Opinion: Social media bans are passing around the world. How will we know if they help teens?

In December 2025, as social media’s potential impact on youth mental health faced growing scrutiny, Australia became the first country to ban social media for people under 16, with Indonesia quickly following. The European Union is taking a slightly different approach, banning social media for children under 13 and personal accounts for people under 15 after pressure from several E.U. nations. Elsewhere, big tech companies are being challenged in the courts. Meta recently agreed to pay up to $18 billion to resolve claims in the U.S. that Facebook and Instagram harmed children. Meta will also introduce “safety by design” features for young people, such as concealing the number of “likes” on posts. But will these features meaningfully change young people’s behavior or experiences online? Will the bans have their intended effect? With major changes being introduced around the world, researchers must seize this opportunity to conduct robust independent evaluations of how social media — and its regulation — impacts teenagers’ mental health, wellbeing and social lives. With almost half of all mental health problems emerging by the age of 18, this research is crucial. One size might not fit all Ultimately, the question is not simply whether social media is inherently “good” or “bad,” or whether restrictions “work” or “don’t work.” Instead, researchers need to look at whether changing young people’s digital environments leads to meaningful changes in their mental health and wellbeing. The evidence increasingly suggests that there is unlikely to be a single “social media effect” that impacts all teenagers in the same way. Social media restrictions will likely affect individual young people differently, based on factors such as their age, whether they have existing mental health problems, and their sleep patterns. It could have different effects based on teenagers’ gender, their socioeconomic background, or where they live (for example, whether they come from an urban or rural area). Social media can be an important source of community, so restrictions may affect people from marginalized backgrounds in different ways, including those who identify as LGBTQ+. It will most likely also depend on the specific way that a person uses (or previously used) a given platform. If restrictions do bring changes in teenagers’ mental health, researchers need to understand the mechanisms behind the change. For example, if some young people experience an improvement in their mental health following the restrictions, might it be because they are meeting up more with friends in real life, or are they getting more sleep? The answer to the why question could shape future policies that support youth mental health. Lessons from Australia Early findings from Australia suggest that age verification from social media companies is a significant challenge in implementing the ban. An evaluation published in the British Medical Journal found little evidence of substantial reductions in social media use three months after Australia implemented its ban. It found that many young people were continuing to use restricted platforms and finding ways around age-verification systems. Meanwhile, a report by Australia’s online watchdog found that more than 80% of children were still using a restricted online platform. Behavioral economist Leonardo Bursztyn and colleagues found that many teenagers continued to believe their peers were using restricted platforms and reported they would be more willing to stop if more of their peers stopped, too. This shows the importance of peer influence in adolescent decision-making, which will be a factor in the restrictions globally. The difficulties in implementing the ban in Australia mean that it is still too early to say whether it has improved young people’s mental health and in what ways it has worked. Still, this raises an important point that implementation will be a major factor across the world. Assessing the change in the U.K. In the U.K., the government is planning to introduce a social media ban in spring 2027. I work at Wellcome, a global philanthropic foundation based in London and one of the biggest funders of mental health research in the world. We are going to be funding evaluations of the impact of the social media ban in the U.K. on youth mental health, with research teams working with tens of thousands of teenagers. All our work is guided by young people with experience in both social media use and mental health problems, so that research best reflects their concerns. In this case, we consulted with a group of young people to ask for advice on how best to design and implement the research on social media restrictions. The young people reframed the whole debate. Rather than focusing solely on whether social media is harmful and whether we need a ban, they repeatedly asked us to look at what role social media currently plays in young people’s lives — and what might replace it if access is restricted. Young people are not oblivious about the risks of social media, such as misinformation and harmful content, but they also recognize it as infrastructure for learning, connection, support, creativity, and belonging. They highlighted that evaluating the restrictions requires understanding how teenagers’ time is otherwise spent. For example, they said, researchers should look at whether young people are spending time in a positive way by cultivating outdoor hobbies, friendships, sleeping better, and studying more. Or will they simply spend the time being bored, or find themselves in unregulated online spaces? In short, the young people were asking researchers to evaluate changes in their lives, rather than simply looking at changes in their screen time. They suggested that the evaluation should not only focus on how to reduce harm, but also on understanding what kinds of social environments best support young people’s mental health and wellbeing. A global opportunity We are not simply trying to evaluate the U.K. government’s policy on banning social media. We are trying to understand a much broader and fundamental question: How do changes in the digital environment impact young people’s mental health and wellbeing, and why? While we are focusing on the U.K., this is a globally relevant question. Comparing what happens in Australia and the U.K., with the results in the E.U., where they will be cracking down on certain practices, and elsewhere in the world, via Meta’s new tools, will be illuminating. Perhaps we will end up learning that bans are the solution. Perhaps some tools will be more effective than others. There is a seismic opportunity for research teams around the world to join forces to evaluate how social media and its restrictions impact youth mental health. The answers that emerge could influence how we intervene in youth mental health for generations to come. Camilla Iannone is research lead in the mental health evidence team at Wellcome.