Since Australia barred under-16s from using social media in late 2025, more than two dozen countries have either enacted their own bans or are weighing similar restrictions.
They include a number of European states as well as developing nations such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Brazil. While US President Donald Trump’s administration appears unlikely to follow suit, several states including California are getting serious about potential regulations to limit young people’s use of social media.Proponents say the moves signal a fundamental shift in favor of scrolling-free childhoods. But there are already questions over the effectiveness of the Australian ban. Tech giants, including Meta Platforms Inc. and Snap Inc., have been accused of failing to properly enforce it on their platforms. And many teenagers appear to be finding ways around it.
Why are there calls to ban kids from social media?
Concerns around the effects on children of excessive social media use have grown in recent years as medical professionals sought to explain an increase in mental health problems reported among the young, especially in high-income Western nations.US lawsuits filed in recent years claimed that by engineering their platforms to be hard to resist, social media companies have caused young users serious harm. Academic studies have indicated that excessive screen time can hold back a child’s development. Over-exposure to fast-moving digital media can make it harder for children to focus on slow, quiet tasks. And too much time spent alone on a smartphone deprives children of the human interactions experts say they need to become confident adults who can navigate working life and form healthy, durable relationships. Social media has also been linked to cases of rampant bullying, sexual abuse and extortion that have led to self-harm and suicide.In his 2024 bestseller The Anxious Generation, US psychologist Jonathan Haidt linked increases in teen mental illness that began around 2012 to a societal shift from a healthy “play-based childhood” in the real world to an addictive “phone-based childhood.”The book played a role in precipitating Australia’s ban, and several leaders, notably France’s Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, have commissioned expert reports to look further into the matter.The tech firms that own the social media services say they are committed to users’ safety and often point to features they have implemented over the years to protect teens.Does using social media less make kids happier?
