Banning under-16s from social media will do more harm than good

The government is in a rush to follow Australia in removing children’s online accounts – but given how kids’ clubs, sports grounds and shopping centres are closing, to do so would complete the erasure of young people from public life, says Chris Stokel-Walker

When Keir Starmer said this morning, in response to a question at his press conference about Greenland, that “no options are off the table” for protecting children online, he was doing what politicians do: sounding decisive while the details stay vague – at least for now.

But something is afoot. Last week, Kemi Badenoch said the Conservatives supported a ban on social media for under-16s – and today, some 60 Labour MPs joined the call. The House of Lords is debating amendments to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that will implement a phone ban in schools. Teaching unions want teenagers banned from using social media, in order to prevent harm.

It feels like Westminster is following Australia’s world-first ban on social media for under-16s. Ministers are watching the antipodean experiment closely, and the pressure to “do something” is mounting.

The problem is that doing something could risk doing more harm than good.

There’s no shortage of anxiety about children and screens. Teaching unions warn of deteriorating behaviour in classrooms, with six in 10 teachers saying that things are getting worse. Mental health statistics show rising distress among young people. Parents feel overwhelmed trying to police TikTok, Snapchat, and whatever comes next. As we look to fill that void of worry, a ban feels satisfyingly simple: remove the problem, protect the children.

Except the evidence doesn’t support it – not yet. The correlation between social media use and poor mental health exists in much of the literature, but establishing causation is far messier. One UK study tracking 10- to 15-year-olds found “little evidence to suggest a causal relationship” between social media use and mental health problems two years later.

It’s not as if children’s lives are all sunshine and roses offline. Today’s teenagers have lived through the aftermath of the financial crisis, austerity, and a pandemic that upended their education; they now find themselves facing an AI revolution that could threaten the jobs they might one day hold. Blaming Instagram for all of it is convenient. It’s also only telling part of the story.

The rest of the story is conveniently ignored – and a social media ban would make it worse. We are systematically shutting children out of public life, and social media is one of the few spaces left where they can exist unsupervised.

Since 2010, more than 1,000 youth centres have closed across England and Wales. Four in 10 councils no longer run any youth services at all. The traditional third spaces where teenagers once lingered – shopping centres, cafes, parks – are increasingly hostile territory. A doughnut shop near me recently posted a sign banning unaccompanied children after 5pm, “due to recent incidents”. Local shops near me ban more than three kids from entering at a time. Sports clubs cost money many families don’t have. Libraries, where they still exist, close early.

All that’s left is school and home. And for everything in between – and the in between is where you form your friendships, identity and social connections – there’s social media. Elon Musk is wrong about a lot of things, but he was right in describing social media as the “de facto public town square”.

Banning under-16s would complete the erasure of young people from public life. We’ve already told them they can’t gather in town centres, can’t hang around parks without suspicion, and can’t access the youth clubs their parents had. Now we’re telling them they can’t even congregate online.

Adults have always been uncomfortable with teenage kicks, especially when they happen in spaces we don’t fully understand. A shopping centre manager can kick out loitering teens. An algorithm is harder to discipline. So the solution being offered is to eliminate the space itself.

Australia’s ban, which came into force in December, offers a chance to study these questions properly.

We should wait for those findings before leaping into our own version of a ban. And while we’re waiting, perhaps the politicians spending so much time and effort on it could redirect their action to figuring out how to open up offline spaces, so that young people aren’t so reliant on the online world.