Social media didn’t cause the youth mental health crisis, but it accelerated it. As Australia attempts to legislate its way out of the problem, researchers and parents are asking whether a ban can undo what the algorithm has already built.
Children and teenagers are incredibly impressionable. When experiencing the world, what they see can quickly turn into who they become. Adding social media to this equation, the prospect of what they’ll absorb becomes vastly greater. Although restrictions are attempted, they’re often too weak to perform the way they’re intended to.
Introducing the Heads Up Alliance
The Heads Up Alliance – an Australian parent movement advocating for delayed smartphone and social media access, is already seeing this play out.
“While social media companies have largely flouted the new law, it is quite simply not in their interests for it to succeed,” says Dany Elichi, Co-Founder and Movement Director of the Heads Up Alliance.
“Many parents are still using the fact of the legislation to draw stronger boundaries within their own families.
However, families who are delaying social media for their children tell us that their children are sleeping better, play more, read more, engage with their parents more meaningfully, and are generally happier.”
Social media as an integral part of young lives
Social media is taking over teens’ lives. Parts of their growth revolve around it, from developing humour, to curating style, even establishing social status.
With this, there’s pressure: are they engaging with the “right” things? Children and especially teens have always been judgemental, but now there’s an additional layer, a hawk-eye view of their peers’ lives. With such acute observation, children and teens are hyper-conscious of what they interact with and how they portray themselves online.
Social media makes these young minds worry more about how they look than the integrity of their actions. This has grown over time, from the mannequin in the window, to celebrities on the radio, to movies and television – but these methods of influence were monitored. Now, anyone can influence a child to look
or act a certain way, and it’s right at their fingertips.
The mental health toll is well-documented. For teens who excessively engage with social media, researchers have identified addiction-like, dependent behaviors.
This problem cannot be attributed to social media alone. Children and teens naturally seek dopamine, especially after a long school day. Social media fills that gap with rapid intervals of hits that feel more engaging than healthier alternatives, ultimately replacing these activities and resulting in consistently poor moods.
Mood swings are a normal aspect of any teenager’s day-to-day life as they experience hormonal changes. However, seeing symptoms of mood disorders in younger children, rather than in adolescence, raises concerns about the trajectory of their emotional growth.
Australia takes action: December 2025 social media ban
In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban children under the age of 16 from accessing social media platforms. Many questioned how this would be enforced, and Australia has not inflicted a penalty on children or parents who disobey guidelines. Rather, any big tech company that fails to take reasonable steps to enforce the ban will face fines exceeding $30 million.
Just over six months into the ban, there are varying conclusions around its effectiveness. Some teenagers have found ways around the ban and older teens aren’t changing their routines or use.
Legislation alone may not be the answer. “Legislation is not the silver bullet that will give our children their childhoods back,” says Elichi. “Ultimately, families need to set a new standard in the home, using the legislation as a scaffold. The hope is that, in time, we will collectively set a new cultural norm.”
Beyond the ban: safe social media use
Social media is here to stay. As it continues to grow in its development and its catalogue of information and posts, restrictions or bans placed now will become outdated.
Many argue that the focus should not be on banning access, but on creating a safer virtual environment. With this, teaching children about digital literacy and how to navigate a virtual space will give them the skills to properly use social media. Balance is something most people strive for, but if it’s difficult for adults of all ages, why should we expect children to figure out this balance on their own?
In the current version of the Australian curriculum taught in schools nationally, the framework for digital literacy is based on four elements: practicing digital safety and wellbeing, investigating, creating and exchanging, and managing and operating.
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) urges for children-specific tools to be built, as current existing tools target a general population of users. It’s easier for adults to limit screen time because most have once lived in a world without it. How do we expect children to remove themselves from an integral aspect of their lives without the proper tools?
Algorithms: what reels young people into the digital trap
The more time children spend on their screens, the more the algorithm develops a connection with the individual. Rather than connecting with a peer of their own intellectual level, they are creating a connection with artificial intelligence that has far greater access to knowledge.
The more an individual interacts with a social media algorithm, it picks up on preferences and behaviors to create suggestions for the user to engage with next. The deeper the content, the more likely it is to be misleading, evoke extreme emotion or impact controversial takes. By limiting screen time, the algorithm has less of a chance to pull impressionable children and teens into rabbit holes of content.
“The algorithms and the whole structure of social media is designed to hook children,” says Elichi. “Families were previously in an unfair fight, pitted against some of the smartest and richest corporations on the globe. The new laws give strength to the parents.
If you’d like to read more about Australian legislation on social media companies, check out this article on the tax on Big Tech companies here.