Australia Is Putting the Brakes on Social Media for Kids. The Data Suggests It’s Not Acting on a Whim.

Ben Lou
11 hours ago
6 min read

In late 2025, Australia became the first country in the world to draw a hard line around childhood and social media. Under amendments to its Online Safety Act, platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and others will be required to prevent children under 16 from holding accounts—or face fines of up to tens of millions of Australian dollars.

This is a historic step, and it signals just how seriously the Australian government views the potential downsides of exposing teenage children to social media prematurely.

The move didn’t come out of the blue. It reflects years of accumulating studies, surveys, and statistical evidence, alongside a growing societal consensus that social media—despite its many benefits—may be reshaping how young people think, feel, sleep, and spend a large portion of their free time each day. Once those patterns and habits are ingrained, they can be surprisingly difficult to unwind.

And this isn’t only about teenagers. Have you ever noticed how hard it is to watch a full show or movie without reaching for your phone? Or how focusing on a book feels more difficult than it used to? You’re not alone—and social media may be part of the reason why.

What Changed: A Childhood Rewired by Feeds

For years, concerns about screens tended to blur together—television, video games, computers. But smartphones changed the equation. Unlike earlier forms of media, phones are accessible anytime and anywhere, and it has become socially acceptable—even expected—for people to stare at them while sitting across from one another.

What makes this shift especially striking is that so-called “social” media has quietly altered how we interact socially. Instead of deepening connection, it often pulls attention away from the people physically present. For many users, it has also intensified feelings of inadequacy and comparison, as daily life is measured against carefully curated highlight reels of others.

Around the early 2010s, platforms underwent a more fundamental transformation. Social media feeds became algorithmic—infinite, personalized, and optimized for engagement rather than chronology. Smartphones ensured those feeds were never more than an arm’s length away. The result was not just more screen time, but a new relationship with stimulation: faster, more emotionally charged, and harder to step away from.

These systems are remarkably good at showing us what we want to see—or what keeps us watching. But they also create a kind of gravity. What begins as inspiration can quietly turn into a black hole of time, and in some cases, a breeding ground for jealousy and comparison. Whether you’re interested in fitness, finance, or fashion, you’re quickly exposed to extreme outliers—top bodybuilders, overnight millionaires, flawless models—presented so frequently that exceptional outcomes begin to feel ordinary. Over time, that distortion matters. Constant exposure to success can subtly reshape expectations, satisfaction, and self-worth in ways that are easy to miss while they’re happening.

What the Evidence Actually Shows

The scientific literature on social media and mental health is vast—and often misunderstood. The strongest consensus is not that social media directly causes depression or anxiety, but that heavy and frequent use is consistently associated with worse mental-health outcomes, especially among adolescents.

Large reviews and analyses published in journals such as JAMA Pediatrics, JAMA Network Open, and The Lancet Digital Health have found:

Small but statistically significant associations between time spent on social media and higher levels of depressive symptoms and anxiety in youth
Evidence summarized by the U.S. Surgeon General showing that teens who spend more than three hours per day on social media face roughly double the risk of poor mental-health outcomes compared with lighter users
Strong links between heavy social media use and sleep disruption, including later bedtimes, shorter sleep duration, and poorer sleep quality—factors independently associated with mood disorders
Robust associations between image-focused platforms and body dissatisfaction, particularly among adolescent girls
Clear evidence that cyberbullying and exposure to self-harm content are linked to higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation

Importantly, newer longitudinal studies—tracking the same individuals over time—suggest that increases in social media use often precede worsening mental health, not just the reverse (research published in JAMA Pediatrics and JAMA Network Open). While this does not establish a single causal pathway, it weakens the argument that these patterns are merely coincidental.

Researchers also consistently note that effect sizes are modest. Social media is not the sole driver of rising youth distress. Economic pressure, academic stress, family dynamics, and broader cultural shifts all play roles. But at a population level, even modest effects applied to millions of adolescents can matter.

Why Some Kids Are Hit Harder Than Others

One of the most consistent findings in recent research is that social media does not affect all users equally.

Adolescents with pre-existing anxiety, depression, or low self-esteem tend to spend more time on social platforms, engage more in social comparison, and experience stronger emotional reactions to online feedback (as documented in studies published in Nature Human Behaviour and The Lancet).

In other words, the kids most in need of stability may also be the ones most vulnerable to the pressures of algorithmic feeds.

This helps explain why policymakers in Australia focused not just on average outcomes, but on risk concentration. Even if many teenagers navigate social media without severe harm, a sizable minority do not—and the costs for that group can be significant.

From Social Media to Porn: Why Age Checks Are Expanding

Australia’s ban does not exist in isolation. As The Economist has reported, governments are revisiting age verification across the internet more broadly, particularly for online pornography.

The underlying concern is similar: early and repeated exposure to highly stimulating content can shape expectations, attention, and behavior in ways that are difficult to reverse later.

Research on pornography has long shown associations—largely correlational—between early exposure and distorted views of sex, intimacy, and consent. Social media raises parallel questions about attention, identity, and self-worth.

In both cases, regulators face the same dilemma: platforms argue they are responding to user demand, while critics counter that demand itself is often shaped—sometimes aggressively—by design.

What This Looks Like in Everyday Life

Beyond mental-health metrics, social media has also changed the texture of everyday social interaction. Attention is more fragmented. Conversations are more easily interrupted. Being physically present no longer guarantees full engagement, as phones compete constantly for focus.

At the same time, social platforms shape how people measure themselves. Feeds tend to surface the most polished moments—career wins, aesthetic lifestyles, physical transformations—often without context. The process often fades into the background, while the result becomes the sole focus. Over time, repeated exposure to these highlight reels can subtly recalibrate expectations around success, progress, and self-worth.

The effect is rarely dramatic or immediate. It unfolds gradually, as habits form and reference points shift. Social comparison becomes ambient rather than intentional, woven into daily scrolling. For adolescents still forming their sense of identity—and for adults not immune to the same dynamics—this constant backdrop can influence how satisfaction, achievement, and belonging are experienced.

These changes are difficult to quantify precisely, but they help explain why social media is increasingly viewed not just as a communication tool, but as an environment—one that shapes behavior and perception over time.

What Australia’s Ban Really Signals

Australia’s policy is not a declaration that social media is catastrophic, nor a belief that bans alone will resolve youth mental-health challenges. Officials themselves acknowledge enforcement hurdles and the likelihood of workarounds.

What the ban represents is a reconsideration of the balance between benefit and risk in allowing adolescents unrestricted access to social media.

It reflects a growing skepticism that unlimited exposure, during a period of rapid cognitive and emotional development, is as benign as once assumed.

A Broader Question for All of Us

The mechanisms at work in adolescent brains are not unique to youth. Adults, too, are susceptible to dopamine-heavy feedback loops, compulsive checking, and attention erosion. The difference is one of degree, not kind.

If governments are concluding that algorithmic feeds require guardrails for children, it raises an uncomfortable question for everyone else: how much of our own time, focus, and mental bandwidth are we ceding by default?

Australia’s ban may ultimately prove imperfect. But it reflects a growing recognition that digital environments shape behavior—and that leaving those environments entirely to market forces may carry costs we are only beginning to understand.

The evidence does not demand panic. But it does justify caution.

Sources & Further Reading

Australian Government, Online Safety Act amendments (2025)
U.S. Surgeon General Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health
JAMA Pediatrics; JAMA Network Open — longitudinal studies on adolescent social media use
The Lancet Digital Health — meta-analyses on social media and mental health
Pew Research Center — teen social media and screen-time surveys
The Economist — reporting on age verification and online harms