Just in time for the holidays, Australian youth under 16 unwrapped a ban on social media. A new law requires ten of the world’s most prominent social media platforms—Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X and YouTube—to block young Australians from accessing existing accounts or creating new ones, regardless of parental permission.
At this point, you don’t need a child and adolescent psychologist (hi) to tell you about the links between social media and poorer psychological well-being for youth. Youth social media use and misuse are a worldwide public health concern, and it’s clear that we need big swings to deter the harmful effects of digital engagement.
Could deterrents like Australia’s ban be such a swing? Absolutely. But let’s not get lulled into thinking banning social media will do the heavy lifting needed to set the mental health of digitally-engaged youth on the road to recovery. To truly turn things around, age-related social media restrictions need to be part of a package deal to address youth mental health that covers access and safety, digital literacy education, and mental health interventions.
To start, the Australian ban misses that social media is bigger than any one platform. Social media is its own cultural context, making its influence felt whether a teen engages on the platforms directly or not. We are all subject to its secondhand digital smoke (six/seven, anyone?).
Deleting a teen’s account won’t be enough to dismantle the impact of this cultural phenomenon. And even if we could, we cannot block teens’ creativity and ingenuity. They will find a way to stay connected with culturally relevant experiences, even if those experiences are risky. To anticipate an obvious workaround, apps such as WhatsApp and Discord are not restricted by the new Australian law.
There’s also the concern that upending teens’ current social and connection mechanisms might drive them, especially those who are lonely and disconnected, into more precarious places, like to an AI chatbot.
While it’s tempting to use bans to solve societal problems, culture will usually find a conduit.
Analogous bans, like the U.S.’s decision to raise the minimum legal drinking age to 21 in 1984, did reduce alcohol-related traffic crashes, alcohol use disorders, and death from alcohol-related chronic diseases in later life. Yet teen alcohol use has remained a major public health concern. Rather than end teen drinking, the ban moved it from public to private, as teens traded the package store for older peers and the family liquor cabinet. Even where they did work, the bans are famously hard to implement and often unevenly enforced.
Unlike alcohol, social media can actually benefit teens. Upsides include social connection, opportunities for self-expression, affirmation, creativity and exploration, and even civic engagement. Throwing the proverbial baby out with the bathwater may separate young people from important supports, causing the ban to have the exact opposite of its intended effect. This may be especially worrisome for youth holding marginalized or disadvantaged identities who can connect with geographically distant peers online. Strikingly, the Australian social media ban makes no exceptions, even for teens who get parental permission.
There’s also the question of how effective it is to kick the can down the road. We should absolutely hold companies to task in making social media a better place to be. But delaying teen access to social media does little to encourage companies to improve on this front. Youth and families still need to know how to use digital media in ways that protect against risk.
Policymakers should invest in proven strategies to help teens become critical users of digital media, including learning how to fine-tune their feeds and settings, assess the credibility of information, and self-monitor for signs that social media is affecting their well-being. We should prioritize developing and implementing trusted resources that help families consider their child’s unique needs, familial priorities, and practical strategies to create an approach that works for them.
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At the end of the day, no amount of policy, advocacy, education, or algorithmic tweaks around social media will change the fact that we have serious work to do to improve the mental health system for our nation’s youth. If curtailing access to social media is being done in the name of youth mental health, it’s worth asking what we’re doing on the additive side to increase equity and access to high-quality mental health care resources for youth. Otherwise, technology will continue to exploit the gaps that we leave.
