A Social Media Ban Won’t Fix Youth Mental Health

But Pay Equity Might

It’s no surprise that a brand new campaign to ban social media for kids has magically arisen just as the Government is under significant pressure. The political timing is immaculate. B416 lands just as the National-led Government trashes 33 pay equity claims for women and changes the rules to make it harder to make a claim. Coincidence? Hardly. It's a hastily gift-wrapped distraction for a Government in desperate need of one. An easy, headline-grabbing fix that polls well with parents and a media hungry for distraction. It’s a smokescreen, deflecting attention from their pay equity debacle.

(Speaking of which,

Mountain Tūī

has unearthed a wonderful clip of several National MPs (Erica Stanford, Nicola Willis, Louise Upston, and the late Nikki Kaye) passionately extolling the virtues and values of the Pay Equity Bill 2020 during it’s third reading. I digress).

Nicola Willis Calls Pay Equity "A Grievance Industry"

There is zero solidarity by the ‘wealthy and sorted’ crew of B416 with the working women impacted by the removal of existing pay equity claims. As

Nick Rockel

notes in his superbly titled “Luxon’s Ladies”,

At a time when many women who do not usually speak out on political matters are saying enough and taking a stand, these women of immense privilege are opting for photo opportunities with the man ultimately responsible for throwing their sisters under a bus.

Photo and caption clipped from Nick’s Kōrero

Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised. Wealthy white women have a history of aligning themselves with power rather than having solidarity with the working class. White-dominated feminism has far too often been a ready partner to capitalism, imperialism, and white supremacist thought. It makes sense in context that these wealthy white ladies are aligning themselves with a Government that is refusing to invest in pay equity.

So. What does help youth mental health?

One of the major supports for good mental health is growing up in stable, secure, warm, dry homes with plenty of nutritious food and regular meals. You know what helps that? Mums having well paid jobs with decent working conditions! Pay equity!! Oh, and decent school lunches too.

In a recent Op-Ed, the CEO of Barnardos Aotearoa noted the direct link between pay equity and child wellbeing, saying:

The recent changes to pay equity legislation risk making this even worse. While Oranga Tamariki social workers have fought for improved terms and conditions, many other workers are still waiting. Barnardos has led the push for pay equity across the community sector, but delays mean too many workers are being left behind.

It’s unjust, and it’s unsustainable.

We’re already seeing the consequences. Wait lists are growing. Services are being reduced or cut. Aotearoa doesn’t have enough social workers to keep up with demand, and we know fewer new social and community workers are staying — they’re burning out or leaving the profession altogether. When we lose them, we don’t just lose staff – we lose trusted relationships, deep community knowledge, and the ability to intervene early before crises escalate.

A social media ban is far simpler and easier than funding what is needed for high quality youth mental health care, such as paying decent wages for mental health nurses, ensuring decent working conditions for psychologists, creating manageable caseloads for psychiatrists, and so on.

What else helps? Decent working conditions for people who are working in mental health - the very health care workers and nurses whose pay equity claim has now been summarily dismissed. Decent working conditions means when you see someone, they have time, energy, and capacity to ensure high quality care at every level (one reason given for the recent case of an 11yo being injected with anti-psychotic medication is that staff at the hospital were so overrun they simply didn’t have time to check). Pay equity for health care workers and nurses would have assisted with addressing this.

What else helps? Being able to access mental health care and see a mental health professional early on, when first needed, before issues escalate. Yet, psychiatrists working in Aotearoa New Zealand have raised numerous issues with Health NZ, including workforce shortages, unsustainable workloads, burnout, inflexible conditions, poor management, and insufficient pay. It hasn't been sorted. Rotorua has had to cut their youth specialist mental health services as they cannot fill vacancies. This only lengthens waiting lists and exacerbates issues. Supporting hospitals to easily recruit staff, to employ sufficient staff, and to provide high quality working conditions, including offering pay equity, helps to address these issues.

Te Hiringa Mahara - Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission notes that young people are less likely to get help when its needed, and that is predominantly impacts lower income families:

"There has been a steady decline in mental wellbeing for young people more recently, with 1 in 5 young people experiencing higher rates of psychological distress than other age groups. At the same time, young people are less likely to get professional help for their mental health needs when they need it,” said Dr Ella Cullen, Director Wellbeing Insights and Leadership, for Te Hiringa Mahara.

Addressing the underlying causes behind poorer mental health for youth is an urgent priority. For example, households with young people residing in them are less likely to have enough income to meet everyday needs than households without young people present.

The Commission notes that addressing the underlying drivers of poor youth mental health requires addressing societal issues such as:

• Increasing household incomes for lower waged families

• Strengthening social connections

• Facilitating trust

• Fostering intergenerational connections

screenshot of infographic from the mental health and wellbeing commission

What else helps? Recent Australian based research with young people found that what they say works is having friend to talk to, access to mental health professionals, and online resources that speak to their reality:

In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Youth2000 survey series (a nationally representative study of secondary school students in NZ) found that young people from low-income households were significantly more likely to experience psychological distress, and that access to basic needs such as food, housing, and healthcare was a stronger predictor of wellbeing than individual or family-level risk factors. As noted by one participant in the Mental Health and Wellbeing Commission youth consultation (2023)

“My mental health is fine when our house is warm and my mum’s not stressing about bills.”

The Youth2000 survey also found that Māori and Pasifika youth experience higher rates of racism, discrimination, and socioeconomic exclusion, and that these experiences are strongly linked to:

• Worse mental health outcomes

• Higher suicide risk

• Lower access to mental health services

Regarding solutions, young people have consistently called for school environments that are free from bullying, racial slurs, and bias, and for services that are culturally competent, where they can be heard and understood.

Social media bans are an easy way to look like something is being done for youth mental health, while doing precisely nothing about the underlying drivers (poverty, inequitable distribution of resources, underfunded mental healthcare, racism, bigotry, climate destruction).