The next time you hear someone say "The Australia bill did not work because many kids are still on social media!" remind them of the quote from Lao Tzu: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. But if that first step is hard, then you should quit." Except I'm not certain he said the second part of that. Australia's leaders had the guts to take the first step. Nobody expected it to work perfectly instantly, or ever. It's the same with minimum age laws for cigarettes, alcohol, porn, and gambling. The goals are to reduce harm and change the norms of childhood, which takes time. As Julie Inman Grant (Australia's e-safety commissioner) put it, the true impact "won’t be measured in weeks or months but will likely be generational." esafety.gov.au/newsroom/media… And actually, if you look at the graph shown below, of the % of underage teens with social media accounts before and after the law took effect, I'd say it's a very large effect size! For the law to be causing such a big reduction in its first few months is really encouraging. Age verification technology will improve continuously, now that there's a market, in ways that increasingly protect privacy. And norms will change. And children will be less glued to their phones. For example, Australian boys are showing a "massive upsurge" of interest in fishing: afr.com/technology/aft… You can find the original article showing the graph here: spectator.com/article/does-b…
