Debating Matters Transatlantic
INTRODUCTION
Since Australia banned social media for all children under 16 in December 2025, governments worldwide have debated introducing legislation banning social media for children. The House of Lords in the UK passed an amendment to ban social media for under-16s in January 2026, but this amendment was rejected by the House of Commons two months later. Instead, the government is consulting on introducing restrictions [Ref: BBC News]. Nonetheless, social media bans have substantial support: over 70 per cent of adults across Europe support a social-media ban for under-16s [Ref: YouGov], along with 56 per cent of American adults [Ref: Pew Research Center].
With nearly half of teens (ages 13-17) claiming to be online ‘almost constantly’ and 96 per cent of teens using the internet daily [Ref: Pew Research Center], there have been calls for government intervention to combat the negative effects of social media on young minds. For example, the Conservative Party in the UK has been pushing hard for a ban [Ref: Conservative Party]. Meanwhile, Americans and Europeans are all wondering: is a ban the right policy to deal with the challenges social media now presents?
The switch from timelines to algorithms – which are shown to reinforce particular topics and sources of content at the expense of others – along with the rise of short-form content has raised concerns over the benefits and harms of social media. Content is no longer shown based on the user’s friends and contacts but instead filtered by service providers on the basis of profit and maximum engagement. Commentators have argued that this has fuelled polarisation and social fragmentation, as young people are no longer operating socially online, but are atomised by highly individualised content.
Furthermore, some argue that social media is becoming increasingly difficult to manage due to the infiltration of AI onto mainstream platforms, pushing children away from each other and distorting the boundary between truth and generated content. A study by Common Sense Media in 2025 showed that 72 per cent of teens have used AI companions, and a study by Pew suggested 30 per cent use chatbots daily [Ref: Psychology Today]. Could the normalisation of AI as ‘companions’ for teenagers be blurring boundaries between the emotional bonds of human relationships and the validation provided by technology? [Ref: Forbes] In 2026, Grok (the AI tool on X) came under fire for allowing users to produce ‘undressed’ images of real people. Is AI exposing children to images without any input of adults on what they see? [Ref: BBC News]
Many parents support a ban, as despite attempts to restrict their own children’s use, they feel ‘utterly powerless’ because while other children remain on social-media sites, it becomes an impossible war to get them offline. Therefore, parents argue they need a ban to remove all children at the same time and to push collective action forward [Ref: Telegraph].
However, there remain multiple concerns with a social-media ban. To begin with, there is a lack of consensus over what should be included as ‘social media’. For example, when Australia decided not to include YouTube (although it did stop under-16s having their own profile), many challenged the established definition of ‘social media’. YouTube, while having a different platform style and allowing for longer videos than other services, is the most popular platform for children and remains driven by the same largely unregulated, algorithmic content as other short-form video platforms, like TikTok. Even though the youngest children have moved to YouTube Kids, and younger teenagers are not allowed to have their own profiles, a large volume of content is still consumed. Many commentators and critics claim this is still causing harm as it allows for large amounts of misinformation and ‘addictive’ content to be viewed by children. This raises the question: what are the harms of social media – is it the interaction with strangers or the consumption of short-form content?
There are others who question whether a blanket ban is the best way forward [Ref: Guardian] due to the concern that a ban from mainstream sites will either be ineffective, because children can find workarounds, or it will drive young people to ‘underground’ online spaces, taking media consumption further away from oversight and accountability and therefore resulting in more harm. Moreover, others believe that by bringing the government in to regulate what children do at home, the authority of parents is being damaged and the relationship between parents and children is undermined. In this view, children are no longer socialised by the authority of their parents, but by having their behaviour dictated by the government [Ref: Spiked].
Moreover, some argue that there are many aspects of social media that are beneficial to teens as it can improve their sense of belonging, give them access to educational materials and improve their communication skills [Ref:Family Education] It can also help them build a stronger sense of self and identity, by giving them access different communities and creative outlets, in ways that can be independently driven and chosen. This gives teenagers a sense of agency that they may have previously not had access to.
Debates over how young people should use technology are not new, but social media has raised important questions around safety, development and digital rights for children.
DEBATE IN CONTEXT
Who is responsible, and who is accountable?
Social-media companies have often claimed that they try to enforce regulations to protect children. Since 2015, Instagram has required users to be ‘at least 13’ years of age, but has consistently failed to properly verify accounts [Ref: Guardian]. Similarly, YouTube Kids, while claiming it is providing an ‘easy-to-navigate environment, (with) a wide range of high-quality videos, parental controls and fun features for kids’, has been criticised for the inappropriate clips and AI-generated content that saturates the platform [Ref: Futurism]. While the harms are different, the ability of YouTube to continue to push harmful content into feeds while claiming to protect children creates concerns for parents who are told that YouTube is safe for kids.
This has similarly been the case for Meta, which argues that ‘teens under 18 are automatically placed into teen accounts’, which means they can only message or follow people that they are already connected to. However, this has been largely ineffective, as they have been ‘very good’ at linking minors with predators, and still show teenagers harmful or inappropriate content related to body dysmorphia, self-harm or inappropriate sexualisation [Ref: Guardian]. This suggests that despite knowing that there are huge numbers of young people on social media, the companies running these services don’t recognise their duty of care to younger users and don’t invest their time or resources into reducing the exploitation that occurs on their sites.
Freya India argues that the most detrimental impacts of social media come from the exploitation of insecurity caused by the unrelenting drive for profit by tech companies. This, she argues, has been at the forefront of the most recent technological changes, especially in the drive from timelines to algorithms, as social-media sites have been focused on pushing the most outrageous and capturing content in the pursuit of profit [Ref: GIRLS].
The UK’s Online Safety Act 2023 ‘puts a range of new duties on social-media companies and search services, making them more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms’ [Ref: Gov.uk]. Since 2023, platforms have been required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content, and Ofcom (UK Office of Communications) has been expected to regulate and enforce these protections. However, some argue that this has not worked because companies take insufficient responsibility for the well-being of children, prioritising business interests instead [Ref: LSE], and regulatory bodies have struggled to hold companies to account due to the large amounts of activity taking place overseas [Ref: UK Parliament]. This suggests that a stronger ban enforced by the government is necessary to restrict social-media access and hold companies accountable as we cannot trust social-media companies to keep kids offline or effectively regulate the content they consume.
Mental-health concerns of social media
While young people often push back on restrictions to their daily lives, the adolescence years are when the brain is most susceptible to the anxiety, disrupted sleep, social comparison and cyberbullying that social media can fuel.
Since Jonathan Haidt’s 2024 book, The Anxious Generation,governments, intellectuals, and parents have pointed the finger at social media for the 10 per cent rise in mental-health issues among young people [Ref: UCL]. In 2022, 34 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds in the UK said they suffered from anxiety or depression [Ref: Resolution Foundation]. Some claim this rise is related to the increased use of social-media algorithms, as they can create self-reinforcing tendencies to serve up extreme or harmful content, creating communities connected by mental illness, and encouraging young people to open up in the online space rather than to trusted adults.
In 2017, 14-year-old Molly Russell took her own life after engaging with a high volume of content related to suicide and self-harm. Her father argued, ‘that inescapable stream of harmful content, the cumulative effect that content would have had on a growing brain, a young person, a 14-year-old, turned Molly from that bright, hopeful young person into someone who unbelievably thought she was a burden and a problem and that the best thing for her to do would be to end her life’ [Ref: Guardian].
Social media has not only raised concerns about the mental health of children, but also their ability to learn and concentrate. Phone bans implemented across 90 schools in Birmingham, Leicester, London and Manchester have resulted in improvements in exam results, with LSE finding that pupils with limited phone access were more likely to achieve five GCSEs, and positively impacting lower-achieving students the most [Ref: BBC]. In the US, Florida’s state-wide ban in 2023 produced the same pattern: two years after pushing phones out of the school day and restricting social-media access, unexcused absences had fallen and test scores had risen [Ref: The Hill]. But proponents of a ban still wonder: is this an issue with screen time, an in-school issue or something inherently related to social media?
In March 2026, Kaley (her surname anonymised for privacy), a 20-year-old woman from California, won a landmark case against Meta and Google, following the claim that these companies’ social-media platforms were deliberately addictive and had therefore damaged her mental health as she was growing up [Ref: BBC News]. Those who brought the legal case to court argued that the ‘infinitely scrollable feed and video autoplay are designed to keep people on the apps and have made the products addictive’ and have thereby caused harm to the mental health of children and young people [Ref: Guardian].
Rob Nicholls notes that this is particularly an issue as social-media companies are claimed to be using the ‘behavioural and neurobiological techniques used by poker machines’ to maximise youth engagement and, by proxy, advertising revenue, as younger users are easier to capture [Ref: The Conversation]. This can lead teenagers to spend a large amount of time online – as demonstrated by Kaley, who spent 16 hours a day on social media. Thus, young people can clearly be seen as a huge opportunity for companies to maximise profit through engagement. This raises the question, have social-media companies have prioritised profit over the mental health of their users? And if so, is an age minimum the solution?
In August 2026, Meta agreed to pay $17.1 billion to 51 state attorney generals due to claims that the company deliberately designed their platforms to be addictive and concealed the harm [Ref: Social Media Law Centre]. This comes just two weeks after the company was fined $942 million in New Mexico as the company knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed child exploitation [Ref: Guardian].
However, this claim that social media has caused the rise in mental ill-health has been contested. Others argue that the rise of mental-health diagnoses is caused by other social issues, such as poverty, instability and insecurity. A study by the NHS highlighted that those who suffered from a mental disorder were more likely to be economically disadvantaged, with parents not being able to afford sports clubs, activities, adequate clothes and shoes for their daily life [Ref: NHS]. This was the position taken by Meta – the technology company that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads – following Kaley’s case of social-media addiction, who claimed that Kaley’s home life ‘with parents who were unstable, critical of her appearance and at times emotionally, verbally and physically abusive’ was more to blame for her mental-health issues than the vast amount of time spent online [Ref: BBC News].
Moreover, there could be many other reasons why mental-health issues in younger generations may have increased. With rapid social change, rising financial instability, and increased concerns about climate change reflecting often gloomy and apocalyptic narratives, is it surprising that young people feel more anxious? And as there has been an increased discourse around well-being and mental health, are the rising numbers more due to the expansion of diagnostic categories and a reduction in stigma around mental-health issues? [Ref: Psychology Today] Is social media just a scapegoat for rising diagnoses of mental-health problems in younger generations?
Safety risks of social media
A main concern of parents is that social media has become a prime platform for online predators. Children are a primary target for online predators as the internet allows for anonymity and easy access, exploiting their innocence and trust. This is primarily due to the messaging setup, which allows for instant messaging, comments and disappearing messages. Federal investigations by the FBI confirm that online platforms are now the primary tool for predators to identify, groom and sexually exploit children [Ref: CBS News]. These same features are used in drug trafficking. The disappearing messages and stories are used to advertise the illicit narcotics, increasing the visibility and access for young people. Technically, social-media sites have banned the platform for being used this way, but tech-savvy teens have been able to find ways to contact dealers through the use of emojis and code words [Ref: DEA]. To combat these hidden threats, information is now being shared with parents to help them identify signs to look for. For example, the DEA launched ‘Hidden on Your Kid’s Phone’, a video series, to help parents and caregivers spot the red flags and know when to investigate further [Ref: Local 4]. It is becoming increasingly difficult for parents to monitor who their children are engaging with on social media, thereby leaving the children vulnerable.
Letting the young live: can children still run wild?
Social media is not only seen to cause direct harm through the content it promotes, but also through its ability to distract children from more meaningful or valuable activities. Short, colourful videos have replaced reading, and social video games have drawn kids away from spending time outside.
With parental anxiety at all-time high [Ref: University Hospitals], parents are increasingly believing that their children would be safer kept at home, rather than exploring the streets of the city or adventuring in the depths of the forest. A survey from 2016 showed that a staggering 75 per cent of children in the UK now spend less time outside than prison inmates [Ref: Guardian]. Some argue that there’s a direct causal relationship, in which children have been pushed onto screens due to parental anxieties about the outside world, meaning they have had to find new ways to build connections and friendships while playing creatively away from the surveillance of their parents [Ref: The Conversation].
The former UK education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, stated: ‘Every child deserves a childhood – real experiences, real friendships, real opportunities. We are determined to make that a reality, both inside and outside the classroom.’ [Ref: Gov.uk] However, there is a contradiction emerging: while supporters advocate for a ban on social media to encourage young people to go back to the ‘good and healthy’ pursuits of youth clubs and sports teams, there are increasingly fewer spaces for young people to go. Since 2010 in the UK, £1.2 billion has been stripped from youth-service budgets, and from 2011 to 2023, over 1,200 council-run youth centres in England and Wales were closed [Ref: Unison]. With the privatisation of sports pitches and the loss of public spaces for young people, where can they go if not online? Are smartphones pervading childhood simply because there are no longer the spaces offline for children to play and to interact?
In the US, there have been similar concerns around the loss of third spaces, as even private spaces such as cafes, movie theatres, recreation centres and shopping malls have faced steep decline. This has raised concerns, since ‘third places play an essential role in connection, mental health, and belonging’ [Ref: University of Colorado]. Leading to the question: are the rising mental-health issues in young people due to social media, or due to a broader sense of loneliness caused by the decline in social spaces?
The case for digital literacy
On the other hand, many argue that banning children from social media at the age when they are technologically agile and capable of exploring the internet could do more harm than good in the long run. For example, some point out that if 15-year-olds are only using the internet for school research, they are shielded from downsides of the internet, potentially resulting in a dangerously idyllic lens of the internet. Thus, they argue that teaching children how to safely navigate the internet and social media – while holding social-media companies accountable – is a more sustainable solution that would equip them with the skills and awareness to critically engage with online content in adulthood.
Many point out that social-media bans are often called for to protect children from the vast amount of unregulated content, the rise of misinformation and AI-generated images. These are said to be damaging for children who are now growing up in a post-truth world and are no longer able to have an objective sense of true and false, or right and wrong.
However, children themselves argue that they are better at dealing with misinformation than those over 50. A study by UC Berkeley demonstrated that the best way to make children better at dealing with misinformation is to expose them to more, not less [Ref: UC Berkeley]. This study highlighted that ‘children in the more unreliable environments were more likely to debunk potential misinformation’, suggesting that it could be beneficial for children to have access to various platforms and become critical of the content they consume. This warns us against driving children to their own ‘protected’ platforms, as the appearance of safety gives a false sense of security and allows for more information to go unchecked, a phenomenon that has been seen on YouTube Kids [Ref: Common Sense Media].
In response, many counter that adults still cannot ignore the duty of care owed to children. The same logic that tells a child not to talk to strangers on the street applies online: familiarity with a space doesn’t mean a child is equipped to navigate its dangers alone. Just because young people are often more fluent with technology than the adults around them doesn’t mean they should be left to self-regulate; competence with an interface is not the same as the judgment needed to assess who’s manipulating them, or when they’re at risk. Duty of care means adults set boundaries precisely because children can’t always see the risks they’re exposed to, regardless of how digitally native they appear to be.
The risk of pushing children toward greater evils
Many that are concerned with the safety risks of social media are also concerned with the risks of children being forced off mainstream social-media sites and pushed into darker, lesser-known corners of the internet. Dr. Harry Dyer argues: ‘A ban won’t stop teenagers using social media; it just pushes them into riskier behaviour. They’ll turn to VPNs, fake accounts, and unregulated corners of the internet where there are fewer safeguards, not more.’ [Ref: University of East Anglia] They argue that banning social media will not extinguish the desire for belonging, dopamine hits and endless content [Ref: American Academy of Pediatrics]. If mainstream social media is unavailable to them because of a ban, such children may have nothing but the ‘dark web’ to explore [Ref: Unicef].
Moreover, social-media bans may separate children from adults even further. Children may be discouraged from sharing bad experiences online and could increasingly hide their social-media profiles from trusted adults. Instead of encouraging conversations with adults, and allowing education about the potential risks of technology, children could be pushed out and left to deal with the difficulties on their own. Could a ban make teens more isolated and vulnerable to exploitation, misinformation and abuse? [Ref: Politico]
Family rules vs government laws
Every family has its own customs and rules. Obviously, different families have different rules over social-media use; some parents don’t allow smartphones at the dinner table, while others limit screen time to a certain number of hours per day. These rules are decided by each family, since parents know their children’s needs and are responsible for their well-being.
By using the law to manage parental decision making, is the government undermining parents and questioning their competence to manage the family? This could have a negative impact on families as children could be encouraged by the state to question the competence, responsibility and authority of their own parents, and undermine their position as trusted adults. On the other hand, the fact that many parents are struggling to control the screen time of their children, especially to keep teenagers offline, can be seen as them feeling overwhelmed by the digital tide and ‘powerless to protect their own kids’ [Ref: The Free Press].
Conversely, parents who try to enforce household bans on social media are often undermined by other parents who do not establish such rules. Then, peer pressure does the rest: if one child’s entire friend group is on social media and communicating via these platforms, the pressure mounts on holdout parents to relent. Parents in Australia have therefore welcomed the ban, as they argue that by restricting access for children on a wide scale, it gives parents a strength to be able to enforce tighter restrictions [Ref: Guardian]. A ban has removed the isolation of individual households who were trying to go against the social-media wave by resetting the norm for everyone at once.
The First Amendment barrier and free-speech concerns
Utah became the first US state to legislate in this area when Governor Cox signed bills in March 2023 requiring parental consent and imposing curfews on minors’ accounts [Ref: BBC]. Since then, at least 16 states [Ref: AVPA] have begun enacting restrictions, from Utah’s parental-consent regime to Florida’s under-14 account ban, California’s curbs on ‘addictive feeds’, and age-verification schemes in Ohio, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi [Ref:Investopedia].
Legally, these laws face a steep hurdle: district courts have almost uniformly enjoined them as First Amendment violations, and Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh has called Mississippi’s law ‘likely unconstitutional’ [Ref: Harvard Law Review]. Yet 2025 Supreme Court rulings, like TikTok Inc. v. Garland, opened a narrower path, suggesting states may survive review by targeting specific ‘addictive’ features (as Florida and California attempt) rather than banning ‘social’ content broadly, or by citing a platform’s ‘special characteristics’ rather than its message [Ref: Harvard Law Review].
The scope of permissible regulation remains contested and polarising. Federally, the bipartisan Kids Off Social Media Act takes a narrower tack, barring under-13 accounts and algorithmic recommendations for under-17s without age verification, framing itself as content-neutral ‘time, place, manner’ regulation rather than a ban on free speech [Ref: Senator Schatz].
Concerns in the UK revolve around questions over whether a social-media ban could be used as a ‘Trojan horse’, giving way to a mandatory digital-ID system for adults [Ref: Spectator]. The requirement for adults to identify themselves online, thereby removing anonymity on the web, is seen to be infantilising, as citizens are no longer trusted by governments to act freely online. Evidence shows that digital-ID can be used by governments to track and censor whistle-blowers, journalists and those with more contrarian views. This could lead to increased anxiety and paranoia, as they occupy a ‘surveilled digital panopticon where every action you take online is tied to your government ID’ [Ref: Guardian]. Therefore, this raises concerns that a ban could both negatively impact the freedoms of adults now and the capabilities of young people in the future, while setting a precedent that the discourse of protecting children can be used to censor adults.
ESSENTIAL READING
FOR
It is no fluke that social media platforms are addictive and causing harm. They were designed that way
Van Badham Guardian 27 March 2026
Of course we should ban kids from social media
Ian Holdroyd New Statesman 2 April 2026
Protecting children from social media is not moral panic
Justine Roberts Financial Times 28 January 2026
This European nation is banning social media for children – what the UK can learn
Graham Keely i Paper 9 February 2026
Kids Off Social Media Act | U.S. Senator Brian Schatz
Brian Schatz Schatz Senate
Social Media Ban for Under 16s: A Prevention Perspective
Scott Watters LifeChanger 12 December 2024
AGAINST
The case against social media bans, prohibitionists rely on faulty arguments
Olympia Campbell UnHerd 2 February 2026
There is no evidence that social media harms children’s mental health
Christopher Ferguson Spectator 14 February 2026
Parents, not the EU, should decide what kids can do online
Joanna Williams Substack 29 May 2025
Age restrictions alone won’t keep children safe online
UNICEF 10 December 2025
I’m a mum. Here’s why banning social media for under 16s won’t work
Emily Darlington Politico 15 June 2026
Why Proposed Social Media Bans Won’t Keep Your Kids Safe
Pam Rutledge Fielding Graduate University 5 May 2023
Social media bans hurt teens more than protect them
Sara Pequeño USA Today 21 June 2026
Australia’s Social Media Ban Is Floundering. Can It Still Help Younger Kids?
Victoria Kim New York Times 10 June 2026
IN DEPTH
Why the World Is Drawing a Line on Social Media for Kids
Jonathan Haidt Substack 17 February 2026
Smartphones have not destroyed a generation
Pete, Posting Alone Substack 27 March 2024
Debate: Social media in children and young people – time for a ban? From polarised debate to precautionary action – a population mental health perspective on social media and youth well‐being
Oonagh Welsey‐Smith, Terry Fleming National Institute of Health 10 September 2025
BACKGROUNDERS
A social media ban for kids puts all our privacy at risk
Maya Thomas Spectator 27 April 2026
The countries that have social media bans, or are planning to implement one
Sky News 8 April 2026
The dangerous lesson from Australia’s social media ban
Joanna Williams Spectator 15 April 2026
Why I no longer support social media bans for teenagers
Stella O’Malley UnHerd 26 March 2026
The world wants to ban children from social media, but there will be grave consequences for us all
Taylor Lorenz Guardian 2 March 2026
I research the harm that can come to teenagers on social media. I don’t support a ban
Emily Setty The Conversation 21 January 2026
Only parents should decide if their kids use social media
Ella Whelan Spiked 21 January 2026
Can We Save Kids from Social Media?
David Remnick New Yorker 13 March 2026
Countless horror stories linked to social media – but a ban for children isn’t cut-and-dried case
Sky News 29 March 2026
Australia’s teen social media ban is a flop. But there’s no joy in ‘I told you so’
Samantha Floreani Guardian 1 April 2026
Don’t blame parents for ‘cotton-wool kids’
Helene Guldberg Spiked 6 August 2008
Social Media and Youth Mental Health
US Surgeon General US Dept. of Health and Human Services 19 February 2025
Teens, Social Media and Technology 2022
Emily A. Vogels, et al. Pew Research Center 10 August 2022
Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024
Michelle Faverio, Olivia Sidoti Pew Research Center 12 December 2024
Meta Lawsuit – September 2026 Update
Matthew Bergman Social Media Victims Law Center 3 September 2026
AUDIO / VISUAL
Social Media Bans: Are We at a Global Turning Point? (Jonathan Haidt)
Radical with Amol Rajan