In the home of Andrew Leigh, the federal member for Fenner, his children aren't allowed a phone until they're 15.
"It typically means that our kids are the last in their social networks to get a phone," he said.
"They would all like to get a phone at a younger age, but they do recognize that a period of being without a phone is a period where you get to observe... how addicted people are."
Parents are "tearing their hair out", children are tired of being ignored, and Canberra's politicians are throwing their two cents into the social media debate.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced in early September his government intends to introduce a legislated minimum age for social media use before the end of 2024.
Labor pushes for social media ban
The ACT's federal Labor MPs Andrew Leigh, Alicia Payne, Katy Gallagher and David Smith said they all support a ban on social media.
None of the members were prepared to give a precise age limit, but said they would wait to see the results of the government's age verification trial currently underway.
"We've seen a significant worsening in youth mental health since the period when smartphones and social media emerged, and there's pretty good evidence suggesting that that's causal," Dr Leigh said.
Senator Gallagher said she wants to see social media giants look at "every possible way" they can protect children from harm and abuse online.
"With teenagers myself, I'm the same as any parent in Canberra struggling to navigate the digital world that our kids spend so much time in," she said.
Member for Bean Mr Smith was critical of Meta's recent announcement of "teen accounts" for children on Instagram.
"Suddenly with [the ban] on the horizon social media platforms have responded," Mr Smith said.
"You have to wonder whether they would have done that without these announcements. It's a pretty extraordinary coincidence otherwise."
Mr Smith said he also wanted to see more support programs in the community for children addicted to social media, similar to the ones run by Canberra's Menslink, which ACT senator David Pocock also supports.
Increased scrutiny of platforms
The independent senator wants to see more scrutiny of social media platforms and more consultation with young people on what a ban would actually look like.
"We've got this unprecedented experiment where we've seen kids in a fairly short space of time go from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood," Senator Pocock said.
"We've seen a lack of willingness to actually take [social media companies] on just because they're behemoths, huge multinationals making extraordinary profits of what we know are harmful products and they're not held to account for that."
He's a fan of the ban, but believes there needs to be a broader conversation on our use of technology.
"I'd be really keen to use the committee process to really dig into it, how this would this work. Kids are smart," he said.
"But if you're gonna do that, you've got to put a lot more onus on social media companies."
Mr Pocock said he also wants to see the Prime Minister support getting children "off their phones and on the footy field" by putting more funding into community sport.
Dr Leigh MP argued the government is already supporting children's sport through Every Chance, an ACT charity that helps low-income families afford to sign their kids up to sporting clubs.
A childhood no one dreams of
One thing all the politicians share in common? Relief they aren't growing up in with today's social media apps.
"Honestly I'm thankful that social media and the added pressure it can put on young people wasn't around when I was that age," Ms Payne said.
"My kids are only 4 and 6, and they're not at the stage where they want social media or have asked about it. But I know this will come up sooner than I expect it to."
And for Mr Pocock, who is expecting a baby with his partner, he's hoping he won't have to think about letting his child on social media for a long time.
"All the people high up in these tech companies don't allow their kids on the platforms, they know what they're doing," he said.
"I'd hope by then we've started to grapple with this problem more but I don't think it's going away."
