Tackling the harms of social media is “a whole-of-society responsibility” and a threat that “we should not ignore”, delegates attending last week’s social media summits were told.

Speaking in Sydney on Thursday, e-Safety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said: “It’s clear that the technology industry needs to do so much more.”

Mums and dads are struggling to provide the support their children need, said Inman Grant. “Helping parents to navigate this really tricky territory is probably the single most important thing that we can do.”

Joint-hosted by the New South Wales and South Australian governments, the two events focused on exploring and addressing the impacts of social media on young people.

Both state premiers attended the summits, as did representatives from local government, the mental health sector, academia, and industry.

In his opening address, NSW premier Chris Minns told delegates social media is not only “an important issue that is fundamental to our two states … but genuinely all of us”.

Describing SA’s moves to restrict social media access to children as “nation leading”, Minns said giant tech companies were conducting “a global, unregulated experiment on young people”.

But, he said, the summits were not about turning back the clock, “or recreating the world as it was before”. Instead, the aim, said Minns, is to “make sure this technology is working for us, rather than us working for the technology” and “to develop the kind of interventions we can make, for a healthier, happier, and ultimately better and productive society”.

We simply must act, said SA premier Peter Malinauskas. “The results are in; the science is settled. We know for a fact that social media has changed childhood, and it is doing our children harm.”

During the cross-state event, delegates learned of some of the risks to young people when accessing social media including cyberbullying, social isolation, body image concerns, and sleep disruption and sedentary behaviour.

Over the decades, the internet has been allowed to evolve without any guardrails, delegates were told. “We created monsters,” said social psychologist Dr Jonathan Haidt on day two of the summit in Adelaide on Friday. Giant tech companies “compete for every minute of our children’s waking consciousness”.

Compared to previous generations, today’s young people have far less time “for friends, parents, play, shared laughter, nature, sunshine, books, hobbies or just day-dreaming”, said Haidt.

They also have “far more depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide”, he said, adding: “I believe what we are witnessing is the greatest destruction of human potential in human history.”

Adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg agreed. “Something seismic is happening to the mental health of our young people,” he told delegates in Sydney. “We are witnessing a generational deterioration in the mental and emotional wellbeing of our teenagers, the like of which I have never seen before.” 

Delegates were told of eight-year-olds displaying self-injuries, an “unprecedented prescribing” of anti-depressant medication for young people, and an increase in eating disorders in tweens. “This is not the future that we want for our children,” Carr-Gregg said.

He told delegates social media has become a double-edged sword. “It allows our kids to connect but at what cost? On the other side of that connection lies a world where our kids feel that everyone else’s life is better than their own.”

Social media, said Carr-Gregg, “is the great envy amplifier” that makes children “feel inadequate”. 

Unprotected, unregulated, and unmonitored is how Sarah Maguire – professor of medicine at University of Sydney – described social media. “It is moving at such a pace – and the sophistication is so fast,” she added.

Asked if she was in favour of raising the age limit to access social media, Maguire said she wasn’t against the idea, but that a ban should be just one of many protective measures. “It should be a first step in making [social media] safe.”

When viewing harmful content, many children don’t realise that what they are seeing is unacceptable, said Frances Haugen – an industry whistleblower who used to work for Meta, which operates Facebook and Instagram. “They say, ‘Oh, when you go online you just get sent unwanted sexual images – that’s just what happens.’”

Delegates were told the normalisation of harmful content validates the idea that abusive or inappropriate behaviour has to be tolerated as a fact of life. 

However, Haugen said it was possible to build a new path forward. “Expectations are changing.” Social media companies are becoming more accountable she said and beginning to self-reflect on the harms their platforms are causing.

Discussing the proposed SA social media ban, which recommends blocking under-14-year-olds, Justice Robert French – who led the SA Government’s legal examination into restricting children’s access to certain platforms – acknowledged that some children will find ways to navigate the embargo.

But, he said: “The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.” French told delegates he hoped the legislation will generate “a shift in culture” and “arm parents with the ability to say to their children ‘this is  against the law’”.

Returning to an earlier statement, NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said it was up to everyone in society – not just legislators – to address the future of social media. “It is our shared responsibility to thoughtfully find the right path to ensure that our young people thrive in this rapidly evolving world of digital technology.”