Last week, the Australian government legislated a national minimum age of 16 years for opening accounts on major social media platforms. The legislation was built on the increasing recognition that social media is doing harm to the development of young people, creating a series of knock-on effects for both personal and national capabilities. Australia is seeking to be a world leader in advancing solutions to these problems, although its efforts have not come without pushback, not least from social media companies themselves.
We all love the internet. Its advantages to our daily lives are innumerable. Yet in the close to three decades since it became an everyday feature and then a necessity, we haven’t stopped to consider its anthropological effects. The internet has accelerated capitalism into an incessant change machine. As a species whose existence until very recently has experienced change slowly, the permanent economic and social revolutions of the last three decades has been incredibly difficult for our monkey brains to process.
These changes are proving most difficult to adjust to in the developmental stages that precede adulthood. Social media usage has been linked to a lack of sleep in ages where sleep is vital, problems with maintaining attention, feelings of exclusion, cyberbullying and sexual harassment, a constant search for online validation, and an exposure to harmful stereotypes or unhealthy social expectations. Alongside this can be the introduction of ideas that are difficult to process without the wisdom of age.
Economist and Labor Party MP Andrew Leigh and mental health researcher Steven Robson analyzed the Australian data on trends in mental disorders, self-harm hospitalizations, and suicide rates since smartphones and social media have become ubiquitous. They wrote:
Over the period from 2007-2010 to 2019-2022, the mental wellbeing of young Australians became worse. Much worse. The share of young people reporting a mental disorder rose by 40 per cent for males and 60 per cent for females. Self-harm hospitalizations rose 15 per cent for males and 43 per cent for females. Suicide deaths rose 23 per cent for males and 70 per cent for females.
There may be multiple reasons for these awful shifts, but the correlation with the invention of smartphones and widespread use of social media is a strong one that cannot be ignored. It is something Australian teenagers themselves have highlighted as a factor in their declining mental health. The recognition of this correlation is also found in polling indicates that around 77 percent of Australians support the ban.
Alongside the mental health of the country’s youth, Australia should arguably also be concerned with the effect social media is having on politics, in which a rules-free online environment is translating to a rules-free expectation within regular society. The rise of Donald Trump, a man unbound by rules, norms, and institutions, has occurred because people see him as an avatar for their own desire to be free of personal constraints. Limiting access to narcissistic online environments may be seen as a way of building back character and sense of civic duty among Australian youngsters.
The social media ban compels social media companies to restrict access to their platforms for users under 16, with fines of up to US$32 million for failing to comply. Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and Snapchat are the law’s primary targets. YouTube will be excluded due to its significant educational application. Punishment for noncompliance will be directed at platforms, not users.
Although passed into law last week, the legislation won’t come into force for 12 months, as the government is waiting on trials of age assurance technology to be tested and deemed reliable to use.
What the Australian government is doing by legislating the ban early is sending a global signal. The hope is that other countries will also come to the same conclusion about the harm social media is doing to their youth and seek to implement similar laws. Australia, after all, is probably too small itself to take on the power of the tech giants, but a united front of multiple countries is far more likely to force these companies to implement measures that take online safety seriously.
However, the elephant in the room is the current relationship between X CEO Elon Musk and United States President-elect Trump. For any new age restrictions on social media to be effective they need Washington’s involvement – both as the world’s most powerful state, and because most of these tech giants are American-owned and operated. This relationship, plus the fact that social media has been a massive tool in aiding Trump’s rise to power, may mean that the U.S. is unlikely to act. The hope for Australia will be that there are enough other powerful allies around the world that can reinforce and advance Australia’s decision.