More and more countries – including Austria – are planning social media bans for teenagers. Australia serves as a model. But is that really a good idea? “No,” says the Economist. “Restrictions cause more harm than good.” The arguments!
Young people are very creative in getting around prohibitions and cheating on rulesiStock
People disagree on many issues these days. But one thing unites them, regardless of their political views: the idea that children and young people are not allowed to use social media because it harms them.
In December, Australia banned people under 16 from operating accounts on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. A dozen countries are currently toying with this idea.
The second chamber of the British Parliament voted for similar restrictions in January, as did the House of Commons in France. Austria, Spain, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia and Norway are also considering bans. Brazil will require age verification on social media apps starting next month.
China, which had previously imposed curfews on young gamers, introduced optional screen time limits for children on social media in 2019. Several states in the US have restricted access for younger teenagers, while others regulate it in different ways. California will soon restrict algorithmic feeds for minors.
The US courts are also busy: negotiations in two groundbreaking trials began on February 9th. One against Meta and YouTube because of the alleged addictive nature of their apps. And one against Meta because of the question of whether its platforms are doing enough to protect children from online perpetrators.
Pioneer in the social media ban: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese (with his dog Toto)
Picturedesk
The problem is that bans do more harm than good. Teens banned from TikTok don’t immediately start climbing trees or immersing themselves in books. Many will be sitting in front of game consoles and streaming services for a longer period of time.
One reason they spend so many hours online is because their parents long ago banned them from hanging out with friends. Having chased their children indoors, adults should now think twice before imposing further bans on their free time.
Additionally, proponents of bans ignore the fact that they would deprive children of the benefits of social media. They are a blessing for children who feel isolated: perhaps because of where they live, their sexuality, or because their brains work differently than others. Social media can broaden young people’s horizons and give children of all backgrounds a glimpse of new places and people.
Like it or not, social media is now one of the most important sources for children to get information (and misinformation) about current events. It used to be easy for teenagers to read their parents’ printed newspapers. They watched the news programs before or after their favorite programs. Those times are over.
Higher age limits could simply delay problems until the age of 16, when young people suddenly gain unrestricted access to social networks that they have little experience using. At the same time, higher social media age limits could give a false sense of security. For all of these reasons, bans are often opposed by child protection groups.
In the US, teenagers spend an average of almost five hours per day on social apps. They are used for everything from maintaining relationships to doing homework. The wave of legal restrictions will greatly change the lives of young people.
In the US, teenagers spend an average of almost five hours per day on social apps
Reuters
The proposals arise from an understandable desire to protect young people and promote their health. Parents have been shocked by tragedies in which social media has played a role, such as children being tricked into sharing explicit images of themselves or taking their own lives after algorithms showed them content about self-harm.
In addition to these shocking cases, there is a second, more general concern: that social media could harm children as a group by making young people withdrawn, lonely and anxious. People are desperate to understand why today’s youth seem to be unhappier than the generations before them.
Even parents who are confident they can protect their children from serious harm are annoyed that their offspring waste hours scrolling through meaningless memes. They would like to stop them, but fear that their children will suffer if they are the only ones in their class who don’t use these apps.
A general ban seems to be a simple solution – and politicians are only too happy to resort to a measure that, for once, pleases voters of all parties.
But politicians should think about it again. The question of whether social media causes massive damage is far from being resolved. There is limited evidence to support the claim that social media causes major harm to young people’s overall mental health.
For years, the minimum age for most social platforms has been 13. This limit was widely adopted after America passed the COPPA law in 1998 to protect children’s online privacy.
The minimum age for most social platforms is 13, but no one cares
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The law is largely ignored by users and little policed by social media companies, which ask new members their age and largely rely on their information.
Although the platforms emphasize that they screen out underage users, they seem to do a surprisingly poor job of doing so. Surveys by the UK technology regulator Ofcom found that among 10 to 12-year-olds, more than half use Snapchat, more than 60 percent use TikTok and more than 70 percent use WhatsApp. All three apps have a fictitious minimum age of 13 years.
Governments that once ignored such practices have now concluded that social media is “causing social harm to our children,” as Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese put it. The most pressing concern is that social apps cause depression and promote abuse, which in extreme cases can lead to suicide or abuse.
Some researchers have proposed a new disorder called “social media use disorder,” modeled on existing diagnoses for gambling and gambling addiction. Suggested criteria include loss of control, urge to use the apps, neglect of important functions (sleep, self-care, and contact with friends and family), and responsibilities (homework and appointments).
A study of 11- to 15-year-olds in 27 European countries and Canada, based on survey data from 2017-18, found an average prevalence of this problematic addiction of 7 percent, ranging from 3 percent in the Netherlands to 14 percent in Spain.
Digital State Secretary Alexander Pröll is also preparing social media bans for Austria
Helmut Graf
Research suggests that social media is making things worse for children who are already more vulnerable. The majority of children who are bullied online are also bullied in the real world; the bullies are often the same in both environments. A study of 17- to 25-year-olds struggling with their mental health found that a three-week break from social media led to a slight improvement in their well-being.
Whether social media is harmful to the average child is less clear. Most studies rely on subjects’ information about their use of social media, which is usually not accurate (it is better to install automatic trackers on the devices). Many researchers therefore question the results.
Most importantly, researchers believe that the amount of time children spend on social media is not particularly relevant to mental health. What is probably much more important is what they do in the apps (do they mainly chat with friends?), the context (do they scroll in the middle of the night?) and what content the apps’ algorithms show them.
Untangling this complexity requires detailed data at the individual user level, but which tech companies rarely disclose.
As social media apps evolve rapidly with all sorts of new features and AI-powered algorithms, research is struggling to keep up. Funding a rigorous study and implementing it can take years. “TikTok has become very popular among young people in the last two to three years,” says Victoria Goodyear from the University of Birmingham. “Research is just beginning to catch up with this trend.”
Regardless of the research’s shortcomings, voters seem convinced. Last year, polling firm Ipsos asked people in 30 countries whether children under 14 should be banned from social media. A majority in every single country was in favor of it.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg: Social media apps with AI-supported algorithms are spreading rapidly
Reuters
Like no other issue, this policy finds support across demographic and political boundaries. Supporters of all four of Britain’s largest political parties overwhelmingly support a ban on children under 16. Even in highly polarized America, both Republicans and Democrats like this idea. The politicians are thus encountering open doors.
However, translating this support into law is not easy. The first difficulty is deciding what to ban.
Australia has exempted messaging platforms such as iMessage and WhatsApp, prompting complaints from Snapchat, which claims its Australian users spend three-quarters of their time sending messages or making phone calls on the app. The app falls under the ban due to additional features such as a video feed.
Some parents are already lobbying for video games to be banned, as online games like Roblox enable social interactions with friends and strangers.
YouTube, which was originally expected to be exempt due to its educational content, was ultimately included in the ban.
Some apps that are not officially covered by the regulation have introduced age verification. Substack, a newsletter and blogging platform, has started adding age restrictions to some of its features in Australia and the UK.
Forbidden? Allowed? YouTube was initially not supposed to be blocked for teenagers in Australia, but then it ended up on the list
Getty Images
Determining the age of users is the next challenge. Most users are adults. To avoid having to question every existing customer, social enterprises in Australia have started blocking anyone they believe is under 16 years old.
Some were identified by their date of birth. Others are suspected based on an analysis of their behavior, including the people they follow and the content they interact with.
Meta has used artificial intelligence to identify users who are younger than they claim to be. However, given that more than a third of 10-12 year olds in the UK say they are on Instagram, which is against the rules, this seems far from foolproof.
Those suspected of being too young will be given the opportunity to prove their age. One method is facial scans. AI has helped here too: Yoti, which provides age estimates for companies like Meta, says AI is better at estimating age than the average human.
However, the AI has inherited the human biases from its training data: Yoti can estimate the age of a white teenager to within less than ten months, but for a dark-skinned girl the deviation is usually a year and a half, the numbers show.
Australian teenagers are already finding ways to fool the robot estimators by pointing their cameras at an older friend or contorting their faces to look wrinkled. “The willingness to comply is low,” admits a weary tech manager.
Making faces during a facial scan: Where there’s a teenager, there’s a way
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If other methods fail, users can prove their age by uploading personal documents. However, this carries risks. In October, social platform Discord announced that one of its customer service partners had been hacked, giving perpetrators access to a trove of ID photos, usernames, email addresses and billing information.
Malaysia is considering plans to require people to show ID when registering for a social media account. The government is defending the proposal, arguing it protects children and prevents fraud, but civil rights groups suspect there are other reasons to ask the identities of those behind anonymous social media posts.
Tech companies argue over who should bear the burden of age verification. Some social media platforms argue that age verification should not be done by them, but at the level of the hardware used for access.
The idea is that the operating systems of phones or computers – usually from Apple, Google or Microsoft – check the age of the owner and then anonymously vouch for permission to visit social networks, porn sites, gambling platforms or other age-restricted entertainment.
The affected companies counter that those who caused the alleged damage should also bear the burden of remedying it. They point out that many computers are shared by multiple users of different ages.
As the debate continues, age verification companies are stepping in to fill the void. AgeKey, a product used by Meta and others, verifies people’s ages through facial scans or uploaded documents and then vouches for them when they request age-restricted services.
Mixed successes with the ban: Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese with Media Minister Anika Wells
Reuters
It’s too early to tell how well the ban is working in Australia. The government notes that 4.7 million accounts were deactivated within days of the ban taking effect – a large number considering there are only 2.5 million children aged 8 to 15 in the country.
Others believe many accounts were overlooked. Teens often use more than one website, some have multiple accounts on the same platform (one for parents, another for friends). Some of the suspended accounts were inactive.
The result is that despite the 4.7 million deletions, many young people appear to remain active on social media. “Everyone I know has probably found a way around the ban and not much has changed,” explains a 14-year-old in Melbourne.
Some children may have moved to other types of platforms not affected by bans, such as messaging apps and gaming services. The problem is that the most serious online threats will follow them.
“The problems with criminals aren’t going away. They’re just going to go where the kids go,” predicts Andy Burrows, executive director of the Molly Rose Foundation. The campaign group was founded in memory of a 14-year-old British girl who committed suicide due to, among other things, depressive content on Instagram.
Burrows argues that the most dangerous platforms for children – encrypted messaging apps, gaming platforms and other online communities – are left out of most social media bans. “As someone who has … seen some of the darkest things imaginable, this is the threat that keeps me awake at night more than anything else,” he says.
Surprising at first glance: children’s aid groups are against a ban
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That’s one reason why many children’s charities, perhaps surprisingly, oppose blanket bans. The Molly Rose Foundation is one of 42 signatories to a public letter in the UK opposing a ban.
They argue that such bans not only provide a false sense of security, but also create a “cliff edge” for 16-year-olds who would be turned loose on unadulterated apps with no social media experience. “Do you teach children to swim or throw them into the deep end at 16?” asks Kathryn Modecki from the Kids Research Institute Australia.
Instead of excluding children, technology companies should be forced to make their platforms more child-friendly, advocates suggest.
Instagram, TikTok and YouTube have introduced “teen accounts” that offer safety features such as filtered content and excessive usage warnings. But Australia’s ban does not allow such products, undermining any incentive to develop and improve them.
Technology companies will be affected differently by age restrictions: While only one in 20 Facebook users is under 18, American research firm eMarketer estimates that one in five Snapchat users is underage.
The youngest users are not particularly valuable to advertisers. Since 2023, a dispute with regulators has prevented Meta from running ads to under-18s in the EU, its second-largest market. However, this had no visible impact on the business result.
However, no platform wants to lose its youngest users. For one thing, teen use leads to more valuable adult use later. Additionally, tech companies are recognizing that teens are setting trends and creating highly viewed content. Charli D’Amelio, an amateur dancer, became the most followed person on TikTok at 15 years old.
The bigger risk for tech companies lies elsewhere. On February 6, the European Commission found in a preliminary decision that TikTok violated the Digital Services Act with its “addictive design.” Reference was made to features such as infinite scrolling, autoplay, push notifications and personalized recommendations – all of which are crucial factors for the app’s success.
After years of grappling with the content of apps, regulators suddenly appear to be problematizing their design as well – an approach that is potentially harder for tech companies to manage, as it is both central to their offering and harder to dismiss on the free speech argument.
Burrows argues that social media companies should be regulated more like financial services companies, with a requirement to disclose more information and notify regulators before launching new features or products.
Such protections might have limited X’s chatbot “Grok.” X is under investigation for creating nude images of adults and children without their knowledge or consent. If social media causes widespread harm to teenagers, it’s hard to imagine that harm stopping at age 16.
What should be done? Instead of raising age limits, regulators should increase their efforts to make social networks more suitable for teenagers. Ideally, they would force web companies to reveal more data about how teenagers use their products – so researchers can better measure the harm and find ways to prevent it.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to ban “addictive designs”.
Picturedesk
They should call on the tech giants to rethink features that keep kids online longer than is healthy, such as interfaces that allow endless scrolling and videos that play without prompting.
They should require stricter moderation of content offered to young users. This requires greater efforts to verify the age of social media users.
Politicians say their bans are the only responsible option. In fact, they seem to be more of a way to avoid the care that children deserve.
If regulators can’t find ways to tame social media – now over two decades old – what hope is there for letting kids use new tools like artificial intelligence? Young people have a right to participate in new technologies. Adults must try to make their time online as safe and rewarding as possible.
“© 2026 The Economist Newspaper Limited. All rights reserved.”
“From The Economist, translated by www.deepl.com, published under licence. The original article, in English, can be found on www.economist.com”
date: 2026-02-12 21:56:00