More and more regions are considering new age restrictions on social media access, in order to limit kids’ exposure to potentially harmful material and connections online.
And overall, most people support such measures, as shown in this latest visualisation from the team at Visual Capitalist, based on research conducted by Ipsos in June/July this year.
As explained by Visual Capitalist:
“Ipsos surveyed over 23,000 adults across 30 countries, and found that the global average support for banning social media use by children under 14 now stands at 71%, with significant increases in support in most regions compared to the previous year.”
This growing sentiment could lead to more restrictions on social media usage, and ideally, more agreement on detection and enforcement measures, to ensure greater uniformity in approach.
To be clear, all the major social apps already have age limits in place:
As such, the change to a 14-year-old restriction wouldn’t technically be a big shift, though the bigger emphasis here is on enforcement, and keeping young kids off social media apps, in line with these regulations.
That’s the bigger challenge, and there’s currently no uniform approach that’s determined to work best in detecting user ages.
But the platforms are improving their measures, while age verification providers are also evolving their accuracy, potentially paving the way for stronger enforcement.
Which, going on this data at least, could lead to more stringent restrictions measures in the near future.
