Australia’s Social Media Ban Misses Where the Youngest Risk Lives

Australia became the first country to ban social media for under-16s on December 10, 2025. The youngest cohort inside that age band may be the one most exposed to the harms the law was meant to address.

A new longitudinal study from Melbourne, published in the Medical Journal of Australia, finds that adolescents aged 12 to 13 who use social media for more than two hours a day face roughly twice the risk of depression, anxiety, poor wellbeing, and self-harm one year later compared with older teens. The same elevated depression symptoms still register at 18. The findings, written up by the study’s authors in their essay on the Melbourne study findings, sharpen a question Australia’s age-16 threshold was never designed to settle on its own: how to protect the adolescents at the most developmentally sensitive end of the age range when the policy instrument is a single cutoff.

What the Melbourne Study Found

The research team, led by Nandi Vijayakumar of Deakin University, Susan M. Sawyer of the University of Melbourne and the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, and Sylvia C. Lin of Deakin and MCRI, followed 1,195 Melbourne students from age 12 to 18. They tracked self-reported social media use alongside symptoms of depression, anxiety, poor wellbeing, and self-harm at annual check-ins.

Compared with peers logging less than an hour a day, those who spent more than two hours per day on platforms showed a higher risk of elevated depression symptoms and poor wellbeing one year later. The link held after the researchers statistically adjusted for a range of individual and family factors known to shape both screen time and mental health, which strengthened confidence in the direction of the effect even though the design does not prove causation.

In girls aged 12 to 13, more than two hours of daily use was associated with around 11 additional cases of high depressive symptoms per 100 adolescents in that band. The authors caution that the absolute effect size was modest, but small individual effects can shift a population when large numbers of young people are spending that much time on social media each day.

• 1,195 students tracked from age 12 to 18
• ~2x the risk in 12-13 year olds vs older teens in the cohort
• ~11 extra high-depression cases per 100 girls aged 12-13 in the high-use group
• Elevated depression symptoms persisting up to age 18
• 2,000+ Australian parents polled on the law’s effect on family rules

Why the Youngest Teens Are Most Exposed

The age breakdown is the part of the data the law is least calibrated to handle. The strongest effects consistently emerged in 12 to 13 year olds, for both girls and boys, with the estimated risk for depression, anxiety, poor wellbeing, and self-harm roughly twice as large as for 14 to 16 year olds and 17 to 18 year olds in the same data. That pattern echoes a 2022 UK study, described in the 2022 study tracking 17,400 UK adolescents over time, which found windows of heightened sensitivity in girls aged 11 to 13 and boys aged 14 to 15. The Melbourne data point the same way for the youngest end of adolescence, with effects that narrow but do not disappear with age.

The authors say the gradient, with the heaviest effects at the youngest end of adolescence, is the population the law is most likely to reach. They note that their design cannot identify a precise age at which social media becomes safe, and they warn against letting one study dictate national legislation.

The Australia Law and Its Six-Month Reality

Australia’s Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024 took effect on December 10, 2025. It covers Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X, and YouTube, with fines of up to AU$50 million for platforms that fail to take reasonable steps to keep under-16s out. A 2026 Lancet eClinicalMedicine commentary, the 2026 commentary on evidence-based youth social media policy, notes that the law followed a government-commissioned finding that 96% of Australian children aged 10 to 15 used social media, with around 70% reporting they had seen harmful content.

Meta, the most closely watched platform, said in Meta’s own announcement on removing Australian teen accounts that it would start blocking under-16s on December 4 and complete the process by the law’s effective date. The company framed the move as compliance under protest, arguing that cutting teens off from friends and communities “isn’t the answer” and pushing instead for app-store-level parental approval as a more consistent safeguard.

Between December 4 and 11, Meta said it had deactivated 544,052 accounts it believed belonged to under-16 users, broken down across the three platforms it flagged. The numbers give a sense of the operation’s scale, but enforcement has not matched the policy’s intent. A survey of 1,050 Australian teens aged 12 to 15 conducted in March 2026 by the Molly Rose Foundation, reported in the April 2026 survey of 1,050 Australian teens on platform access, found that more than 60% of teens who had social media accounts before the ban still had access to at least one platform, with TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram retaining more than half of their under-16 users.

• Instagram: 330,639 accounts removed in the first week
• Facebook: 173,497 accounts removed in the first week
• Threads: 39,916 accounts removed in the first week

The same pattern is now animating policy debates in other countries. The British Medical Journal reported in December 2025 that more than 140 Australian and international experts and organisations had signed an open letter calling the ban “too blunt an instrument”, a critique that the UK under-16 consultation and disabled teens’ concerns has echoed from a different angle, with disability advocates warning that the smartphone is the only fully accessible computer many physically disabled teenagers can hold.

Why Age Limits Alone Are Not the Whole Answer

The Melbourne authors are direct on this point. Age-based restrictions alone are unlikely to eliminate all risks associated with adolescent social media use, they write, because the same data set found that elevated depression symptoms persisted for young people up to 18 years of age, beyond the under-16 cutoff.

That is the part of the study the binary “16 or not 16” framing leaves on the table. The authors point to three complementary levers: holding platforms accountable for algorithms and design choices that drive compulsive engagement, including through Australia’s proposed digital duty of care reform; building digital literacy and safety into school education; and supporting parents in setting healthier online habits. Each of those levers applies to adolescents across the age range, not only to those who fall under the new law.

What we can say right now about the research is that we know the effects differ pretty significantly across adolescence. So the effect of social media, unsurprisingly, depends on how it’s being used.

Jacqueline Nesi, a psychiatry and human behaviour professor at Brown University, made that point in the Fortune report on the ban’s first months. The same variability complicates any single-instrument policy, including for courts now weighing platform design choices. A New Mexico jury found Meta liable in March 2026 for harm to a young user, and the broader wave of platform-liability cases is documented in the platform-liability verdicts reshaping how courts treat teen harm. Nesi stopped short of calling the law a mistake. “It doesn’t mean that it’s the wrong choice,” she said. “It just means that the way that it’s being implemented right now isn’t working.” The Melbourne findings sit behind that reading: the strongest effects concentrate at the youngest end of the under-16 band, and elevated depression symptoms do not stop at the cutoff.

What’s Being Studied Next

Australia is now the world’s test case, and the research infrastructure is being built around the law. The Kids Research Institute Australia, in collaboration with the University of Western Australia and Edith Cowan University, has launched a national study that will recruit more than 2,000 parents of children aged nine to 16 before and after the law’s rollout, with a second wave of invitations due mid-2026. The same Melbourne research team also polled 2,000+ Australian parents of 0- to 17-year-olds on the law’s effect, and 59% said the law supported them in setting rules around social media use, with 16 years the most-endorsed age for a first account at 38%.

Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is running its own Connected Minds study, focused on the effects of social media use and restrictions on adolescent mental health and wellbeing. Both efforts sit alongside the MCRI, Deakin, and University of Melbourne work that produced the new findings, and they will be the datasets the next round of policy decisions rests on. The Oxford Internet Institute’s Przybylski and Orben put it simply back in 2022: the time has come to focus on the periods of adolescence where young people are most at risk, and to use that as a springboard for the harder questions. Australia is now the place where those questions are being asked in policy form.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did the new Australian study find about social media and teen mental health?

Researchers tracked 1,195 Melbourne students from age 12 to 18 and found that those who logged more than two hours a day on social media had a higher risk of depression and poor wellbeing one year later, with the strongest effects in 12 to 13 year olds. The work was published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

At what age is social media most harmful?

The Melbourne data point to 12 to 13 as the band of greatest vulnerability, for both girls and boys, with risk roughly twice that of older teens in the cohort. A 2022 UK study identified a similar early window for girls aged 11 to 13 and a later one for boys aged 14 to 15. Effects narrow with age but elevated depression symptoms still register at 18.

Does Australia’s under-16 social media ban actually work?

Meta deactivated 544,052 accounts it believed belonged to under-16 users in the first week, and platforms face fines of up to AU$50 million for non-compliance. A March 2026 survey of 1,050 Australian teens aged 12 to 15 by the Molly Rose Foundation, however, found that more than 60% of teens with pre-ban accounts still had access to at least one platform, often through virtual private networks (VPNs), parents’ credentials, or workarounds to facial age checks.

What are the downsides of age-based social media bans?

More than 140 Australian and international experts and organisations signed an open letter in December 2025 calling the law “too blunt an instrument” and warning it could push young people toward less regulated corners of the internet. The Melbourne authors add that the law’s protective effect stops at 18, leaving older adolescents exposed to the same risks. Brown University’s Jacqueline Nesi argues the effect of social media on any one teen depends on how it is being used, and that policies need to be matched to the underlying needs, including autonomy, connection, and belonging, that drive young people online in the first place.

Which countries are following Australia’s lead?

Greece, France, Indonesia, Austria, Spain, and the UK have signalled they are considering similar restrictions, and eight U.S. states are weighing legislation that would limit minors’ social media use. The UK government closed a three-month public consultation on an under-16 ban on May 26, 2026, with a response from Technology Secretary Peter Kyle expected before summer’s end.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical, psychological, or legal advice. The research summarised here reports associations, not causation, and the findings reflect the data sets used. Figures are accurate as of publication. For personal concerns about a young person’s mental health or social media use, consult a qualified health professional.