Social media delivers a mix of harms and benefits to youth that researchers are only just beginning to understand. What can we learn from Australia’s social media ban for teens? The Aussie experiment comes amid a lack of clear evidence that the apps harm the majority of adolescents.
It may take a dramatic research pivot to finally reveal what’s going on and how to fix it. _Editor’s note: On August 26, 2026, Meta announced a legal settlement in which it would pay more than $17 billion to US states, territories and the District of Columbia, and add protections and controls to Instagram and Facebook for users under age 18._ T he 15-year-olds were far from happy when Australia banned them from social media. No more Insta, no more Snapchat, no more TikTok. From midnight December 10, 2025, tech companies that failed to prevent under-16s from having accounts risked fines of up to A$54.6 million.
In the weeks before the ban, the teens shared tips on how to get around it (making a double chin to fool age-verification tools was one of them). Only one in four planned to stop using social media once the ban came in. Two 15-year-olds, backed by a digital rights group, sought a High Court injunction to block it.
It’s easy to see why teenagers were appalled, says Jeff Hancock, a psychologist and founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab in California, which is working with the Australian government to evaluate the effects of the ban. I connect with my dance team and my soccer team, and I’ve created a small business, and it’s how I stay in touch with my grandma. And that’s getting taken away!’” In this TV show, Australian parents and teenagers react to the country’s under-16 social media ban.
Teenage disgust Down Under has done little to slow global momentum in the ban’s wake, though. From Norway to Indonesia, Brazil to the United Kingdom, governments are crafting legislation to limit their teens’ access to social media — emboldened by widespread parental support, alarming declines in adolescent mental health and a best-selling book, _The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness._ And it’s not just politicians who are moving to take on tech. So are the courts: Meta, which owns Instagram, has been ordered to pay almost $1 billion in penalties so far in 2026 after US juries found the company liable for harming young users.
Many more lawsuits are in the works. Few dispute that some children are harmed by social media. Reports are legion of bullying and sexual and verbal abuse, and exposure to pornography, misogynistic and radicalization content and pro-eating-disorder material.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
