A majority of Dutch parents are in favor of banning Instagram and TikTok for children under the age of sixteen. They are not against all forms of screen use: parents do find educational videos and films in which children move to be good.
Seven out of ten parents are in favor of a ban on social media such as Instagram and TikTok for children, according to a poll by Motivaction among parents with children aged six to fourteen.
But should such a ban come into effect, 79 percent of respondents believe that WhatsApp should be excluded.
Many parents struggle with the digital upbringing of their children, says Motivaction researcher Kevin Hengstz. And that while parents are often glued to their phones themselves. According to him, parents want on the one hand that children do not have to deal with harmful influences from social media. “On the other hand, they do want children to learn to be digitally resilient.”
There are increasing calls from society to ban social media below certain ages. And initiatives such as Smartphone-Free Growing Up would prefer that parents wait as long as possible to give their children a smartphone. In practice, this means no telephone for children up to the age of fourteen. Parents of tens of thousands of children have already signed a pact to show that they support that idea.
‘Talking is Better than Banning’
Hard bans are not the solution, critics believe. One of the questions is how age verification should take place. Social media platforms must be able to verify the ages of children without infringing on the privacy of users.
Discussions about the impact of social media on children recently flared up once again, due to the success of the Netflix series Adolescence. That series shows, among other things, how a father does not properly understand the online world of his son. “The most important thing we can learn from the series is that we must continue to talk to our children to understand what is going on in their digital world,” says Hengstz.
Educators also see more in talking than in banning. Justine Pardoen from Bureau Jeugd en Media previously told NU.nl that far-reaching bans do not fit in with Dutch parenting culture. “Parents like to decide for themselves what they allow their children and what they do not.”
The Motivaction survey also shows, for example, that parents experience certain forms of screen time as positive. Think of educational YouTube videos, making digital art and video calling with peers.