Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise this evening to speak about youth mental health and the impact of social media. Professor Patrick McGorry spoke with me recently about the concerning increase in the number of young people dealing with debilitating mental health problems. Whilst there have always been issues with bullying and harassment of young people, there used to be the escape of going home. Now the bullying follows our children home on social media. The faceless way that people can bully others on social media means that bullying is often more distressing and perpetrators get to hide behind a screen.

The pressure on young people to fit in with their peers, to be up to date with trends and to be grown up before their time is widespread, and some of that has been attributed to social media. Young people are feeling pressured into have sexual relations before they're ready. They're being pressured into participating in other activities that I believe put them at risk. Without the necessary skills and experience, it's hard for young people to identify when they're being groomed, who the perpetrators are, and the risk they face by not understanding the implications of child exploitation.

If our youth do not comply with the norms, they are subject to further harassment and bullying. The social media pile-on gets greater and greater and has an enormous impact on their mental health. Children are being pressured to grow up and to use social media perhaps before they're truly ready as individuals. Quite often we find that children are influenced by their peers, and we know that we all mature at a different pace. Too often, we find that, through social media, children are ending up in circumstances and situations that they're really not skilled to cope with. They don't have the experience to deal with it, and, unfortunately, too many parents and carers are themselves not au fait enough or experienced enough with social media to understand and identify the dangers.

We all know that low self-esteem is made worse by the pressure placed on young people, by themselves but also by their peers. Dr Emanuele, a senior psychologist at the Child Mind Institute's Mood Disorders Center, says that social media is making self-esteem even worse for young people. These are real issues that young people are dealing with every day.

Social media has also contributed to the horrific rise in the sexual exploitation and abuse of children. This is happening not just overseas; it's happening in our own backyards and across all our communities. Children are spending an inordinate amount of time on the internet playing games and using social media, potentially becoming targets of predators. As I said, this isn't just a problem for countries overseas. This is a problem in Australia, and it is a problem in my own community. In just the last six months or so, almost half a dozen perpetrators have been brought to justice in my home state. We need to be serious when we're considering how we deal with social media and the impact that it is having on our children. We need to engage with them. We need to know who they are engaging with on social media. This is an ever-present problem in terms of perpetrators that are out there taking advantage of vulnerable young people. We need to be mindful of that. We need to educate ourselves as parents and as carers and as grandparents. I can't emphasise how important this education is in helping us to protect our children. (Time expired)