In December 2025, Australia became the first country to enact a sweeping ban on social media for minors under 16. The Social Media Minimum Act targets platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, X, YouTube, Reddit, Threads, Twitch, and Kick—apps singled out for their addictive algorithms or requirement of an account for interaction. Under the law, tech giants face fines of up to AUD$50 million if they fail to take “reasonable steps” to block minors.
How Age Verification Works
The ban relies on tech-driven age verification methods: deploying AI tools to scan user photos or video selfies to estimate age based on facial features, uploading government IDs, and using app links that age-gate users without sharing data directly with the platform. Despite enforcement difficulties due to widespread teenage circumvention, many countries continue to consider passing similar legislation.
The Harms of Social Media
After only two decades of widespread global use, social media’s drawbacks are evident. Habitual use deprives users of sleep, adversely affecting mental and physical health, and erodes real human connections. Some people born into the social media age are adept at online messaging but struggle with face-to-face communication. Smartphones have also hampered attention spans; some people have lost the capacity to understand spoken instructions, becoming enslaved by the written word. Hyper-specialized, shortened messages have reduced netizens’ ability to read and understand paragraphs or pages—a consequence of reading summaries instead of books.
Social media also leads to addiction, neglect of duties, and destruction of significant relationships. These afflictions affect not just the under-30 but practically everyone with a smartphone.
Arguments for and Against Bans
Supporters of social media bans for minors say it is necessary because social media is especially destructive to developing brains. Its content can be misleading, unrealistic, disruptive, manipulative, dangerous, and addictive. Children need protection from violence, disinformation, addictive habits, harmful societal pressures, cyberbullying, and predatory behavior.
Critics argue that bans will deprive minors of early digital literacy, cut off vital support networks, drive social media use underground, and shift accountability from platforms to users.
The Need for Regulation
Social media can rewire brains and cause addiction—it is called digital cocaine for good reason. The smartphone is not a safe device; its use must be regulated. Tech giants need to be pressured to redesign platforms for safer, healthier environments. In the meantime, joining the “ban” wagon may be a necessary step.
