Australia is first nation to ban social media for kids. Is the US next?
- - Australia is first nation to ban social media for kids. Is the US next?
Madeline Mitchell and Rachel Hale, USA TODAY December 10, 2025 at 4:06 AM
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Starting Dec. 10, Australia is the first country to ban social media for kids under 16.
Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese wrote about the move in an opinion essay posted Dec. 7, saying the ban "will be one of the biggest social and cultural changes our nation has faced." He's confident it will be a positive change, protecting Australian children from the dangers of engaging with strangers online and the mental health impacts of cyberbullying.
It's up to social media companies − including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, YouTube and others − to ensure children under 16 aren't using their platforms, and companies who fail to block kids form their sites will face substantial fines. There are no penalties for kids who gain access to these platforms, or their parents or caregivers.
More: Australia becomes the first country to have a social media ban
While the ban is controversial in some circles, many parents and mental health advocates are celebrating − and wondering if something similar could ever be enforced in the United States. Nearly half of teens said they spend too much time on social media, according to 2024 data from the Pew Research Center. And 48% of teens ages 13 to 17 said social media has a negative effect on kids their age, with teen girls expressing more social media-related distress including poorer mental health, confidence and sleep.
Rahm Emanuel, who is considering a presidential run, said in an interview on Dec. 9 that he wants the United States to follow Australia's lead.
Whitney Raglin Bignall, pediatric psychologist and associate clinical director at The Kids Mental Health Foundation, said she hasn't seen movement toward a nationwide social media ban in the United States. But she has seen efforts to make social media safer for kids, with companies creating teen accounts with restricted access and organizations helping parents understand the risks of social media use.
More: No TikTok, no iPhones and retro landlines. These parents are raising kids like it’s 1995.
Albanese said he's met with Australian parents "who have seen their child’s wellbeing crushed by the worst of social media, many living with the devastating pain of losing a child."
"Our social media ban is about providing greater peace of mind for Australian parents," he wrote. "It’s also about making sure that Australian children have a childhood."
How social media impacts young people's ability to concentrate
The mental health impacts of social media is alarming, Raglin Bignall said. One of the biggest risks is having kids compare themselves to other people online, or feeling a fear of missing out on something it seems everyone else has or is doing. She's also noticed teens are less comfortable with in-person interactions.
"We don't want social media to get in the way of kids being able to develop normal, good communication and interactions and connection with people outside of their screens," Raglin Bignall said.
It’s something Jonathan Haidt has been talking about for years. He outlined children’s social media use extensively in his book “The Anxious Generation,” where he advocates for curtailing smartphone use before age 14 and social media before 16. He helped influence the social media ban for teens under 16 in Australia after the wife of a lawmaker read the book and told her husband to take action.
Recent research has also found social media use is causing kids to develop shorter attention spans.
Digital literacy expert Kaitlyn Regehr, who is the author of “Smartphone Nation,” previously told USA TODAY that addiction spans devices and platforms and is most heavily tied to algorithms that feed curated content to users. A combination of factors – the refresh screen, the device’s color saturation, notifications and prompt system – impact how a social media addiction functions.
"The natural state of adolescence that is prone to feeling left out, prone to maybe feeling blue, sometimes prone to social anxiety; it is not caused by social media, but it is aggravated by social media," Regehr said.
Child psychiatrist and Yale School of Medicine professor Yann Poncin previously told USA TODAY that technology addiction rewires the brain to expect higher dopamine, depleting the brain’s cognitive patience and threshold for tolerating frustration in the process.
A girl poses holding her phone after an interview discussing Australia's social media ban for users under 16, which is scheduled to take effect on Dec. 10, in Sydney, Australia, Nov. 22, 2025.
"If we overexpose ourselves to these sort of easy dopamine hits, cheap dopamine hits when we're younger, then we're resetting our homeostasis where we can only feel good by having access to these items," Poncin said.
A December study from researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Oregon Health & Science University that followed more than 8,000 U.S. children from around age 10 through age 14 found a link between social media use and inattention symptoms.
More: These college kids are swearing off smartphones. It's sparking a movement
Will America ever have a social media ban?
Julie Scelfo, founder and executive director of Mothers Against Media Addiction, agrees with Raglin Bignall that a social media ban doesn't seem to be the focus for American youth mental health advocates. There are obstacles, she said, most notably the tech firms that have the ear of lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
"That doesn't mean it can't or won't happen here," Scelfo said. "Overall, we're hopeful that this move by Australia will further encourage our elected officials here to take action."
In the meantime, it's mostly falling on parents to try to keep their kids off social media. As a mom herself, Scelfo said that's not a good backup solution.
"No parent could possibly monitor everything their children sees and effectively manage all of their social media channels. Especially because kids are so good at workarounds" and social media sites' parental controls don't always work, Scelfo said.
Still, there has been some movement to create change. In 2024, Former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy in a New York Times op-ed called to add warning labels to to social media platforms, similar to warnings on cigarettes and alcohol. The Kids Online Safety Act bill wouldn't ban social media, but it would provide better guardrails for kids, Scelfo said. In an effort to curb social media use, Scelfo's organization has had success banning smartphones from schools. Some parents are reverting to times of old by installing landlines in their homes, and Gen Z luddites have resorted to using flip phones.
A notification from Snapchat requesting age verification is displayed on a mobile phone as a law banning social media for users under 16 in Australia takes effect, in this picture illustration taken on Dec. 9, 2025.
But without government intervention, it's hard for parents to totally protect their kids from social media on their own. So it's important to have lots of conversations about social media with kids, Raglin Bignall said, and set clear boundaries and expectations about social media use, including when to take breaks.
"We don't want kids hiding what they're doing," she said.
Madeline Mitchell's role covering women and the caregiving economy and Rachel Hale's role covering youth mental health at USA TODAY is supported by a partnership with Pivotal and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input.
Reach Madeline at [email protected] and @maddiemitch_ on X. Reach Rachel at [email protected] and @rachelleighhale on X.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Australia bans social media for teens. Could it work in America?
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