Under-16s should be banned from social media.

Young people's mental health has worsened. In England, the share of 8 to 16-year-olds with a probable mental disorder rose from 12.5% in 2017 to 20.3% in 2023. One of the strongest natural experiments so far, the staggered arrival of Facebook at US colleges, found that it worsened students' mental health, particularly depression, by encouraging unfavourable comparisons with others. If social media can harm university students in this way, younger teenagers are unlikely to be better protected. (NHS England, 2023; Braghieri et al, 2022)

The current age limit is not working. Most platforms already set a minimum age of 13; however, Ofcom found in 2025 that 40% of under-13s had a social media profile. A limit that platforms do not enforce protects no one. A legal ban, enforced by a regulator with the power to act against companies that break it, would place the responsibility on the platforms instead of on parents and children. (Ofcom, 2025a; DSIT, 2026)

A shared rule solves a shared problem. Parents who keep their child off social media risk leaving that child out of the group chats and plans their friends are making. A law gives every family the same starting point, so no child is the only one without an account and no parent has to hold the line alone. This helps to explain why 9 in 10 parents who responded to the government's 2026 consultation backed a ban. (DSIT, 2026)

It can be done, and others are doing it. Australia's ban took effect on 10 December 2025, and within weeks platforms had deactivated, removed, or restricted more than 4.7 million accounts belonging to under-16s. In the UK, the riskiest services have had to use highly effective age checks since July 2025 under the Online Safety Act. As a result, the tools needed to enforce an age limit are already in use, and the question is whether to apply them to social media itself. (Australian Government, 2026; Ofcom, 2025b)

The evidence of harm is weak. Large studies find only a small link between digital technology use and young people's wellbeing. An analysis of 3 large datasets covering more than 350,000 adolescents found that technology use explained at most 0.4% of the variation in their wellbeing, a weaker association than sleep or eating breakfast. Rising rates of mental ill health have many possible causes, and a ban built on a weak link risks missing the real ones. (Orben and Przybylski, 2019)

Bans are hard to enforce. Young people are skilled at getting round age checks. Three months after Australia's ban began, its online safety regulator said that a substantial proportion of under-16s still had access, and it named 5 major platforms in its investigations. In addition, enforcing a ban means age checks for every user, adult or child, which leaves more people handing personal data to platforms or verification firms. (Mediaweek, 2026; DSIT, 2026)

Social media also helps young people. For many teenagers, these apps are where friendships are kept up. Ofcom found that 72% of 13 to 17-year-olds who use social media and messaging apps say the apps help them feel closer to their friends all or most of the time, and over half say they send supportive messages to friends having a hard time. Young people who are isolated offline, for example by illness or distance, could lose the most. (Ofcom, 2025a)

Make platforms safer instead. The Online Safety Act already requires platforms to protect children from harmful content, with codes in force since July 2025. Improving how feeds and features work protects every user, including 16 and 17-year-olds, who would otherwise arrive on social media with no experience of it. A ban, by contrast, takes away much of the pressure on companies to make their services safe for younger users. It should also be noted that 34% of the children who responded to the government's consultation opposed any age restriction. (Ofcom, 2025b; DSIT, 2026)