Peter Malinauskas taking his policy cues from ultra-conservative Florida governor Ron DeSantis wouldn’t have appeared on many bingo cards before the election, but here we are.

The Premier’s weekend splash was about a “nation-leading” approach to social media, which seeks to copy exactly Florida’s legislated ban on children under 14 from holding social media accounts, and allowing 14-15-year-olds to do so only with parental permission.

The headlines were exactly as the Premier’s spinners drew them up, but the reality is he’s only announced a review by eminent jurist Robert French, who will deliver a report into the feasibility of the idea some time before the next election.

The answer may well be that it’s not feasible. In fact, that seems highly likely.

I guess it’s become easy to lead the nation on policy-making in a contemporary political landscape where reviews, royal commissions, consultants’ report and task forces have largely replaced fearless advice from an independent public service.

The Premier has a penchant for big plans that are difficult to deliver. His promised ban on political donations is caught up in complications; there’s no sign of the promised review of the privatised bus system. It wasn’t his plan originally, but the Government is struggling to make a decision on the future of the Aboriginal cultures centre.

On the issue of social media, Malinauskas argues, with some justification, that the platforms are damaging children’s mental health.

There are few parents who don’t want to reduce the time their kids spend glued to screens, but the evidence of harm is actually quite mixed.

In any case, ideas about how children access “social media” or even what constitutes such media are quickly becoming redundant.

The old media companies are myopically focused on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, but young people are using a dizzying array of apps, as well as encrypted messaging, to communicate with each other.

A great deal of social interaction comes via gaming platforms.

For many young kids, games are their social media, with all the potential good and bad that comes from that.

While there are many awful examples of terrible harm coming to kids via online interactions,  it’s not all negative.

Just this week local research was released showing that online gaming could be very beneficial for pre-teens on the autism spectrum.

A University of Adelaide-led study of children aged between 10 and 12 using the cooperative video game Minecraft showed potential for the activity to improve social skills and expand the friendship networks of kids on the autism spectrum.

The researchers found that “while the children would initially start off talking about the game, this then led to other conversations about life away from the game which was really positive to see”.

Of course there are downsides to video games, which can be highly addictive; bullying and worse can happen via in-game communication with other players.

The reality is though that kids who’ve never known anything but the digital world are adept at finding their own private, virtual spaces, just as previous generations created their own secret places, far from the eyes of adults.

It might be more useful to provide parental education about how to restrict their children’s access to certain apps, sites and material, or even attempt to normalise children not being given smart mobile device at a very young age.

Relationships of trust between children and their parents and other adults who care for them are surely the best way to address problems that emerge in virtual worlds, just as it is in real life. It’s not foolproof, of course, and a legislated ban – even if unenforceable – might add to parents’ arsenal in regulating their children’s social media use.

At this point, there is little hard evidence that the downward spiral of young people’s mental health is significantly connected to social media use. A few studies have shown a possible connection, and we know of anecdotal evidence of great harm to some individuals.

One of the better-researched phenomena among Australian children is that loneliness and a lack of hope in the future have damaged kids’ mental health, particularly during and in the wake of the COVID pandemic.

Restrictions on social media might aid or worsen this, depending on the child.

It’s positive that political leaders are at least considering the issue.

At the same time, a generation of politicians who are comprehensively failing to address the global climate emergency, and who increasingly look to the prospect of war with China as a provider of secure future defence jobs for kids, might consider the impact of their own decisions on children’s mental health.

They also might want to address the chronic underfunding of mental health services in South Australia.

Notes on Adelaide is a weekly column reflecting on the city, its strengths and its foibles. You can read more Notes on Adelaide in SALIFE’s print editions.