Social media bans for minors: Many pros, few contras

Australia banned social media for children and teenagers under 16 in December 2025. The experiment the whole world has been watching ever since has triggered a wave. France and, the UK are planning to start their ban, and Canada, Denmark, Greece and Malaysia are working on their own regulations. Our columnist Markus Sekulla asks the question: When will Germany (finally) follow?

How do you write a column that's as balanced as possible with pros and cons when you personally stand 100 percent on one side? So let's get it out of the way. I am a strong advocate of a social media ban for children and teenagers up to at least age 14.

Why? Because screws up kids brains. And, because I read Jonathan Haidt's "The Anxious Generation," and that book fundamentally shaped my position. Haidt presents overwhelming data on what the permanent availability of social media does to the brains of children and teenagers. Rising anxiety disorders, exploding depression rates, an entire generational slump in mental health that coincides exactly with the spread of social media from around 2010 onwards. And that was no coincidence.

I recently came across the following quote from Ulrich Trautwein, an education researcher at the University of Tübingen, in the German tech magazine t3n:

"The final enemy today is social media. We send children and teenagers into this fight poorly prepared. The weapon they need is self-regulation."

I'd have to disagree. Expecting self-regulation from young people is simply unfair. Besides, I think it's nonsense to believe anyone can just regulate our own dopamine balance. Telling social media users — regardless of age — to practice "responsible use" works about as well as telling a smoker to cut down from 40 to just 5 cigarettes a day because that would be healthier. The same applies to teenagers and adults when it comes to Instagram or TikTok.

The situation in Australia

So let's look at Australia. A study involving the Max Planck Institute shows how well the social media ban works in practice — which is to say, barely at all. The share of 14- to 15-year-olds who had used a platform banned for them in the previous seven days rose from 64 percent in April to 92 percent in June. More than a fifth even received help from parents, older siblings or other adults when setting up a new account. The majority didn't need to create new access at all because their old accounts were never deleted.

On top of that, the social pressure among teenagers is immense. Those who comply with the ban are considered uncool and fear social isolation. So clearly, this isn't working. Stronger enforcement methods would be needed. Australia has since responded by doubling the maximum fines for platforms to 99 million Australian dollars.

Waiting for US tech companies to regulate themselves is even more futile. It would go against their very business model. Meta and other networks have repeatedly demonstrated in recent years that the wellbeing of their users is a marginal concern at best. Regulation has to come from the outside. That's exactly what Australia and other countries are attempting now.

Pro: Why I'm in favour

Yes, the Australian ban is being circumvented. But the question isn't whether a ban works perfectly. The question is how we manage, in the long run, to break free from this "dopamine pandemic."

The data is clear. The French health authority ANSES evaluated around 1,000 international studies and confirmed what Haidt describes. Social media platforms harm teenagers, with girls affected slightly more than boys. Lower self-esteem, constant exposure to extreme and health-endangering content.

Bans create a regulatory framework. Without a legal basis, there's no leverage against the platforms. And France's plan was about as concrete as it gets. No new accounts for under-15s from September 1st, existing accounts to be closed by January 1st, 2027. That the country's constitutional council has since put the law on hold doesn't make the approach wrong. It shows how carefully such a framework has to be built.

And societal norms need a starting point. Smoking wasn't marginalised through friendly persuasion, and the warning labels on the packaging didn't help either. It took advertising bans, health warnings and age restrictions before the social norm eventually tipped.

Those old enough will remember how massive the outcry was when smoking was banned in German bars and pubs. What madness, the way we sometimes collectively cling to bad decisions. The same applied to the seatbelt and does now to social media, and we're still at the very beginning of that process.

Even an imperfect ban slows down access. It forces children and parents to make a conscious decision. The barrier may not be insurmountable, but it exists. And with it, at least the faint feeling of doing something forbidden.

Contra: Why scepticism can be justified

Age verification is a data privacy nightmare. The British organisation Big Brother Watch warns that using IDs or biometric data for age checks creates massive cybersecurity and privacy risks. The easiest solution, as Haidt also suggests, would be to simply store the user's age on the smartphone and let parents unlock the apps. But that's exactly where the sense of responsibility among some parents falls short.

Bans address symptoms, not causes. The platforms themselves and their algorithms are the problem. Endless feeds, dopamine-driven engagement mechanisms, toxic recommendation systems. An age-based ban changes none of that — it simply shifts the problem to the 16th birthday.

Christine Weißenborn recently asked in the Handelsblatt: "Why do we so often treat social media only as a problem for children?" We need to look in the mirror and rethink our own usage, which — let's be honest — is also significantly higher than we could have imagined ten years ago. And our children see that too. Let those who are without doomscrolling cast the first stone...

What we should also keep in mind is the world of tomorrow. It's going to stay digital. Taking away children's ability to adapt early doesn't prepare them for modern life. The same applies to AI, by the way. Should there be a ban on that too, so kids actually learn something and don't let chatbots do their homework? Both bans would block access to a digital world where children elsewhere are building a significant head start. But what good is that head start when millions of them develop mental health problems?

What does this mean for us?

France plans to be the first EU country with such a ban. But it probably won't be the last, as the EU Commission plans to present its own proposals in September. The debate is coming to Germany, and the first initiatives already exist. So far, the conversation here has mostly been about "responsible use," and I honestly can't stand hearing any longer how often we rely on things that demonstrably don't work.

I'm in favour of a ban, even though I know it won't be enough on its own. Because the alternative — doing nothing — is not an option. Because the evidence is overwhelming. And because every society has the right to protect its children from things that are proven to endanger their health.

But i guess the real goal has to be making social media either truly social or, better yet, uncool.

Further information

Arguments for and against age restrictions