In December 2025, Australia became the first country to ban anyone under the age of 16 from maintaining or creating social media accounts. The penalties for companies that violate the law are fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.9 million).
The government’s eSafety Commissioner website says its aim is to “protect young Australians from the pressures and risks” that arise from social media use. Risks include “design features that encourage you to spend more time on screens” and harmful content you may encounter.
Companies like Meta, TikTok, and Snap have said they oppose age restrictions but intend to abide by them. “Complying with the law does not guarantee that Australian teens will be safer or better off,” Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote in a recent Financial Times op-ed.
Other countries around the world are following suit.
Malaysia began banning children under 16 from creating social media accounts in January, and Spain also did so in February. Countries such as Greece, France and Denmark are also currently working on their own restrictions for under-15 or 16-year-olds.
Given this domino effect, could the United States be the next country to ban teenagers from using various social media platforms?
That’s very likely, says Ravi Iyer, managing director of the Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making at the University of Southern California Marshall and policy advisor to Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation Movement.
Here’s what he and Holly Grosshans, senior technology policy advisor at the nonprofit Common Sense Media, think could happen.
Social media is ‘contributing to this full-blown youth mental health crisis’
In the United States and around the world, people are concerned about the toll this technology is taking on young people.
Lawmakers and parents alike are “seeing that[social media use]is contributing to this full-blown youth mental health crisis,” Grosshans said.
A 2018 study of 500,000 adolescents published in the Journal of Clinical Psychological Science found that symptoms of depression increased from 2010 to 2015, and adolescents who spent more time on social media were more likely to report mental health problems.
While companies like Meta have introduced safety features for younger users, Iyer said these age restrictions solve problems for both children and parents.
“Parents don’t want to be the only parents who say their kids can’t ride the platform, and kids don’t want to be the only kids who can’t ride the platform,” he says.
‘Nearly every state’ is tackling social media use among teens
At the local level, Grosshans said, “almost every state” has enacted some kind of online safety or privacy law regarding this technology.
Some states have complete age restrictions. For others, it will be working on some elements of social media functionality.
Local social media laws include:
Florida prohibits children under the age of 14 from creating social media accounts and prohibits children ages 14 and 15 from creating accounts without parental consent. In Virginia, businesses must limit the use of their platforms to children under 16 for one hour per day. California prohibits online platforms from knowingly providing addictive feeds to minors without parental consent. Social media platforms are also prohibited from sending notifications to minors during school hours or late at night, and New York state requires social media platforms that offer addictive feeds, autoplay, or infinite scrolling to post warning labels.
Overall, 40 states and Washington, D.C., also ban or partially ban cell phones in schools.
Federal age limit enactment ‘almost inevitable’
At the federal level, the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act requires sites to obtain parental consent before allowing children under 13 to create accounts.
Courts can impose fines of up to $53,088 per violation on businesses that violate COPPA.
Groshans is not convinced that a law could be passed at the federal level that would outright ban children from creating profiles on social media sites.
“The technology lobby is really, really powerful,” she says. Additionally, laws regarding access to information differ between the United States and other countries.
But Iyer is optimistic. “I think it’s almost inevitable,” he says.
Regardless of which version of the law is likely to pass nationally, “this is one of the last bipartisan issues I think we have in this country.”
For parents who want to curb their children’s social media use, Hite would not give them smartphones before high school and would ban social media use before the age of 16. Psychologist Jean Twenge would also completely ban devices from children’s bedrooms overnight.
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