It is not enough to get kids off their devices; governments need to give them somewhere to go
By Catherine Thorbecke / Bloomberg Opinion
Australia’s pathfinding efforts to keep children off social media are a closely watched experiment that more than two dozen countries are trying to imitate. The early data suggest it is not going very well.
More than 81 percent of under-16s still used at least one restricted platform after the ban took effect last December. Usage of TikTok among children aged 10 to 12 was higher than before, one parental-control company found, and roughly unchanged for teens aged 13 to 15. Qustodio, the firm behind the data, acknowledged the figures only encompass families already using its software to restrict apps, meaning the broader picture could be worse.
It is far too early to declare the policy a failure. Judging its effectiveness could take years. Other fast followers, including Malaysia and Indonesia, are finding that children can get around restrictions (as many suspected they would). One reason age bans are struggling is that prohibition addresses only half the problem. If policymakers want children off social media, they need to give them somewhere else to go.
Illustration: Yusha
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese first campaigned on barring youth from social media, he declared the goal was to get children “off their devices and onto the footy field.” It was a wildly popular rallying cry for parents who feel powerless against addictive algorithms. Yet data shared by Australia’s eSafety Commissioner suggest that has not happened either; there was little to no change in participation in offline activities such as sports since the policy was introduced.
Cost helps explain why. Youth sports are increasingly a privilege for the rich. An Australian survey published in August found expense was a limiting factor in the ability to participate in community-level sports for 78 percent of children. Many jurisdictions offer subsidies of up to A$200 (US$143) a year per child. The average annual cost to participate in sports was A$4,567. Commanding children to get off their phones is the easy part, actually getting them on the sports field (or in a community theater, after-school arts club or even just a safe place to play outside with peers) takes harder policy work.
Yet research has repeatedly found that increased time spent in extracurriculars is linked to less screen use. In China, where school can be highly competitive from a young age, researchers were trying to see if giving elementary children two hours of extracurricular outdoor physical activity after school would impact their test scores. They ended up finding it did not hurt academic performance, and that it had the benefit of reducing screen time relative to the control group. A separate study in Canada of almost 29,000 seventh-graders found that those who engaged in sports, arts and community programs reported significantly less recreational screen time; and students with extracurricular activities and shorter screen times had the best mental health outcomes.
Many continue to equate the global regulatory pressure on social media firms to a Big Tobacco moment. Iceland offers another policy lesson. The nation treated adolescent cigarette and alcohol use as a social infrastructure problem, dramatically increased funding for subsidized sports, extracurricular activities and youth centers. In other words, policymakers did not rely on restrictions alone, they made other ways of socializing much easier to access. This involved parents, caregivers and a whole-of-community approach. The results were dramatic: The share of 10th graders who said they had been drunk at least once in the past 30 days fell from a peak of 42 percent in 1998 to about 6 percent in 2024. Daily cigarette smokers plunged from 23 percent to less than 1 percent.
Where should this money come from? Perhaps from Big Tech itself. In the US, Meta Platforms Inc last week agreed to a settlement of up to US$18 billion to resolve a litany of lawsuits. Court documents specify that the payments to settling states can be used, among other things, for after-school or summer programs including sports, literacy and other activities. Australia could eventually collect penalties from social media companies that fail to keep children off their platforms. Lawmakers would be wise to put those funds into expanding access to offline spaces.
Ultimately, it would still be hard for these clubs to compete with the lure of the algorithm. The US settlement would force Meta to change how it operates young users’ Facebook and Instagram accounts. These updates would only apply to the jurisdictions covered by the multistate agreement. Regulators elsewhere should press for the same protections to be rolled out globally. Changing the design of these platforms would be critical to keeping young people off them. Parents, not to mention developing minds, often feel they have little agency when up against behemoth recommendation systems engineered for maximum engagement. If teens are still finding ways on, as they would likely continue to do, regulators must tackle access and the algorithms.
One of the big criticisms from the UN children’s agency and a growing chorus of academics is that booting kids off social media would sever community lifelines. It is a legitimate concern as much of teenage (and adult) social life has migrated online. That only strengthens the case for rebuilding those communities offline.
Structural problems require more than cosmetic solutions. Policymakers must confront what makes online life, even illicitly, more attractive to young people than the real world.
Catherine Thorbecke is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Asia tech. Previously she was a tech reporter at CNN and ABC News. This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
