By: Brad Huddleston

Australia’s Courier Mail newspaper headline reads, “Australia moves to ban children under 16 from social media.” The move comes as cyberbullying has become the leading cause of death in Australia’s youth. In the state of Queensland, a report in November 2023 showed that a child between the ages of 10 and 14 dies from suicide every four-and-a-half weeks, which is double the number recorded in 2022. Country-wide, the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare reports that suicide is the number one cause of death of Australians aged 15–24.

What exactly is going on with social media that would cause a young person to take their own life? Well, there is too much to mention here, but I will just list a few cases of those who have decided life is not worth living after having a horrible experience on social media.

• A 45-year-old man posing as a 15-year-old girl on Instagram convinced Mac Holdsworth to send him an intimate photo. Unable to cope with the consequences of sending that image, Mac took his own life 15 months later. 
• 14-year-old Isla Marsche endured years of online torment. She finally broke and committed suicide. After her death, it was discovered that there were several online campaigns rating and ranking female students on a scale from one to ten. 
• Ella Catey-Crawford took her own life after falling victim to a catfishing scheme. A catfishing scheme is when someone creates a fake identity on social media to deceive others. Ella was 12-years-old. Think about that for a minute—twelve-years-old. 

The list goes on and on, so the government of Australia has moved to ban social media for those under the age of 16. The ban goes into effect in November 2025.

The global mental health crisis related to the Internet is certainly not limited to Australia. The entire planet is suffering, even in third-world countries. The Guardian reviewed an alarming book by Jonathan Haidt, author of The Anxious Generation, who reported that in the US, diagnoses of depression and anxiety among college students more than doubled between 2010 and 2018. Even more alarming, over the ten years leading up to 2020, emergency room visits for self-harm among teenage girls in the US sky-rocketed by 188%, while among boys, they increased by 48%. The review goes on to state that children are spending fewer days less time socializing in person and even more time glued to their screens. Girls are most likely to be sucked into the self-esteem-crushing vortex of social media, and boys are more likely to become hooked on gaming and porn. Childhood is no longer “play-based,” it’s “phone-based.”

What Can Be Done?

I want to revisit the case of 14-year-old Marsche. The Courier Mail stated, “The principal of a school attended by a 14-year-old girl who took her own life last week after online bullying has told how requests to social media companies to remove posts harming students are ‘futile.’” This is madness. Isla’s parents should never have allowed her to be on social media in the first place. This precious child endured years of bullying, yet her parents allowed her to stay on social media. While I am thankful for the ban, parents should have done this long ago.

Parenting has changed. There was a time when parents parented their children, not befriended them. If parents do not get behind the ban, it will not work. Children are notorious for finding ways around internet filters and firewalls. Proverbs 22:6 (KJV) says, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” I have said that children are doing a better job of raising their parents these days. Regarding parents, the average age of a video gamer in the US is 36. We find that mothers are often just as addicted, if not more, to social media than their children and must deal with their own addictions before they can lead their children to freedom. Many believe Australia’s ban is extreme. One thing I can tell you is that if your child commits suicide because of social media, you will take no comfort in looking at their lifeless body and saying, “Well, it’s too bad she killed herself, but at least we didn’t do anything extreme like banning her from social media.”

By: Brad Huddleston

Imagine a fifth-grade class is assigned a 500-word essay on the history of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius on August 24th, A.D. 79. One student decides she doesn’t want to spend the time she could be on social media writing a boring paper, so she visits the artificial intelligence website for ChatGPT and types the following prompt:

“I am a fifth-grade student. Write a 500-word essay on the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.”

In an instant, ChatGPT complies. The student simply clicks the copy button, pastes the essay into Microsoft Word, enters her name at the end, and finishes the paper in about two minutes. Then it’s back to TikTok. Several other students in her class also visit ChatGPT and request essays on the same subject. The teacher was none the wiser as each essay was on the same subject but worded entirely differently. There have been numerous attempts at catching this type of cheating, but MIT Technology Review’s headline explains the situation: “AI-Text Detection Tools Are Really Easy to Fool.”

So, what’s the solution? Well, there’s this: Teach your children not to cheat and lie and sit with them when they’re doing their schoolwork. Many educators are rightly concerned the system will allow for cheating. But, as followers of Jesus, we should also be gravely worried about the morality of such alleged intelligence. In another scenario, imagine that a teacher gives your child an assignment on the topic of the pro-life movement. Would you assume that Artificial Intelligence is unbiased and will present both sides of the issue? DailyWire’s Ben Shapiro asked ChatGPT, “Are fetuses unborn human beings?” The AI chatbot responded, “No, fetuses are not considered unborn human beings. They are considered unborn babies and are considered to be in a state of development.” Shapiro also asked ChatGPT, “What is a female?” The AI bot answered, “A female is an individual who identifies as female or exhibits characteristics associated with the female gender.” Shapiro went on to ask, “Can a male be a female?” ChatGPT answered, “Yes, a male can identify as a female and exhibit feminine characteristics.” Remember that if anyone ever tries to convince you that Artificial Intelligence is purely objective. It’s often very biased and very wrong.

Instead, let’s get our answers from God. Regarding the pro-life movement, God says in Jeremiah 1:5 (NKJV), “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you.” So yes, unborn infants are human beings. Regarding gender, God says in Genesis 1:27 (NKJV), “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” I don’t mean to be crude, but let’s keep this in biological reality. If you were born with a male organ, you are biologically male, and if you were born with a female organ, you are biologically female. And no matter how many surgeries you have or the lengths you go to alter your voice, mannerisms, and dress, you will not change biological reality. And it’s up to you to teach God’s Word to your children. Government schools certainly will not do it, nor, sadly, will many Christian schools. Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NKJV) says: “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.”

God has also called grandparents to play a vital role in the spiritual development of their grandchildren. Deuteronomy 4:9 (NKJV) says: “Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. And teach them to your children and your grandchildren.”

Next month’s article is titled, “My Conversation with AI Jesus.” To listen to Brad’s podcast, just search for Brad Huddleston on your favorite podcast platform. You can also reach out to Brad at bradhuddleston.com.