UAE's Under-15 Social Media Ban: Could It Change Consumer Behaviour?

**Tim Elliott** (0:00)
This is Mira Business FM, it's the Morning Drive. The UAE has announced a ban on social media access for children under the age of 15 It happened last week, and it's a move that could reshape the way brands market, they advertise and connect with young consumers.
Could it change consumer behavior, influence family spending habits, and force marketers to rethink their strategies? How much might it reshape the way the next generation interacts with technology? So plenty to talk about. Our guest today, Sourjo Mukherjee, is Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Wollongong in Dubai. It's good to have you here, Sourjo. Good to see you. Lourds Adalia-Evertse is the founder of Drippy, which is a healthy soft drinks brand. Lourds, good to see you.

**Lourds Adalia-Evertse** (0:50)
Thank you, Tim. Thank you for having me again.

**Tim Elliott** (0:51)
I see a lot of you these days, I have to say. And also tech journalist, Kevin Sebastian, should be on the line over Zoom. Kevin, good to hear from you too.

**Kevin Sebastian** (1:03)
Thank you for having me.

**Tim Elliott** (1:04)
Good to hear from you. So the background to this is multiple nations have enacted sweeping nationwide bans and age restrictions on social media for children and teenagers. It's driven by concerns over youth, mental health, online safety, among other things.
Over 40 countries, Australia, the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia, now the UAE, all passing legislation requiring tech platforms to enforce strict age verification. Lourds, I want to start with you, actually. You've got two young boys, who this directly impacts, of course. When did you introduce social media to your two boys? What kinds of parental controls do you have?

**Lourds Adalia-Evertse** (1:51)
Yeah, for me, being a parent, as a mom of 9 and 11 years old, I mean, as they grow, they always have the access to, let's say iPads. I mean, most of the parents have that. But I think with the social media, it's something that we try to limit even from the beginning. Maybe they access using our account, because definitely they cannot open their own account. But yeah, I think it's more on this news is actually a relief.
I think that UAE have imposed these rules, and as a parent, it will be way better to move forward with using technology with kids.

**Tim Elliott** (2:30)
Kevin, this is primarily a child safety measure, but it's a signal, I think, of a broader shift in how governments are approaching tech and younger users. Does this ban solve the problem of digital safety, or do you think we're going to see a whole bunch of young people looking for workarounds?

**Kevin Sebastian** (2:54)
To say that it's purely a child safety story would be a bit of a stretch actually, because while it is a child safety story, it is a technology story and a business story on top of that. Because first of all, let's look at the optics here because we are now the first generation of kids who grew up on the Internet and now are becoming parents ourselves.
For years, social media companies have gathered data from the ground up and they have designed platforms up until today to essentially gather data on younger audiences as well.
While the UAE is effectively now saying that this should not be done for younger children, the business impact is significant because one, social media companies are forced to rethink how they're going to push algorithms to younger audiences because now they have to market to parents. There's obviously the bigger story being that if you are someone who grew up on the internet and this is basically just pure behavior at this point, if you find that you cannot access something, you will find a way to move on to another platform. That's exactly what my worry is here, is that kids now basically have to be more and more engaged not just from the platform and basically the government regulation. But I do believe parents now more than ever, are now being tasked with responsibility of actually monitoring their kids. Because now you have to realize that they will actually have to find worker. Kids are smart enough today. Kids can open iPads at 3 And literally, they will be now forced to like look into the kids' activities a bit more deeper, because they'll be like, okay, where are they going? Where they're going to websites that don't necessarily require identification. So that's also a possibility.

**Tim Elliott** (4:40)
Yeah, it is very much about parental accountability as well, isn't it? Sourjo, we don't really, I think we don't fully understand the addictive nature of social media. Yeah, we know it is addictive, but the ins and outs of it, we are still learning. We really don't understand the psychological development of children in the age of algorithms yet either. So there are big questions. But what we do know is that social media is an incredibly effective sales and marketing tool.