Schools are navigating a minefield of interactions that are playing out online, outside school hours and on platforms that are beyond their reach.

"Teachers are under so much pressure to solve the fact that the culture has been undermined by social media by this sort of mean behaviour that subtly is being permitted to exist, just because it's so hard to stop" says Kirra Pendergast, founder and CEO of Safe On Social, a global cyber safety training company.

Federal Education Minister Jason Clare has written asking his state and territory peers to work together to deal with classroom and schoolyard bullying.

He recommended a short expert-led examination of current school procedures and best practice methods which address bullying.

The Federal executive government of Australia will pay for the study. Experts will report to education ministers with options for developing a national standard for dealing with bullying.

"This would inform policies across jurisdictions and sectors to provide children and parents confidence that ,no matter where their child goes to school, if they're experiencing bullying it will be managed in an appropriate way" Clare wrote to his state and territory peers.

Bullies and bullying everywhere

Clare's announcement follows the death of two 12-year old schoolgirls who took their lives - one following schoolyard bullying, the other after online bullying.

"Bullying is not on, anywhere, anytime, in any form" Clare said. Schoolyards, online or anywhere - bullying has to go, he said.

"Just like we are taking action to help stop bullying on social media, we also can do more where children are face to face."

Social media ban

"I think the Australian public have spoken very clearly that they want to see greater government action and co-operation to stamp out bullying in schools and online" says Clare.

One means which the federal government will introduce is the banning of under 16-year old Australians from social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit and X (formerly Twitter) once legislation is passed.

If passed, the law would see courts impose fines of nearly 50 million Australian dollars ($32 million) on social media companies found not to have taken reasonable steps to prevent age-restricted children from using their services.

The government says it expects them to adopt age verification technologies. That comes with privacy issues that the government said will be addressed in the legislation.

Just how the ban will be implemented and managed is unclear. Mandatory digital IDs have been rejected as an option.

If passed into law, the ban could come into effect by the end of 2025.

Source

• Australian Associated Press
• CNN

There has been a huge public debate about whether there is sufficient direct evidence of harm to introduce this regulation.

The players in this debate include academics, mental health organisations, advocacy groups and digital education providers. Few step back to look at the entire research landscape.

Social media has become integral to everyday life.

Not many teens want to be extensively researched, so studies are pragmatic, require consent and findings are limited. As a result, we tend to hear that the effects are small or even inconclusive.

For the public it's crucial to understand all research studies have limitations, and must be interpreted within the context in which the data was collected. To understand any report, we must scrutinise the details.

Several mechanisms are at play

In recent years, anxiety has been on the rise among children and young people.

Understanding why young people are anxious, depressed or overly focused on themselves is no easy task.

When it comes to the potential negative impact of social media, several mechanisms are at play.

To unpack them, data is needed from many angles: examining mood while online, examining mental health over several years, school relationships, even brain scans, to name just a few.

Despite all this complexity, the public tends to mostly hear about it through splashy headlines.

One example is the "small and inconsistent" result from an umbrella study of several meta-analyses totalling 1.9 million children and teenagers.

However, it's important to recognise this umbrella study included many research papers from an earlier time when researchers couldn't measure social media use as accurately as they can now.

One influential data set asked people to leave out time spent "interacting with friends and family" when they estimated their time on social media.

Yet in 2014 to 2015, sharing photos, following, and interacting with people you knew was the main use of social media.

The findings appeared within a larger study a few years later, resulting in one headline that stated: "screen time may be no worse for kids than eating potatoes".

With so many sources of error, it's no wonder there is vigorous debate among researchers over the extent of social media harm. Limitations are par for the course.

Worse, researchers are often not given full access to data from social media companies. That's why we need to pay more attention to big tech whistleblowers who have inside access.

Meanwhile, these companies do have access to the data. They use it to exploit human nature.

Focusing on debates between researchers is a misdirection and makes us complacent. There is enough evidence to demonstrate excessive social media use can be harmful to young people.

Here's what the evidence shows

One argument you may hear a lot is that it's not clear whether depression and anxiety cause higher screen time use, or higher screen time causes more depression and anxiety.

This is known as a bidirectional effect - something that goes both ways.

But that's no reason to ignore potential harms. If anything, bidirectional effects matter more, not less, because factors feed into one another. Unchecked, they cause the problem to grow.

Harms of social media use are shown in studies that examine the effects of sharing selfies, the impact of algorithms, influencers, extreme content, and the growth in cyberbullying.

Social media activates envy, comparisons and fear of missing out, or FOMO. Many teens use social media while procrastinating.

It is through these mechanisms that the links to depression, anxiety, low self esteem and self harm are clear.

Finally, until the age of 16, increased time on social media is associated with feeling less satisfied with appearance and school work.

There is also reliable evidence that limiting social media use reduces levels of anxiety, depression and FOMO in 17-25-year-olds. We ignore this evidence at our peril.

The evidence is sufficient

Understanding the intricacies of how every aspect of modern life affects mental health will take a long time.

The work is difficult, particularly when there is a lack of reliable data from tech companies on screen time.

Yet there is already enough reliable evidence to limit children's exposure to social media for their benefit.

Instead of debating the nuances of research and levels of harm, we should accept that for young people, social media use is negatively affecting their development and their school communities.

In fact, the government's proposed ban of children's social media use has parallels with banning phones in schools.

In 2018, some critics argued that "banning smartphones would stop children gaining the knowledge they needed to cope online".

Yet evidence now shows that smartphone bans in schools have resulted in less need for care around mental health issues, less bullying, and academic improvements - the latter especially for socio-economically disadvantaged girls.

It's time to agree that the harms are there, that they are damaging our community, and that we need strong, thoughtful regulation of social media use in young people.

First published in The Conversation

• Danielle Einstein is Adjunct Fellow, School of Psychological Sciences, Macquarie University

In a soothing, gentle voice, she informs us that a relative is in town and has been craving bubble gum.

Rather than doing what nine out of 10 people would do, which is to fish out an ossified stick of gum from the bottom of a bag and hope there's no such thing as a purse-borne disease, Nara Smith begins making bubble gum from scratch.

She starts with some "gum base" she just happens to have on hand in her gleaming, spacious kitchen. In the space of a 70-second TikTok video, two innovative bubble gum flavors are ready to try.

I suspect most of Smith's 9.4 million TikTok followers realize that her videos are staged and that she's a professional model.

What purport to be spur-of-the-moment decisions to satisfy the cravings of her gorgeous husband or their three young children have all the spontaneity of a military operation.

And yet we keep watching, fascinated by this woman who also makes her toddlers' morning cereal from scratch and softly gushes that cooking natural foods is her "love language".

Religion and the online persona

Religion isn't discussed, but it informs Smith's online persona as surely as the cucumber and watermelon she uses to infuse her midday mocktail. Smith and her husband are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons.

This identity isn't obvious from her videos — she more often than not sports sleeveless and backless clothing that LDS leaders long designated as off-limits for young women of the faith — but the religion subtly undergirds the lifestyle she is selling.

As a scholar who studies Mormonism in the United States, and a Latter-day Saint myself, I know why I watch Smith's videos:

She is part of my tribe and I'm proud of her success, even as I roll my eyes at the idea that we Mormons routinely make our own ketchup instead of fetching it from Costco.

Why do we watch?

My question is why so many other people keep tuning in to watch Smith and a host of other LDS influencers whose religion flies equally under the radar.

For example, Shea McGee, the interior designer behind Studio McGee, deployed her Instagram and YouTube popularity to help launch the Netflix series "Dream Home Makeover."

McGee and her husband met while she was studying at Brigham Young University, where 99 percent of students are Mormon, so it's a safe bet she is or was a church member.

Other clues: They live in Utah, have a growing young family and seem to share the Mormon obsession with cookies and sweets.

But I haven't seen any overt confirmation of a religious identity in their social media or on Netflix's show.

That omission is a smart decision, because Americans like Latter-day Saints' lifestyle a good deal more than they like the religion itself.

Despite the astonishing popularity of these LDS personalities, the Pew Research Center finds that Mormons rank dead last among religious groups in popular approval.

Just 15 percent of Americans hold a "very" or "somewhat" favourable view of us. Our negative-10 favourability rating places us below atheists and Muslims, the only other groups to achieve negative territory.

So if non-Mormons aren't keen on Latter-day Saints' religion, what are they looking for when they follow LDS influencers?

I think they're craving a blend of the traditional and the modern. Mormon women influencers, for example, are supposed to have it all: fam and glam, trad wife and boss-woman.

Social media backlash

But bend too far in either direction and the social media backlash can be intense. Consider the hostility directed at "Ballerina Farm" personality Hannah Neeleman (pictured).

She's a Juilliard-trained dancer who runs a Utah farm with her affluent husband and their eight children.

The rail-thin and conspicuously blond Neeleman embodies the Barbie beauty stereotype.

Fans love the scrubbed pine tables where she dishes up homemade pies, and the prairie dresses she and her daughters wear, skirts swaying gently in the mountain breeze.

Many of those same fans balked, however, when, less than two weeks after giving birth to her eighth child in January, a svelte Neeleman represented the United States in the Mrs. World pageant.

How was she able to lose her baby weight so quickly and parade in a swimsuit and evening gown? What's more, why did she?

Glamour magazine said many people felt that "by posting videos of her home births, skinny waist, obvious bliss and serene nature, she is actively harming other women.

She's making postpartum look like a breeze … and is giving an unrealistic ideal for what motherhood is actually like."

The criticisms intensified last month after The Times of London did an in-depth profile of Neeleman.

Or an attempted profile: According to interviewer Megan Agnew, Neeleman's husband often spoke for his wife, and he left Agnew alone with her interview subject for only a few minutes.

I can't, it seems, get an answer out of Neeleman without her being corrected, interrupted or answered for by either her husband or a child.

Usually I am doing battle with steely Hollywood publicists; today I am up against an army of toddlers who all want their mum and a husband who thinks he knows better.

Her husband also revealed the alarming tidbit that sometimes Neeleman is so exhausted from her farm and child-care duties that she has to take to bed for an entire week.

This revelation generated a firestorm on social media, with critique far outweighing compassion.

For a 35-year-old woman to require that much bed rest isn't normal, the internet said.

And since Neeleman hinted (when her husband briefly left the room) that she once had an epidural during a childbirth when he was out of town, the internet assumed he had otherwise prevented her from accessing pain relief for all of her other births.

What viewers want

The backlash shows that viewers want the Neelemans to be a traditional family, but not too traditional. Neeleman should be beautiful, but not impossibly so.

They want to believe the fantasy that she runs her family by herself and feel betrayed to learn that the "homeschooled" children are actually tutored by a paid employee.

They also want religion to be muted and the Neelemans mostly succeed at this, keeping their faith out of the foreground.

That approach also characterises the Bucket List Family, who spent years as global wanderers, exploring the planet with three kids in tow, including a baby. (They've since bought a home in Nevada and settled in, at least for the time being.)

Their travels, chronicled in the lovely book "National Geographic Bucket List Family Travel," are filled with gorgeous water adventures, culinary delights and beautiful photos of them in swimsuits, as befits any travel fantasy worth its salt.

Though they don't discuss religion openly, they do talk about "values" and "living authentically," 21st-century buzzwords that, from their mouths, feel fresh and moving.

Those values are ones that many Americans fear we are losing.

Once a month, for instance, the family paused their travels for a service project, in part to teach their kids how privileged they are.

(And they are privileged. In the NatGeo book, Jessica Gee matter-of-factly explains they can afford their life because her husband, Garrett, co-developed a barcode-scanning app as an undergraduate, before selling it to Snapchat in 2014 for $54 million. Oh.)

These families are traditional, with a heterosexual married couple at their core who seem to love and enjoy each other.

Importantly, though, they're not winding the clock back too far. It's Nara Smith, not her husband, who is the bigger star, and Shea McGee, not Syd, who heads the family's design firm.

Both husbands are clearly supportive and proud of their wives, which only adds to the fantasy. So, too, is Garrett Gee, who pens the foreword to Jessica's travel book and credits her with being "the one who makes it all happen."

These egalitarian-seeming gender dynamics appeal more to contemporary Americans than the actual patriarchy that the LDS church has long upheld as divinely ordained.

LDS women cannot hold the priesthood or any of the positions of authority for which the priesthood is the essential calling card.

Women cannot run a congregation or preside over men in church organisations, but in influencer-land they can run a company, rake in hundreds of thousands of dollars a year (or more) and still have the bandwidth to make breakfast cereal from scratch.

I don't envy these women.

It must be exhausting to curate their lives and children for public consumption — to say nothing of preserving those beautiful bodies that society reviles and reveres in equal measure.

It's not a sustainable lifestyle. But oh, how America loves to keep watching.

• First published by Religion News Service
• Jana Riess is a senior columnist for Religion News Service

A trend of abuse towards elected members is rising nationally, but councillors in Gisborne say most people they encounter in the region are friendly.

According to recent Local Government New Zealand statistics, two-thirds of elected members who responded said they faced abuse online. Read more

On 28 and 29 July 2025, just before the Youth Jubilee, those dedicated to evangelising through social media will convene for their own Jubilee. This will be a reunion for many who first met at World Youth Day in Lisbon in 2023.

During that event, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, addressed the young influencers in his homily and told them that "today, the Church needs you, dear digital influencers, to bring hope into these new social spaces that are social media and social networks."

Pope Francis has encouraged digital missionaries to see themselves as a community, "part of the Church's missionary life, which has never feared to venture into new horizons and frontiers. With creativity and courage," he said, "proclaim God's Mercy."

Read More

On the Telegram messaging service, for example, almost half the content linked to the genocide of the Jews was antisemitic. This was also true for one in five Twitter messages devoted to the subject.

Two years later, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, ChatGPT and Google Bard are being scrutinised by the UN body to assess their role in the contemporary understanding of the Holocaust.

Since they were made public at the end of 2022, the so-called "generative" artificial intelligence (AI) systems have been answering live questions from millions of users, including many pupils and students. These summaries are compiled without human control, using vast masses of data from the Internet.

Read More

Here it is: the danger that social media poses to our young people.

Surgeon General's warning

In the words of United States Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy (pictured):

"The mental health crisis among young people is an emergency — and social media has emerged as an important contributor.

"Adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face double the risk of anxiety and depression symptoms, and the average daily use in this age group, as of the summer of 2023, was 4.8 hours.

"Additionally, nearly half of adolescents say social media makes them feel worse about their bodies."

"It is time to require a surgeon general's warning label on social media platforms, stating that social media is associated with significant mental health harms for adolescents.

"A surgeon general's warning label, which requires congressional action, would regularly remind parents and adolescents that social media has not been proved safe.

"Evidence from tobacco studies show that warning labels can increase awareness and change behaviour.

"When asked if a warning from the surgeon general would prompt them to limit or monitor their children's social media use, 76 percent of people in one recent survey of Latino parents said yes.

"The rest of society can play a role also.

"Schools should ensure that classroom learning and social time are phone-free experiences.

"Parents, too, should create phone-free zones around bedtime, meals and social gatherings to safeguard their kids' sleep and real-life connections — both of which have direct effects on mental health.

"And they should wait until after middle school to allow their kids access to social media.

"As a father of a six- and a seven-year-old who have already asked about social media, I worry about how my wife and I will know when to let them have accounts.

"How will we monitor their activity, given the increasingly sophisticated techniques for concealing it?…

"It doesn't have to be this way.

"Faced with high levels of car-accident-related deaths in the mid- to late 20th century, lawmakers successfully demanded seatbelts, airbags, crash testing and a host of other measures that ultimately made cars safer…"

The anxious generation

The surgeon general's warnings echo what Jonathan Haidt described in his book "The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness."

These warnings have resonated.

This past week, California Governor Gavin Newsom called for a statewide ban on smartphone use in California schools.

This is part of a national effort to curb cyberbullying and classroom distraction by limiting access to the devices.

Do not accuse Surgeon General Murthy, Haidt and Governor Newsom of being Luddites, of being anti-technology.

Rather, commend them for noting the public health challenges to our children.

Commend them for their courage as culture warriors, showing a willingness to push back against our society's worship of technology — to the point of addictive behavior. Many of us know that addiction, up front and personal.

In my recent book on the future of liberal Judaism in America, I quoted David Zvi Kalman:

"In 2010, the University of Maryland conducted a study of almost a thousand participants to measure the psychological effects of abstaining from all electronic communication devices for twenty-four hours.

"The results were discouraging: many participants experienced withdrawal-like symptoms, including anxiety, cravings, and general misery. The majority were unable to complete the study."

Likewise, there are spiritual health implications.

If you are Jewish, attend worship services on Yom Kippur and notice how many sins we confess are sins of language: for the sin of tale bearing and gossip and lying and deceptive speech, etc.

They are all found in that little piece of hardware in our hands.

As has been said over the centuries: "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."

In the cyber world, it takes a nano second. And it is there forever.

Make new friends

Which reminds me of one of the finest works of Jewish literature that I have read lately.

The book is "The Hebrew Teacher," written by Maya Arad and translated by Jessica Cohen. It is a trilogy of novellas that focus on the lives of Israelis living in Silicon Valley.

The last novella, "Make New Friends," ripped me apart.

Libby, an adolescent girl, is not popular. She discusses the social psychology of mean girls with her mother, Efrat: "The ones who are nice aren't popular … The more popular you are, the more not-nice you are."

Some of the popular girls pay attention to Libby, but their friendship is inconsistent, and they often exclude her. What is Libby's problem? She doesn't have a smart phone. Roni, Efrat's friend, admonishes her:

"You're really doing her an injustice. It's no wonder she's struggling socially. Everything happens on phones these days. How can you even expect her to be in touch with someone if…"

"But if I give her a phone she'll never get off it!"

Roni laughs.

"Efrat, what planet are you living on? That ship sailed long ago. This is our world. You want a kid without a smartphone? Join an ultra-Orthodox sect."

Libby needs a phone, and she needs to be on social media.

In one of the most devastating passages of any book that I've read recently, Efrat discovers that her daughter's friends have been mercilessly tormenting her in that cyber-jungle.

It is the kind of torment that has driven some young people to self-harm and even suicide.

Efrat hacks into her daughter's account:

She has to go in. To protect her little girl. These are the truly dangerous places. Who cares about some pervert from Australia or North Dakota? It's much scarier right here, close to home, in her own school.

Efrat retaliates, and fights back.

There are many treasures in this book, and it is well worth your time.

Technology's everywhere

But, I am part of the problem. We all are. I will post this column and link to it on Facebook and hope that many people read it, and heed it, and that it will go viral.

Metaphor check: "viral." As in a plague.

For me, as for most of you, the answer will not lie in an utter rejection of our devices nor of the internet nor of social media. We might more easily imagine a world without water or air.

But, at the very least, a religious temperament might mean questioning our utter reliance on such technology.

We could create islands of time, like the Sabbath or Sunday, when we would liberate ourselves from technology and being more self-aware of how we use our tools, which have become our toys.

And, for the sake of our young people: They, like all of us, are made in the Divine Image. Which means they deserve utmost care, concern and dignity.

That rabbinic statement that has become a cliche: "Whoever saves one life, it is as if they have saved the entire world."

If regulating access to social media will save the life of one kid, it will be worth it.

• First published in Religion News Service
• Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin is recognised as one of the most thoughtful Jewish writers and teachers of his generation.

Dr Hilary Cass says she's been told not to travel on public transport because of fears for her safety.

Detractors - including an MP - have been spreading "vile disinformation" around her report for Britain's National Health Service (NHS).

Despite online threats, Cass wants to help implement her review's 32 recommendations.

Children at risk

Cass says disinformation about her transgender research started the day before the report's publication.

A social media influencer published a list of papers, claiming Cass's researchers rejected them because they weren't randomised control trials.

But Cass says the list had "absolutely nothing to do with" the report or any of the papers.

Deliberately trying to undermine an evidence-based report about children's healthcare is unforgivable she adds.

Despite being untrue, the influencer's claims about Cass's report spread.

Social media activists soon took up the influencer's cause.

They claimed the report included only two of 100 studies.

Without verifying this, Labour MP Dawn Butler told the House of Commons: "There are around 100 studies that have not been included in this Cass report and we need to know why."

In fact, researchers had appraised all 103 papers. From these, they pulled data from 60 - those of high and medium quality, Cass says.

Shaky foundations

Cass's NHS review found that an entire field of medicine aimed at enabling children to change gender had been "built on shaky foundations".

She found no evidence supporting the global clinical practice of prescribing hormones to under-18s. These hormones pause puberty or enable the young person to transition to the opposite sex.

The treatment "was not a safe or viable long-term option" Cass's 2022 interim report said.

As a result, Cass says the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids) was ordered to close.

After Liz Truss became Tory Party leader and prime minister, Cass says "the debate got more aggressive".

Aggression continues

Cass's newly released final report involved transgender patients, families, academics and doctors.

While most had not "weaponised" her report, some activist groups are "pretty aggressive" Cass says.

Last week NHS adult gender clinics agreed to share data about 9,000 children treated at the Tavistock clinic.

Cass says the Tavistock clinic and five others had refused to co-operate with her research. The refusal was "co-ordinated" and "ideologically driven" she says.

Tbe Tavistock clinic also refused to provide data on detransitioners whom a psychiatrist had examined.

The review team had wanted to see if risk factors in a patient's history could be linked to detransition.

Ideological capture

The House of Commons Equalities minister says there had been an ideological capture of institutions, including the NHS. This needs correcting if Cass's recommendations were to be fully delivered.

Meanwhile, long waiting lists for treating children with gender dysphoria have seen several private clinics opening.

Cass finds this concerning, saying young people would not get the level of holistic care NHS clinics provided.

• The Times

The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles county court, targets Meta Platforms (the parent company of Facebook and Instagram), Snap Inc. (owner of Snapchat), ByteDance (parent company of TikTok), and Alphabet (which owns YouTube and Google).

The complaint alleges that these platforms, with their addictive design choices, exacerbate mental health issues among Native youth.

According to the Pew Research Center, virtually all US teenagers use social media and roughly one in six describes their use as "almost constant".

Lonna Jackson-Street, chairperson of the Spirit Lake Tribe in North Dakota, highlighted the vulnerability of Native youth to the relentless scrolling encouraged by social media.

"Endless scrolling is rewiring our teenagers' brains" stated Gena Kakkak, chairwoman of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin.

Kakkak emphasised the demand for accountability. "We are demanding these social media corporations take responsibility for intentionally creating dangerous features that ramp up the compulsive use of social media by the youth on our Reservation."

The lawsuit describes "a sophisticated and intentional effort that has caused a continuing, substantial and long-term burden to the Tribe and its members".

Furthermore, the lawsuit contends that resources from vital programmes have been diverted to address problems social media have caused.

Disproportionately high suicide rates

Similar legal actions are underway across the US with schools, cities and states accusing social media companies of exploiting young users. New York City and Ontario school boards have voiced concerns over the impact on mental health and education.

In response to the lawsuit, Google denied the allegations. "Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work" Google spokesperson José Castañeda said in a statement.

Snap Inc. reiterated its dedication to fostering user connections while acknowledging the need for ongoing improvement.

Native Americans see disproportionately high suicide rates, compounded by limited access to mental health care and historical trauma.

Social media can offer connections to culture and community. However it exposes users to discrimination and lacks adequate policies to address these issues.

Andrea Wiglesworth, a researcher on stress in Native populations, highlighted the complex interplay between cultural identity and online experiences. She stressed the importance of Indigenous communities navigating these digital spaces responsibly.

While research on the impact of social media on mental health is ongoing, experts emphasise the need for regulation to protect young users. Calls for legislative action to curb exploitative practices and promote online safety have gained bipartisan support.

Where to get help

• In a life-threatening situation, call 111
• 1737, Need to talk? Free call or text 1737 to talk to a trained counsellor
• Anxiety New Zealand 0800 ANXIETY (0800 269 4389)
• Depression.org.nz 0800 111 757 or text 4202
• Lifeline 0800 543 354
• Rural Support Trust 0800 787 254
• Samaritans 0800 726 666
• Suicide Crisis Helpline 0508 828 865 (0508 TAUTOKO)
• Yellow Brick Road 0800 732 825
• thelowdown.co.nz Web chat, email chat or free text 5626
• What's Up 0800 942 8787 (for up to 18-year-olds). Phone counselling available Monday-Friday, noon-11pm and weekends, 3pm-11pm. Online chat is available 3pm-10pm daily
• Youthline 0800 376 633, free text 234, email talk@youthline.co.nz and find online chat and other support options here

Sources

AP News

CathNews New Zealand

The Diocese of East Anglia's New Evangelisation Commission study "Why Adults Become Catholics" found the spiritual restlessness focus was tightly targeted.

Study participants report a specifically spiritual restlessness, rather than a sense of "general unease with their lives".

The study participants

The study interviewed 10 adults who had joined the Church in the past five years.

They agreed to join the qualitative research study after Bishop Peter Collins wrote to every parish priest in East Anglia to find participants .

Five of those who took part were men, and five were women. The youngest was 23, the oldest 61 while the average age was 45 years.

Their previous religious affiliations varied.

Among the group were a former atheist-turned-Buddhist, two ex-agnostics plus various others - non-practising Catholics, Mormons, Pentecostal Christians and Protestants.

Referring to their former faith practice, many said "something was missing" for them.

Joining the Church proved for everyone the end of a "protracted"and "self-initiated" spiritual journey.

All but one took their parish RCIA course.

"For most it helped to cement and further develop their previous self-directed exploration of Catholicism" the researchers said.

The study interviews

During hour-long interviews, each revealed becoming Catholic had been an "incremental" process.

This typically included "working through" key Catholic beliefs regarding Mary and Purgatory. Deciding to attend Mass was a key moment.

Many mentioned finding a sense of "reverence" in the Catholic Church particularly during Mass and Eucharistic Adoration.

"Intellectual drivers might take you there, but the spiritual and emotional connection keeps you there" one study member commented.

Social media

Social media played a key role in adults' journeys to Catholicism.

"YouTube videos appeared not to be sought primarily for inspiration and encouragement, but rather for their information and instructional value" said researchers.

"The evangelisation potential of social media, particularly prominent Catholic YouTube channel hosts, cannot be underestimated."

Researchers also warned however, that the "accessibility of social media content providers carries the risk of distorted information, and social media company algorithms cannot be relied upon as consistently safe sources".

Evangelisation methods including social media must prove "direction" and "recommendations" in this area, the researches said.

Rising by the number

The study findings reflect a recent upsurge in numbers joining the church.

Nearly 1,000 people are reported to have become Catholic this Easter in the Archdiocese of Southwark and Diocese of Westminster.

On Good Friday, Westminster Cathedral had to turn worshippers away after reaching its 3,000-seat capacity.

In the Diocese of East Anglia, 65 people on average join the Church every year.

Source

• The Tablet

"How incredible is it that we live in an age where we have this this tool… in that sense of just being able to say, ‘oh my gosh, I can help people that never would meet me [in person]," the Catholic priest and Ascension Press' ‘Bible in a Year' podcast host, who got his start in the digital space back in 2007 recording homilies, told Fox News Digital.

"That's a big piece of the impetus behind this. There's something to be said, and there's good news to be shared," he added, following the beginning of this Lenten season.

Read More

An "online safety bill" that mandates five-year prison sentences for any social media post government regulators consider to be "false" or causing offence is set to be presented to parliament this week.

The draft law compels social media platforms to divulge the identity of anonymous users accused of those crimes with a 10 million rupee ($31,000) fine for non-compliance.

"This is a very draconian piece of legislation that will have a chilling effect on the entire population," Lasantha Ruhunuge of the Sri Lanka Working Journalists' Association told reporters.

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Fr Sam French (pictured), 30, from the Diocese of Broken Bay, NSW embarked on this journey of online ministry by sharing skits, musical memes, thoughtful reflections and vlogs.

His growth has been rapid and now he boasts a following of 31,000 on Instagram and 17,000 on TikTok.

Catering predominantly to users aged 18 to 34, Fr French crafts his content to resonate with young people by infusing light-hearted skits about the church and priesthood with more profound themes.

These videos are punctuated with reflections on scripture and direct appeals to inspire young Catholic men to contemplate a life of priesthood.

Reflecting on his journey, Fr French remarked "If you'd asked me about social media a year ago, I would have deemed it toxic and I stand by that assessment today."

Despite his reservations, he recognised the power of these platforms to engage with young people. "This is basically mission territory," he emphasised.

While he admits that a short TikTok video cannot replace a deep spiritual encounter, Fr French is content with disrupting the cycle of negative scrolling habits.

He views his online presence as a means of clearing potential hurdles between the priesthood and Generation Z, a demographic crucial for the future of vocations, religious life and Christian marriages.

Humour gets under the door

His motto for his social media ministry comes from the author GK Chesterton. "He said that humour often gets in under the door while serious is still fumbling with the handle" the young priest commented.

French admitted that while his online ministry has surpassed his expectations, it will never replace his in-person interactions with the youth.

Fr French's priority remains visiting parishes to celebrate Mass, fostering priestly vocations and offering guidance to those exploring discernment.

Under Broken Bay Bishop Anthony Randazzo's encouragement, Fr French prioritises face-to-face interactions with the diocese's young individuals.

His interactions have been warmly received, reaffirming his belief in the power of community and personal connections. He is excited to share the success story of Broken Bay's growth in vocations, exemplified by three ordinations and seven seminarians at the Seminary of the Good Shepherd in just seven years.

Sources

Catholic Weekly

Lowe serves both as the Catholic Bishop of Auckland and President of the New Zealand Bishops' Conference.

The fake social media accounts impersonating Lowe have surfaced on Meta's Facebook and Messenger platforms and, in responding to the data breach, Lowe wishes it to be known that he will not send friend requests or contact anyone through social media.

The NZCBC also warns that his email account may have been falsified.

Commenting on the NZCBC Facebook post, Bernard Liddington suggests the fake account was obvious as the gender was erroneously listed as female.

In another comment, Stephen Kennedy quipped "So he's not coming for tea tomorrow night? But I'm making my special potato bake just like he asked."

Mark Chang commented with a tongue-in-cheek remark, "All part of God's plan, surely?"

At the time of writing, another person linked the data breach with Satan.

The Bishops' Conference recently ran a campaign to help people stay safe online.

They suggested people learn more about Facebook privacy, do a Facebook privacy check-up and manage their Facebook privacy settings.

Facebook and its associated applications - Instagram, WhatsApp, and its most recent application, Threads (a Twitter clone) - are owned by the parent company, Meta.

These applications are free to use. However, Meta monetises user data to cover costs and provide shareholders with a healthy return.

Unfortunately, fake Facebook and Instagram accounts are common, and Meta has faced numerous privacy concerns stemming partly from its revenue model.

For example, Ireland's Data Protection Commission imposed a €1.2 billion fine last month against Facebook's parent, Meta, for failing to comply with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation laws.

According to one source, Meta profits by selling users' information and through targeting ads, attracting advertisers to its vast trove of data like vultures to carrion.

Donald Trump's successful use of Facebook data played a part in his election as President of the United States.

Facebook has always assured its users that their information is shared only with their consent and is anonymised before being sold to marketers. However, issues such as data breaches, platform vulnerabilities and the compromise of individual identities and private data regularly occur.

In response to escalating privacy concerns, some government agencies and groups with sensitive data on their work computers have prohibited the use of personal Meta accounts on work computers and mobile devices.

Tech journalist Leo Laporte describes Meta as "capricious". "If it's free, then you're the product" he often says when discussing Facebook's privacy issues.

Sources

• NZ Catholic Bishop's Conference Facebook
• Twit.tv
• Wikipedia
• How Facebook uses big data
• Washington Post
• Security Now - Steve Gibson

Although a Catholic can only appreciate the pastoral value of this document, its numerous insights, and biblical inputs, it is hard not to see its neo-liberal approach and question its partial way of addressing challenges raised by social media.

The problem is not about what the document says.

It is pastorally relevant, biblically rich, and ethically subtle.

But it only speaks to individuals as if they should bear on their own shoulders the whole responsibility to evangelise the digital space and its social media.

Surely, Catholics need to be mindful of their ways of engaging with online interactions.

The document elaborates on the Parable of the Good Samaritan to creatively question our personal ways of encountering others through social media.

But as Margaret Thatcher famously said, the Good Samaritan did not only have good intentions, he also had money!

And I will add that he also had available institutions to truly fulfil his charitable impulse.

Not just about individual online

The Good Samaritan who made himself a neighbour to a stranger in need, was not operating in the wilderness.

Both men were on a road built by others.

After their encounter, the long-term care of the wounded man was transferred to an inn - a specialiszed institution able to support people in need.

In other words, responding to the challenges of social media is not only a matter of individual responsibility and good behaviour.

Whether we want it or not, it also involves the presence of and the financial commitment to institutions able to support and evangelize our digital encounters.

Since the Catholic Church stands as a resourceful set of institutions certainly able to act upon the digital space, it is quite a paradox that the Dicastery for Communication put all responsibilities on individuals.

And it is regrettable that the text refuses explicitly to develop principles and norms able to structurally respond to the pitfalls of social media.

Although the end of paragraphs 10, 13-15, and 32 touch on institutional challenges, the following sections immediately go back to interpersonal relations and make the whole text fall short.

To move forward and search for guidelines at a more structural level, let me highlight creative ways through which Catholic institutions have corporately engaged with the digitalization of social interactions.

Among the too many examples that come to mind - the French section of Vatican News, the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network, numerous podcast and YouTube channels - I offer three cases from Asia, a continent too often marginalized in conversations about global Catholicism.

Looking to the East

In Asia, missionary societies have long mobilised massive human resources to develop professional news agencies gathering and disseminating information on the religious dynamics and social changes of Asian societies.

The American Maryknolls, the Italian PIME, and the French MEP have created three news agencies focusing on Asia: UCANews, Eglise d'Asie, and Asianews.

Each has its own framework, challenges, and agenda.

But all have increasingly developed their visibility on social media to diffuse professional information about Asian Churches.

They manifest how missionary societies have responded to Vatican II, renewed their missionary commitment, and engaged with the challenges of a digitalized world.

My second example is more local.

It comes from Lokon St. Nikolaus High School, a private boarding school in Tomohon, Indonesia, owned by a wealthy Catholic family and where less than half of the students are Catholic.

In the early 2000s, the country went through a moral panic about youth accessing cell phones and pornography.

To address challenges raised by new technologies, anthropologist Erica Larson explains that the school decided to formulate explicit rules about cell phones on campus and to generate discussion sessions about social media.

In 2014, the private institution changed its policy to allow students to bring their devices to class. And it also introduced discussion sessions on the use of social media during Catholic religious education attended by all students.

Over the years, the Catholic school has continued to adapt its policies to positively help students question their engagement with new technologies and social media.

My last example is more academic.

It relates to ISAC, the Initiative for the Study of Asian Catholics, a scholarly enterprise established with academic colleagues of mine to strengthen social scientific research on Asian Catholics in contemporary societies.

While discourses about Catholicism in Asian are often shaped by outdated assumptions, we believe that scholars must find new ways to engage with broader audiences and make their research socially and ecclesiologically relevant.

Over the past two years, we have developed online events, social media presence, and podcast series to bring scholarly debates and research findings to more people.

We have also mobilized new technologies to design research projects that can overcome socio-political restrictions and expand scientific research on the lived realities of Asian Catholics.

These three examples represent more than the individuals who constitute them.

They are organizations that all seek to institutionally address the opportunities and challenges brought by social media. Yet, none of these structures is directly supervised by a bishop.

Despite what many believe, Catholic institutional responsibility is not solely episcopal.

We all share structural responsibility.

But it's not all good news

Nevertheless, if we want to discern guiding principles for Catholic institutions, we also need to acknowledge that our communal engagements with social media are not always free from moral ambiguities and collective sin.

The Church as an institution can fail.

We all heard Pope Francis qualifying a large Catholic media outlet as being the work of evil. We need to consider these failures as well.

My first case study will come from Asia.

Colleagues have methodologically documented how a large Facebook group promotes questionable agenda through insidious means.

This independent group is apparently open to all Catholics of its archdiocese, administered by 6 lay Catholics, and a safe space for dialogue and mutual support - under some reasonable rules.

However, what the administrators fail to disclose is that they are less numerous than they pretend, they mostly operate under the guidance of two tormented souls, and they apply all kinds of measures to discreetly delete posts that do fit into their agenda, promote hate speech against alternative views, and harass or exclude dissident voices.

The result is that among some twenty thousand members of this Facebook group, only a few dozen share posts regularly. Their contributions are quite homogenous and often cheesy statements that give the false and highly manufactured impression that this represents Catholicism.

After years of anti-Francis campaigns promoted through this group, critical Catholics have complained to their archbishop. In 2021, a warning was finally sent.

The administrators reaffirmed the fidelity of their Facebook group to the magisterium publicly while highlighting the legitimacy of those expressing concerns about the current pope.

Meanwhile, the rest of their toxic and sectarian agenda - which resonates with the mindset of some local Catholic elites - has not changed. And unfortunately, it is most likely that their archbishop will not do anything about it.

Another example, not Asia but famous, comes from Colorado.

In an article published by the Washington Post on 9 March 2023, the world discovered the fallacious ways through which some wealthy American Catholics have generated a private organisation to launch a systematic witch-hunt against American priests with same-sex attraction and active on Grinder.

Quickly, the structure evolved into something more than a few wealthy individuals who believed they were serving the Church.

It became a stable but secretive entity under no ecclesial regulation.

While some bishops and Catholic media have heard about it, they failed to question its scope, legality, and morality.

As we have often seen during investigations related to clerical sex abuses, it was finally a secular media that took the lead to publicly uncover this Colorado-based witch-hunt.

Indeed, secular institutions such as private media and civil authorities can play a critical role in questioning Catholic leaders who cover evil.

If bishops and Rome do not act, other institutions can save the Church. The creativity of the Holy Spirit is borderless.

Three ways the Vatican can help

With these failures in mind, we now return to the Vatican and its contribution to our digital engagements.

Since we do not send money to Rome to simply get lengthy sermons that a parish priest could produce, what is the additional value of the Roman administration?

How can the Dicastery for Communication support us, individually and institutionally, in our journey through the digital continent?

To address these questions, allow me to bring three suggestions.

First of all, one could hope that the Dicastery for Communication will identify and publicize institutional practices that are deemed positive.

As mentioned, there are many experimentations at local and regional levels which deserve attention.

Out of this data, the Roman administration could publicly formulate principles and norms able to frame the ways Catholic institutions in their diversity engage with the digital continent. The Church has an institutional responsibility to make social media a safer space of encounter.

Second, if we turn to episcopal regulators, Rome could openly ask bishop conferences to take on institutional and financial responsibilities. And this kind of call cannot only occur behind closed doors.

Listening to one another through digital space requires support and accountability.

It is, for instance, essential to maintain a diversity of news outlets to secure our ecclesial capacity to spread critical information.

Bishops cannot reduce social media to top-down communication and monochromatic evangelization.

If we do not want to wait for secular media to come to our rescue, Catholic bishops need to truly support our access to ecclesial information and trustworthy social media.

Third, canon law should not be politely ignored.

This legal tool should be mobilized in developing robust and institutional responses to the challenges of a digital world. And adding new canons from the top will not be enough.

Local and national Churches need to truly invest in the training of canon lawyers who are not necessarily clergy members and serving the interest of their cast. Canon law is here to protect all of us in all aspects of our Christian life.

In a synodal Church, Catholics should have ecclesial ways to make vicious structures accountable without depending entirely on the goodwill of their bishop.

In conclusion, as the "Inside The Vatican" podcast has already noticed, Towards Full Presence is a precious but partial text. We now need to hear from the Dicastery for Communication on institutional ways to engage with social media.

• Michel Chambon is a French theologian and cultural anthropologist who is Research Fellow at the National University of Singapore.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

Byrnes has observed that there is growing curiosity about Catholicism and Christianity. He believes this trend may stem from a response to the negative attitudes about religion in older generations, with younger generations now able to personalise their belief systems through online platforms.

A couple of people on TikTok have said, 'This is blasphemous, you're going to hell'," he said.
"I'm not doing it to be blasphemous; it's in good taste," Read more

I was photographed waddling in nothing but a diaper, filmed smearing food all over my face instead of eating it.

But I'm old enough that the kompromat is safe in the confines of physical photo albums and VHS tapes in my parents' attic.

Even my earliest digital activity—posting emotional MySpace photo captions and homemade music videos—took place in the new and unsophisticated internet of the early 2000s, and has, blissfully, been lost to time.

I feel relief whenever I'm reminded of those vanished artifacts, and even more so when I see pictures and videos of children on the internet today, who won't be so lucky.

In December, I watched a TikTok of two young sisters named Olivia and Millie opening Christmas presents.

When the large boxes in front of them turned out to contain two suitcases, Millie, who appeared to be about 4 years old, burst into tears. (Luggage, unsurprisingly, was not what she wanted from Santa.)

Her parents scrambled to explain that the real presents—tickets to a four-day Disney cruise—were actually inside the suitcases, but Millie was too far gone.

She couldn't stop screaming and crying.

Nine million strangers watched her breakdown, and thousands of them commented on it.

"This is a great ad for birth control," one wrote. (The TikTok has since been deleted.)

Two decades ago, this tantrum would have been just another bit of family lore, or at worst, a home video trotted out for relatives every Christmas Eve.

But now, thoughtless choices made years ago—a keg stand photographed, a grocery-store argument taped—can define our digital footprints, and a generation of parents like Millie's are knowingly burdening their children with an even bigger online dossier.

The children of the Facebook era—which truly began in 2006, when the platform opened to everyone—are growing up, preparing to enter the workforce, and facing the consequences of their parents' social-media use.

Many are filling the shoes of a digital persona that's already been created, and that they have no power to erase.

Caymi Barrett, now 24, grew up with a mom who posted Barrett's personal moments—bath photos, her MRSA diagnosis, the fact that she was adopted, the time a drunk driver hit the car she was riding in—publicly on Facebook. (Barrett's mother did not respond to requests for comment.)

The distress this caused eventually motivated Barrett to become a vocal advocate for children's internet privacy, including testifying in front of the Washington State House earlier this year.

But before that, when Barrett was a teen and had just signed up for her first Twitter account, she followed her mom's example, complaining about her siblings and talking candidly about her medical issues.

Barrett's audience of younger users are the ones who pointed out the problem, she told me.

Her internet friends started "reaching out to me, being like, ‘Hey, maybe you should take this down,'" she said.

Today's teens are similarly wary of oversharing.

They joke on TikTok about the terror of their peers finding their parents' Facebooks. Stephen Balkam, the CEO of the nonprofit Family Online Safety Institute, says that even younger children might experience a "digital coming-of-age" and the discomfort that comes with it.

"What we've seen is very mature 10-, 11-, 12-year-olds sitting down with their parents, going, ‘Mum, what were you thinking?'" he told me. Continue reading

Now 26, Elizabete joined the convent at the age of 17. Her social media presence has garnered over 163,000 followers since she started posting.

Her posts balance profound content with lighthearted clips. She emphasizes that prayer is the most crucial and all-encompassing aspect of a nun's daily routine, but they must also attend to their regular chores and studies. Read more

The study involved owners teaching their parrots to ring a bell and initiate a video call with another pet parrot on a tablet screen. During the first two weeks of the experiment, participating birds made a total of 212 video calls while their owners carefully monitored their behaviour.

Calls were terminated as soon as the birds stopped paying attention to the screen and were limited to a maximum of five minutes. Although 18 parrots initially participated, three dropped out during the course of the study.

After acquiring the skill to initiate video interactions, the experiment progressed to its second phase. During the "open call" period, the 15 birds that participated were given the freedom to make calls and choose which bird to contact. The pet parrots made a total of 147 video calls to other birds over the course of two months. The owners carefully documented the calls and recorded over 1,000 hours of video footage, which the researchers analyzed. Read more

The campaign was developed after diocesan communications and pastoral staff noticed an increase in suspicious activities on Church social media pages.

The Staying Safe on Social Media campaign starts next Monday, 20 March.

It features special posts each day for seven days on Church Facebook and other social media. These suggest precautions for social media users.

One suggestion, for example, is: "never accept a friend request from someone you don't know personally".

Suspicious activity
Recent suspicious activity includes comments, "likes" and emoji symbols such as "hands in prayer" being posted on Church social media pages from fake profiles; the infiltration of Catholic Facebook groups by fake profiles; and the sending of friend requests and private messages to people within the Catholic community from these fake profiles.

All six Catholic dioceses have noticed suspicious activity on parish and other Church social media.

Though Church communications staff check and block these fake profiles as they are noticed, new ones keep appearing.

Palmerston North Diocese communications coordinator Isabella McCafferty helped initiate Staying Safe on Social Media.

The main concern is that people might not be aware of the possibility of fake profiles, and therefore risk being taken advantage of, she says.

"Our campaign aims to draw attention to ways in which people can keep themselves safe on social media. We have come up with seven key points, which we will share across all Catholic social media pages in the country - one point a day from Monday March 20 to Sunday March 26," McCafferty says.

"We are looking for help to ensure this campaign reaches as many people as possible. If you run a Catholic social media page, please download the campaign resources and share them across your pages during the campaign.

"They are clearly labelled so you will know which one to put up on which day. Alternatively, if you don't run a social media page but know someone who does, please send these resources on to them."

Source

• NZ Catholic Bishops Conference