Health & Medicine
We built AI friends but forgot the safeguards
Australia’s under-16 social media ban won’t change the reality of growing up online
Delaying access to social media may buy families time, but it ignores the broader conversation about regulation, education and a culture of care
Published 10 December 2025
Australia is about to test one of the world’s boldest interventions in child digital life by putting age restrictions on social media for children under 16.
On the surface, it’s a clean, decisive policy – take away the digital spaces linked to distress and shield young people for a little longer. But dig deeper and things aren’t so clear cut.
Australians under sixteen will no longer be able to hold Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, Reddit or YouTube accounts in their own names.
We already know that heavy or problematic social media use is associated with increased anxiety, depression and distress. There’s no denying how relevant this link is to the national conversation.
But blanket bans on technology rarely solve the issues they claim to address.
They often don’t eliminate the behaviour; they redistribute it – to workarounds, substitutes, and less visible spaces – while leaving the underlying incentives untouched.
It’s a common story all over the world. South Korea’s shutdown, China’s under-18 online gaming regulations, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) in the US and attempts to block ChatGPT in New York schools have all fallen short of the mark.
So, will Australia’s efforts be any different?
The web is dark – but not entirely
A representative survey by the eSafety Commissioner found that 53 per cent of Australian children aged 10 to 17 had experienced cyberbullying at some point, and 38 per cent had experienced it in the past 12 months.
For trans and gender-diverse children, rates of cyberbullying are at an alarming 81 per cent.
These findings are shocking, but we can’t paint the whole internet with the same brush.
For some young people, particularly those who are socially isolated, in state care, LGBTIQA+ or geographically remote, social media is one of the few places they find connection, recognition and solidarity.
So, what problem are we actually trying to solve?
Delaying access means delaying learning
When we treat social media as a monolith, we avoid the harder truth – the real problem is not teenagers.
Sciences & Technology
Banning kids from social media? There’s a better way
It’s the systems that govern their digital lives – opaque algorithms, outrage-driven recommendation engines, endless scrolling mechanics and metrics that teach kids to value themselves in likes, views and notifications.
Removing young adolescents from those environments may offer temporary relief, but the onus should be to change the business models driving those platforms.
Put it this way. If your roadmap kept leading you to dead ends, you would ask what’s wrong with the map – you wouldn’t stop trying to get where you're going.
In ‘protecting’ children from social media, we’re disallowing them valuable learning opportunities and absolving the algorithms and engines of their responsibility for the harm caused online.
What this ban does is prevent young people from gaining the literacies and critical capacities they will need the minute they turn sixteen.
Whose behaviour are we regulating?
The legislation technically targets platforms. They are the ones who will be fined for non-compliance, not parents or children, and fines can reach up to AUD$49.5 million.
But the cultural message says something else.
It lands squarely on Australian families – manage yourselves better, because we can’t manage the tech giants.
We’ve spent two decades letting a handful of global corporations build the default social spaces of childhood.
When predictable crises arise – body image issues, online misogyny, algorithmic radicalisation, sleep disruption – the regulatory instinct focuses downward, not upward.
But banning or delaying access doesn’t dismantle those ideologies, it only temporarily moves them out of sight.
Combining regulation with education and participation
What we must avoid is assuming a single legal lever will solve a social problem that is educational, clinical and technological.
Preventing harm requires more than platform rules. It needs investment in public health, education and community action.
Classrooms build skills that let young people negotiate the online world with agency and care. If we want young people to be independent, resilient and safe, the social media delay needs to be matched by investment in youth mental health, digital literacy or social-emotional learning (ideally all three).
Only through this kind of targeted education can we address the critical risks associated with developmental vulnerability.
It’s also not just about what we say but how we listen and encourage participation. Young people – while consulted, quoted and surveyed – have not been granted power in the design of the systems that govern their lives.
Add all these missing pieces and the ban risks becoming another well-intentioned policy that fails to address the root causes of the issue.
Leading with curiosity
What matters is not the absence of TikTok but the presence of safe adults, tailored education and realistic boundaries.
The real work remains the same. We need to stay curious about our young people, talk with them – not just about rules, but about relationships, ethics, vulnerability, joy and power and how that can present online and in the real world.
This ban may stall the harms of social media for the time being, but if we ignore the mechanics of the platforms themselves and neglect to shift to a culture of care and inclusion, we risk their long-term future.