Australia social media ban: Why isn’t gaming included?

Wednesday afternoons have become a ritual for 15-year-old Sadmir Parviz. It’s a circuitous route from his home in Perth to Fiona Stanley Hospital – but it’s worth it, he says, sitting down to play Dungeons & Dragons with people he may not know but with whom he has a lot in common.

Sadmir and his board game buddies are just some of the 300 patients at the Gaming Disorder Clinic, Australia’s only state-run facility of its kind, which helps patients kick excessive online gaming habits.

The room they meet in is a simple, faceless hospital space, but in the corner, there is a pile of board games on a chair. Jenga, Uno, and Sushi Go are also popular options at the informal group attended by both patients and doctors.

This is a small departure for the 15-year-old, who until a few months ago preferred to play games with friends online for 10 hours a day.

“It’s completely different,” Sadmir says. “You can roll the dice instead of clicking a button. You can interact with people, so you actually know who’s there instead of just making a call to random people.”

Dr. Daniela Vecchio, the psychiatrist who set up the clinic, says that while gaming is not bad in itself, it can become a problem, and even an addiction.

Gaming and social media platforms pose similar risks for children: spending too much time online, and potentially being exposed to predators, harmful content or bullying.

So she wonders why gaming platforms weren’t included in Australia’s “world-first” ban on social media for under-16s.

The ban, which took effect on Wednesday, is supposed to prevent teens from having accounts on 10 social media platforms including Instagram, Snapchat and X. Children will still be able to access platforms like YouTube and TikTok, but without accounts.

For Vecchio, the omission of consoles is strange.

“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” she says.

“Gaming and social media are so interconnected, it’s very difficult to separate them.

“Someone who has been playing games for a very long time also spends a lot of time on social media platforms where they can see other players or they can live stream games, so it’s a way to connect.”

For example, Sadmir spent a lot of his time on the gaming platform Steam, as well as YouTube. Dr Vecchio points to the platforms Discord and Roblox as a particular concern, a concern echoed by many experts and parents the BBC spoke to in covering the ban and its impact.

Both Roblox and Discord have faced allegations that some children are exposed to explicit or harmful content through them and face child safety lawsuits in the United States.

Roblox Introduce new features to ensure lifetime in Australia and two other countries weeks before social media bans begin, and checks are set to roll out to the rest of the world in January. The company said the tests “will help us deliver positive, age-appropriate experiences for all Roblox users.”

Sedition Age checks are also provided on some features earlier this year, and said on Wednesday it was introducing a new “teens by default” setting for all Australian users.

Former gaming clinic patient Kevin Koo, 35, wonders whether the social media ban has affected his accessibility at a younger age.

“I grew up in the Wild West of the Internet, so there were no restrictions,” he says. “I’ve basically been given the freedom to use the Internet. So I think the damage has already been done for me.”

Kuo, a former quantitative finance intern with an interest in artificial intelligence, lost his job just before the pandemic. While living in Sydney, he had no family nearby and no regular job. He says he lost confidence and ended up playing online, likening his experience to taking drugs.

Dr. Vecchio agrees with this comparison, and if she had her way, she would be tempted to not only expand the social media ban to include gaming, but also raise the age to 18.

Gaming disorder is also now recognized by the World Health Organization as an official diagnosis, and according to a 2022 Macquarie University study, about 2.8% of Australian children have it. Vecchio believes the number at risk is higher.

The Australian government says its ban is about protecting children from harmful content, cyberbullying, online grooming and “predatory algorithms” among other things – some or all of which arguably exist with gaming platforms.

The Australian Federal Police were among those who warned that chat rooms on these sites were hotbeds of extremism and child exploitation.

But, as the e-Safety Commissioner said last month, the legislation imposing the ban means the platforms have not been selected according to a “safety, harms or risk-based assessment”.

Instead, platforms were selected according to three criteria: whether the sole purpose or “significant purpose” of the platform was to enable online social interaction between two or more users; Whether users are allowed to interact with some or all other users; And whether users are allowed to post.

Exceptions have been made for games, for example, because their primary purpose is not social media-style interaction.

Some experts say the law makes no sense.

“It’s inefficiency, it’s reactionary,” says Marcus Carter, professor of human-computer interaction at the University of Sydney.

“Social interaction is not a bad thing… There’s a bunch of probably legitimate concerns about these big tech platforms and what they’re offering kids and what they’re exposing them to, and as a result we’ve said we’re banning social media.

“I wish the government was trying to figure out how to help instead of putting a band-aid on a bullet wound,” he says.

Tama Leaver, professor of Internet studies at Curtin University and senior researcher at the ARC Center of Excellence for the Digital Child, says social media bans are too blunt a tool – instead a more nuanced approach is needed, including on gaming platforms.

“There is a wide range of games out there that are incredibly positive, fun, creative and expressive spaces – something like Minecraft comes to mind as it has had many positive uses.” However, he says platforms like Roblox are at the other end of the spectrum.

“Roblox is not a game. It is a series of tools that enable other people to make games. We know that some games created that clearly look like they were intended for adults have been accessed by very young people.”

On Professor Lever’s desk at the university are three stuffed animals with ChatGPT inside. It says on the box that it is suitable for three people or more. He says this has gone too far.

“I think there should be age-appropriate regulation,” he says, referring to young people who use the Internet. “I think we are at this moment, and not just in Australia but across the European Union, there is a huge appetite for all types of regulation.”

In the case of Mr. Coe, for example, his vice was not mere games. They were AI-powered chatbots, another feature of online life that have come under scrutiny for everything from making things to… Allegedly encouraging children to kill themselves.

There is evidence that they are designed to manipulate users into prolonging interactions and their use has given rise to… A new phenomenon called AI psychosisPeople increasingly rely on AI chatbots and then become convinced that something imaginary has become real.

Mr. Ko also began Googling his mental health issues and relying on artificial intelligence to help confirm his diagnoses.

“You’re Googling things you think you already know, and then you check the box and say, ‘Oh, I’ve already done my work for the day, my therapy work with ChatGPT,’” he says. Mr Coe suffered a psychotic episode and, after extensive treatment with a specialist, has now taken a different approach.

“I might look something up via Google or ChatGPT, and then I’ll check in with my therapist in person,” he says. “I think being able to read human emotions and having a face-to-face conversation with someone is something completely different.”

The government said it would continually review the list of banned platforms, and at the end of November it added Twitch, a live streaming platform where people typically play video games while chatting with viewers.

Communications Minister Annika Wales as well He told the BBC last week The e-Safety Commissioner “certainly has her eye on Roblox”. She said that banning social media “is not a cure, but rather a treatment plan” that will “always evolve.”

Demand is growing for platforms that work better. So are the lines of families waiting to get help at the gaming disorder clinic, but Vecchio has to turn them away.

“[The legislation] “It excludes platforms where children interact with many others, some of whom may be people who are hurting them. Children need to be protected; they need to be protected,” Vecchio says.