A growing number of countries are restricting or banning children's access to social media. Australia outlawed social-media accounts for under-16s in December 2025. Britain's upper house voted for similar restrictions in January 2026, as did the lower house of France's. Spain announced plans to bar under-16s in February 2026. Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Indonesia, Malaysia and Norway are eyeing bans. Brazil will require age verification on social apps from March 2026. China has the most elaborate regime, with a "minor mode" stratifying content into five age bands and imposing screen-time limits and nighttime curfews. Several American states have restricted access for younger teens; California will curb algorithmic feeds for minors.
For years the minimum age for most social platforms has been 13, a limit widely adopted after America passed COPPA, a law to protect children's privacy online, in 1998. It is widely ignored by users and all but unpoliced by social-media firms. Surveys by Ofcom, Britain's tech regulator, found that among children aged 10-12, over half use Snapchat, more than 60% TikTok and more than 70% WhatsApp—all of which have a notional minimum age of 13.
A recent review of research led by Amy Orben of Cambridge University found consistent evidence of a small correlation between time spent on social media and the incidence of mental-health problems such as depression and antisocial behaviour. Most studies rely on subjects' own reports of their social-media use, which tend to be inaccurate. Researchers think the amount of time may be less relevant to mental health than what children do on the apps, the context of use and what content algorithms show them. A study of 11- to 15-year-olds in 27 European countries and Canada based on 2017-18 data found a 7% average prevalence of "social-media use disorder"—a proposed condition modelled on addiction diagnoses for gaming and gambling—ranging from 3% in the Netherlands to 14% in Spain. American teenagers spend an average of nearly five hours a day on social apps.
Ascertaining users' age is a central challenge. Facial scans are one method; Yoti, which provides age estimates for firms like Meta, says its AI is better at guessing age than the average human, but inherits biases from its training data: it can guess the age of a white teenage boy to within less than ten months but is typically out by a year and a half for a dark-skinned girl. Some countries are considering hardware-level age verification, whereby phone or computer operating systems would verify the owner's age and then anonymously vouch for eligibility to use age-restricted services. AgeKey, used by Meta and others, verifies age via facial scan or uploaded documents and then vouches for users at age-restricted services. In October Discord announced that one of its customer-services partners had been hacked, exposing photos of IDs, usernames, email addresses and billing information.
One in 20 Facebook users is under 18; one in five Snapchat users is. On February 6th 2026 a preliminary ruling from the European Commission found TikTok in breach of its Digital Services Act over its "addictive design", citing features including infinite scroll, autoplay, push notifications and personalised recommendations. Many child-welfare groups, including 42 signatories of a public letter in Britain led by the Molly Rose Foundation, oppose blanket bans, arguing they create a false sense of security and a "cliff-edge" for 16-year-olds let loose on unadulterated apps with no experience of social media.
The Molly Rose Foundation was set up in memory of a 14-year-old British girl who committed suicide in part because of exposure to depressive content on Instagram. Andy Burrows, its chief executive, argues that the most dangerous platforms for children—encrypted messaging apps, gaming platforms and other online communities—are those not covered by most social-media bans. He advocates regulating social-media companies more like financial-services firms, with obligations to disclose more information and notify regulators before launching new features.
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