Four in five under-16s in Australia using social media despite ban, study shows

More than 80% of under-16s in Australia said they were still using social media three months after legislation banning them from it came into force, research shows.Australia is the first country to ban social media for children. Since December 2025, under-16s have been prohibited from having accounts with many social media platforms including TikTok, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat.But an observational study of 408 12- to 17-year-olds by the country’s University of Newcastle has concluded that Australia’s social media minimum age legislation has resulted in “limited implementation, incomplete compliance, and substantial circumvention of social media restrictions”.“Overall, we found insufficient evidence to conclude that exposure to the act [of parliament] had any early substantial effects on social media use among adolescents aged under 16 years,” the authors added.The findings have implications for growing numbers of countries in the process of introducing their own bans. The UK’s proposed social media ban, due to come into force in 2027, would block under-16s from accessing Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, X and Facebook and from livestreaming or communicating with strangers on gaming sites such as Roblox.But experts and campaigners say the research, published in the BMJ, shows that banning social media is not enough to stop children accessing harmful content online and that a more “convincing strategy is required”.The Australian study found a minimal reduction in daily social media usage three months after the ban. A major factor in teenagers’ continued use of banned social platforms was inadequate age verification checks. About 85% of teenagers said they were still using social media three months after the ban, with more than half using their own accounts.Although two-thirds of teenagers in the study said they had to complete age verification checks, only 5% of 12- to 13-year-olds and 11% of 14- to 15-year-olds had to provide a photo of official ID. The two most common checks were asking teens their age and uploading a selfie.A significant minority of participants said they actively bypassed the age restrictions. About 15% of the 12- to 13-year-olds and 19% of the 14- to 15-year-olds surveyed said they used a fake account, while about 3% said they used a VPN.The study concluded that the Australian social media ban might be more effective in preventing or delaying access to social media in children under eight, rather than restricting access to adolescents who already use it.Andy Burrows, the chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation in the UK, said the findings showed that social media bans alone do not keep under-16s off restricted platforms or cut the time teenagers spend using high-risk sites. “Unless ministers have a coherent plan to urgently learn lessons, the UK’s ban will similarly unravel. Parents will be left with false hope and a misplaced sense of their children’s safety.“The next prime minister must enter Downing Street with a convincing strategy that properly protects children from online harm, rather than relying on a performative ban which, as this research suggests, is unlikely to improve our teens’ mental health and wellbeing.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRachel de Souza, the children’s commissioner for England, said: “A ban should not be seen as a silver bullet. We have to go further so that all online services – not just social media platforms – that use harmful features and functionalities should be banned from access to all children, not just those under 16.”Prof Dennis Ougrin, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at Queen Mary University of London, said the study should serve as an “important early reality check for policymakers” but that it was “too early to conclude that the policy has failed”. “The key question is not simply whether use falls, but whether restrictions improve outcomes such as mental health, sleep, exposure to harmful content, and self-harm.”A UK government spokesperson said: “Our approach goes further than the Australia model and will be underpinned by stronger, more effective age verification checks to make it far harder for children to get round safeguards.“As the technology secretary has made clear, this ban is as much about helping future generations, and resetting social norms in future, as it is about young people today.”