TOKYO – Social media have a structure that keeps us glued to them and undermines our ability to control our own information consumption.
They are designed not only to maximize the amount of time users spend on them but also to encourage people to repeatedly reach for their smartphones during even brief moments of free time. Driven by the attention economy, in which attracting attention translates into advertising revenue, such online platform companies exploit humans’ susceptibility to external stimuli.
One student said, “When I watch short videos, time just melts away.” With a flick of the finger, one video gives way to the next, much like a slot machine. It is a variable reward schedule that keeps users engaged by making it impossible to predict when a rewarding piece of content will appear or what form it will take. Online platform companies also collect data on user behavior, such as whether they stop scrolling or press the “like” button, and use algorithms to deliver content likely to resonate with them.
Screen designs such as “infinite scroll,” in which content never ends no matter how far users move down the screen, serve the same purpose of keeping them engaged longer.
While such “hard-to-stop” designs make sense from the perspective of online platform companies, they can make it difficult for users to maintain control through willpower alone. Although moves to restrict children’s use of social media are spreading overseas out of concern for their safety, over restriction should be avoided in order to protect their freedom to access information. I would like to raise three points for consideration.
The first concerns how to introduce reliable age-verification systems. Even now, many companies prohibit children under 13 from using their services under their terms of use. The problem, however, is that age verification largely relies on self-reporting and is therefore unreliable. Stricter verification would require confirmation through identification documents or similar means, but that raises concerns about privacy and the risk of data breaches. Discussion is needed on how rigorous age-verification systems should be, depending on the nature of the service.
The second concerns how to determine the appropriate age. There are questions about Australia’s approach of uniformly restricting children under 16 by law, as the appropriate age may differ depending on the type of service offered. On August 14, the French Constitutional Council ruled that a law banning children under the age of 15 from using social media was unconstitutional. While age restrictions on social media are necessary, such regulations must be proportionate. Companies should be required to properly assess and set the appropriate age limits for their own services.
Finally, there is the question of how to encourage companies to design services that are safe for children. This is the most important point. At present, companies have little incentive to spend money on voluntary efforts. Possible approaches vary, from supporting companies that act responsibly to imposing sanctions on those that do not, but some form of legal framework is needed to create incentives for corporate action.
A system should be established to impose a duty of care on companies, requiring them to regularly assess risks to children and revise their designs as needed to mitigate those risks. However, companies monopolize the data needed to understand how their services affect children. Therefore, it will likely also be necessary to establish an external audit system or strengthen the government’s investigative authority.
I do not think it is desirable to ban social media until children turn 16 and place them in a “digital sterile room.” Ideally, children should learn how to use such services and become able to use them of their own accord, without losing control. But because companies have powerful incentives to keep users glued to screens by deploying various forms of stimulation, we adults have a responsibility to use legal systems and other means to make them change their services so children can use them safely.
Eijiro Mizutani was born in Osaka Prefecture in 1986. He received a doctorate in law from Keio University. After serving as an associate professor at Kansai University and elsewhere, he assumed his current post as an associate professor at Keio University’s Institute for Journalism, Media and Communication Studies. His specialties are constitutional law, media law, and information law.
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