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Saskatchewan people who responded to a provincial government mail-in survey overwhelmingly said they want limits on exposure to social media for people younger than 16.
Mental Health and Addictions Minister Lori Carr said the province received more than 26,000 responses from the mailed postcards and 86.34 per cent expressed support for restrictions on social media for youth.
Less than 14 per cent said they oppose such limits, but 68 per cent of those said they support requiring parental consent.
The province plans to pass the survey results to the federal government, which is developing legislation to limit social media access for people under 16.
“I think it’s important for the federal government to know what Saskatchewan families think and so they will take that into consideration,” Carr told reporters at the legislature in Regina on Thursday.
Laura Lawrence, executive director of Youth Matter Canada, a non-profit organization that advocates for youth mental health, said the survey results reflect what she’s heard in Saskatchewan.
Lawrence said her organization has spent the last two years connecting with youth in the province online.
Based on that engagement, 91 per cent of youth aged 12 to 18 said social media platforms expose them to harmful content and 85 per cent said the exposure affects their mental health.
About five per cent of households that received the province’s survey responded to it. Thirty-one per cent of them named YouTube as the top social media platform that should be exempted from potential rules. About 17 per cent each named Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook and TikTok.
But Lawrence cautioned against considering YouTube less harmful.
“I’ll just tell you that the youth share with us that YouTube is one of the problems because of its addictive algorithms, the interface, the non-stop play,” she said. “And many youth of young ages are exposed to harmful content on that platform.”
Nearly 58 per cent of respondents named 16 as the appropriate cutoff age for social media restrictions. The survey cost about $180,000.
Lawrence said she’s concerned that the discussion about social media limits too often fails to take into account artificial intelligence chatbots.
“What we’re hearing from youth and parents is that AI chatbots pose a real risk and threat to kids, especially younger kids, whose prefrontal cortex are still not fully developed,” she said.
‘You get your kid back’
Cassandra Sarrazin, a Prince Albert mother of two, said she strongly supports restrictions based on her own experience. She said she’s taking a different approach with her four-year-old than she did with her eight-year-old.
“Even for myself, our first kid we didn’t restrict it as much until I started to see studies of YouTube and the pixels per second, how it actually stimulates certain parts of the brain and it can be very addictive,” said Sarrazin, who was visiting Kinsmen Park in Saskatoon Thursday.
“And so we noticed behavioral-wise, especially with our first one, once we restricted it, you get your kid back again. So I just think it’s very beneficial.”
Sarrazin said she thinks it could take a year or two to craft effective legislation, but it’s important.
High school students who spoke to CBC in Swift Current expressed mixed sentiments.
Draesyn Mielke, 16, said restricting social media is a good idea for younger children. Mielke said he’s had some bad experiences on the apps.
“And I’ve learned to just, like, never trust anybody unless you know them personally.”
The Saskatchewan government did a provincewide survey asking residents if there should be limits on social media for youth. It came after the federal government announced it was considering limiting social media for youth under 16.
Carr said she plans to meet with federal Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller to discuss the Saskatchewan survey results.
The federal government introduced legislation in June that proposes to prohibit those under 16 from having social media accounts unless the platforms can show that they have introduced sufficient protections for youth.
Under the proposed regulations, AI chatbot services would need to prove they are mitigating the risks of their services.
