids is a good idea – but in conjunction with a raised lower age limit, not instead of it.

“I'd like to see both happen. I think Liam's absolutely right. Teenagers will look for other things – and that is one concern, obviously, that we've got. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try and do this,” says Thomas.

At 16 years old, she adds, teenagers are better equipped to navigate some of the negatives that come with on social media.

“You are much better at abstract thinking. You understand consequences far better. You're able to make decisions that are far more analytical, far more sensible at that age, and you can deal with several things at a time. At 12, 13, 14, you can't do that. Our brains just don't get there until 16,” suggests Thomas. “And this is why I think just pushing it back slightly is going to have such positive beneficial effects for our young people and our society.”

But she agrees there is now urgent need to build the underpinning infrastructure for what appears to be coming next.

“There's got to be incredible conversations … We're going to have to have education programs across our society. We're going to need to work with our young people [so that they understand] we’re not banning them from the internet – there’ll be ways to communicate effectively outside of [social media],” says Thomas.

“This is actually helping us do something positive for young people if we want to create a healthy, cohesive society where intellect helps to solve the many problems that we're going to face in the future.

“We need to make sure our young people are healthy, are having really good human relationships … rather than retreating into the absolute scouring awfulness at times of social media.”

Erica Thomas was speaking as part of a five-strong podcast panel, alongside ex-Facebook ANZ boss Liam Walsh (get his take here); head of influence agency Kindred, Katie Palmer-Rose; and Rob Galluzzo and Greg Attwells, two of the driving forces behind 36 Months, a campaign pushing for the minimum age for social media access to be raised to 16. (Read Palmer-Rose and Galluzzo's take here.) 

There's much more in the podcast. Get the full download here.