When Australia banned children under the age of 16 from using social media in December 2025, it became a test case for a policy that’s now being pursued by governments world wide.
Six months later, the UK has announced plans to introduce its own social media ban in 2027. France, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greece Among other countries pursuing similar restrictions.
So how’s it moving into Australia? Have young people gotten out of the phone light and re-engaged in the actual world? And how does that affect their mental health?
In this episode of Talk weeklywe speak to Susan Sawyer, professor of adolescent mental health on the University of Melbourne, who’s running various ongoing studies to look at the response of young people and their parents to Australia’s ban.
Sawyer says that when the ban was first introduced, she was cynical in regards to the government’s ability to get young people off social media — and it was difficult. In a compliance report released in March 2026, the Australian eSafety Commission said: Many young people were still in a position to access social media, and He started an investigation Five technology firms appear to haven’t done enough to comply with the ban.
Yet while she used to consider the ban as a blunt instrument, Sawyer says her views are changing. “We’re seeing the conversation shift from whether or to what extent or in what ways social media negatively impacts youth, to what age might be most appropriate for youth to access social media,” says Sawyer.
And it stems from a few of Sawyer’s research. In a recent survey of greater than 2,000 parents of 0- to 17-year-olds, slightly below 40 percent said the law had modified their view of when children must have social media accounts and “overwhelmingly, it’s an older age,” she says.