Social media such as TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram currently have a 13-year age limit in Norway.
Now former digitization minister and father of three Nikolai Astrup (H) is advocating for a 16-year-old limit on social media.
– I am not too concerned about whether it is a 16-year-old limit, a 15-year-old limit or exactly where we set the number. I am concerned that we have to start regulating this in a different way, says Astrup.
She first stated her opinions in a chronicle in NRK Monday.
CRITICAL: Nikolai Astrup (H) wants a political debate about the consequences of screen use and social media for children. Photo: TV 2
Astrup believes the most important thing is to introduce stricter age control on the platforms.
– One suggestion is that you must log in with BankID to be able to create a user, because then you cannot lie about your age. Today, the age limit is 13, but many people create accounts earlier and lie about their age, says Astrup.
– Protein shakes and anabolic steroids
Despite the 13-year age limit on apps such as Snapchat and TikTok, children even younger can create a profile if their parents agree, according to The Children’s Ombudsman.
Astrup highlights the algorithms in social media as a particularly big problem.
– The algorithms give you more of what they think you like. If you’re an eight- or nine-year-old boy and you search for “big muscles” and “how to get strong”, we know what you’ll get. Then you get anabolic steroids, protein shakes, and completely unhealthy and weird diets, and you get a lot of that, he says.
– And children are very impressionable.
Encounters resistance
However, not everyone supports the proposal for a new age limit.
– I completely agree with the description of the problem here, but I think we disagree about the solutions, says school pupil Ella Fyhn.
DISAGREE: Ella Fyhn believes that children and young people must learn to deal with digital challenges. Photo: TV 2
She is a former member of the Children’s Ombudsman’s expert group for a safer digital everyday life, and does not believe that a 16-year-old limit solves the challenges.
– We who are children and young people today must become adults, we must study and become good citizens. Then it is important that we have good habits, also digitally, says Fyhn.
She believes that setting an age limit of 16 means that you lose the opportunity to implement good habits in children and young people.
– I think this way of controlling is wrong. Now we live in two realities, both in the real world and digitally. Then it is important that we learn how to deal with things we encounter digitally, for example if you struggle with a poor self-image, Fyhn believes.
– Difficult to be the only one who says no
Astrup is now asking parents to take more responsibility, but acknowledges that it is difficult to set guidelines.
– You often want to hold back and have different principles, but then the majority are not in the same place. It is difficult to be the only one who says no to something when all other parents say yes, says Astrup.
He therefore suggests that the school should be completely mobile-free.
– Mobile phones have nothing to do in primary school during school hours, nor in secondary school. Then we can discuss at upper secondary school, where they may be old enough to manage themselves, he says.
Fyhn, on the other hand, believes that the mobile phone should be part of the school context.
– There is a big difference between whether the mobile phones are locked in a cupboard or if the teacher says that you should not have the phones in front of you. I think it is harmful to create such a big divide between everyday life and school life, because fundamentally we should have mostly everyday life, says Fyhn.
