I don’t think anyone imagined the kind of Pandora’s box they were opening when social media was created. Being part of the last generation that clearly remembers their teenage years before web-based social networks became mainstream, I find myself wondering how differently I might have turned out if I had been born with a screen in my hand.

Australia’s senate has approved a bill to ban children younger than 16 from social media. The bill will now return to the house of representatives, where the government has a majority.

The new law was drafted amid concerns about how online networking is affecting adolescents, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese warning that there is a “clear, causal link between the rise of social media and the harm to the mental health of young Australians”.

This development followed hot on the heels of progressive Norway announcing that it would enforce a minimum age of 15 for social network use. It will be interesting to see if this controversial Australian law comes to pass and if any other countries will be inspired to follow suit.

While many people have accused the Australian authorities of catastrophising and stated that this kind of gatekeeping might push young teens into isolation or into doing illegal acts to attain app access, it’s becoming impossible to ignore the two decades of research and the very obvious negative impacts on the behaviours of Generation Z and Generation Alpha that digital platforms have had.

I suppose it says volumes when the very tech moguls who invented these networking tools largely banned their children from using them.

Life is not just about pretty, staged and edited pictures in exotic locations and beautiful dresses- Anna Marie Galea

As usual, we haven’t started scratching the surface of this issue locally, even though a recent study delivered alarming results. According to a Health Behaviour in School-aged Children (HBSC) survey that took place across 44 countries, nearly 25 per cent of Maltese adolescents exhibit an “addictive-like pattern” of online networking use.

This means that one-fourth of our young are constantly plugged in and open to unrealistic beauty standards, comparison and competition, and cyberbullying. It also means that their schoolwork and concentration levels are suffering.

Younger and younger boys and girls are having body-image disorders and dabbling in products that they are too young to use simply because they don’t want to feel like they look worse than anyone else on their phones. Anxiety and the amount of attention given to image has reached frightening levels and, for some reason, no one is talking about it.

We need to start having conversations about where all this is leading. Parents need to set hard tech boundaries from when their children are young and not just hand them tablets when they’re toddlers to keep them occupied.

Of course, internet literacy is essential and will continue to get more important as time passes; however, we need to rein things in and take stock of how free and unbridled digital-platform use is contributing to toxic and worrying priorities.

Life is not just about pretty, staged and edited pictures in exotic locations and beautiful dresses; we must ensure that our children have the emotional and mental maturity to understand this.

We need to sow today what we intend to reap tomorrow.