A 7-year-old boy and a 11-year-old girl look at a phone screen with social media networking apps are displayed on Dec. 7, 2025, in Sydney, Australia. gettyimagesbank-TNS

A new study finds that Australia’s ban on social media accounts for kids under 16 has not curbed use among teens. The findings come as other nations are exploring age-based bans of their own. Has the social media train left the station, leaving parents and policymakers without a way to protect their kids from Big Tech’s addictive embrace?

As a mom, my take is that even if age limits are less effective than previously believed, it’s still worth having them.

Social media has already rewired childhood. According to the American Psychological Association, teens are spending more than five hours a day on social platforms. Teens with the highest use tend to rate their mental health as poor or very poor.

Some have questioned if this is correlation or causation. But there has been a noticeable devolution in teens’ mental health coinciding with the introduction of smartphones and rise of social apps. Which is why, in 2023, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a public health advisory about the dangers of social media for kids and later called for a warning label to be put on accounts for adolescent users.

More than a dozen states have proposed or implemented some type of age-based social media limit,........

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