Why Australia is Setting a Minimum Age of 16 for Creating a Social Media Account

A member of the Australian Parliament lays it out for us

Introduction from Jon Haidt:

Australia is correcting two of the most consequential blunders in the creation of the early global internet: the setting of the “age of internet adulthood” to 13, combined with the stipulation that companies have no responsibility at all to verify that anyone actually is 13. Both of these blunders were made in a single well-meaning law passed by the US Congress in 1998: The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, known as COPPA. (See here for the history of COPPA)

Congressman (now Senator) Ed Markey drafted the bill motivated by the problem that, in the early days of e-commerce, companies were taking data from children without their parents’ knowledge or consent. The question he sought to settle was: at what age is a child mature enough to be treated as an adult, able to sign Terms of Service agreements and give away personal and family data, without the knowledge or permission of their parents? Markey proposed that adolescents should not have to wait until age 18 to gain such status; he thought that 16 might be old enough to make wise personal decisions. In the initial bill, he specified that anyone under 16 was to be treated as a child, meaning that companies would have to obtain consent from a child’s parents in order to enter into a commercial relationship with that child if it involved collecting their personal data. 

The e-commerce companies were not happy about that, and lobbied heavily against the bill. In the negotiations, a compromise was reached that the age would be lowered to 13. The decision had nothing to do with adolescent brain development or maturity or safety; it was simply a political compromise.  Nonetheless, 13 became the de facto age of “internet adulthood” for the United States, which effectively made it the age of internet adulthood for the world. As Senator Markey later said, “It was too young and I knew it was too young then. It was the best I could do.” The final bill also absolved the companies of responsibility or liability, unless they had direct evidence that a child was under 13. Anyone who is old enough to lie and say that he or she is 13 can be exploited and manipulated in all the ways that the companies do to adults. 

Well, Australia is going to fix those mistakes, and in doing so it may provide a model for other countries. On November 21, the Australian Government introduced into parliament the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024, which will set a national minimum age for opening accounts on the major social media platforms. It mandates that the companies making money from our children bear the responsibility for enforcing the age minimum. Note that the bill would require companies to check age only once for each person, at the time of creating an account and agreeing to the Terms of Service. (Is it unreasonable for companies to check that the person signing a contract is old enough to sign a contract?)

To explain what Australia is doing and why, we are honored to bring you a post by Andrew Leigh, a member of the Australian Parliament, where he also serves as the Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities, Treasury and Employment. Leigh is perfectly placed to interpret the law for us because he is also an academic. He earned a Ph.D. in public policy from Harvard and was a professor of economics at the Australian National University before his election to Parliament in 2010. He understands academic research and has published a lot of it. 

Reading Andrew’s essay makes me think about what the world would be like today if America had not made those two blunders. Imagine if the US Congress had insisted that the companies profiting from the early internet had to make some provisions to protect children from exploitation. It might have slowed down the development of e-commerce by a bit, but if the internet had been designed from the start with a recognition that children would always be a large portion of the user base, it would have prevented or at least dampened the explosion of online harms to children that were yet to come (such as those from Snap, TikTok, and Meta). 

The U.S. Congress seems to be having difficulties taking even modest steps to protect American children. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) reflects years of cooperation between Republicans and Democrats. It passed the Senate by a vote of 91 to 3. Yet Meta and other tech companies may be able to kill it in the House of Representatives by spending enormous sums on lobbying, even larger sums on investments in the home states of the House Leadership, and by making a different set of specious arguments to the left and to the right. If Congress can’t pass a bipartisan bill like KOSA, it will suggest that Congress may never do anything to protect children online. We urge all Americans to call, email, or write a letter to their representatives and urge them to demand that KOSA be put up for a vote before the holiday recess. 

We applaud Australia for stepping up and doing the right thing. 

— Jon

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Why Australia is Setting a Minimum Age of 16 for Creating Social Media Accounts

Last week, the Australian Government introduced legislation into parliament to set a minimum age of 16 for young people to open accounts on social media platforms. Social media is doing social harm. Our government’s goal is to ensure that young Australians are not being exploited by harmful and deceptive business practices, and ensure that young people can spend more time enjoying real-world experiences and hanging out with friends without the addictive pull of social media. In this essay I explain why we are acting and what we are doing.

In Australia, the worsening of youth mental health has paralleled the drop in many other Western nations. Inspired by Jonathan Haidt’s book The Anxious Generation, health researcher Steve Robson and I analyzed Australian data on trends in mental disorders, self-harm hospitalisations, and suicide deaths from 2007-2010 (when smartphones and social media emerged) until 2019-2022 (the most recent data available).¹ 

Over the period from 2007-2010 to 2019-2022, the mental wellbeing of young Australians became worse. Much worse. The share of young people reporting a mental disorder rose by 40 per cent for males and 60 per cent for females. Self-harm hospitalizations rose 15 per cent for males and 43 per cent for females. Suicide deaths rose 23 per cent for males and 70 per cent for females. 

The Evidence of Harm

Why do we think that the mass adoption of smartphones and social media is partly to blame for these shocking statistics? A few pieces of Australian evidence point in a similar direction to the data from other nations (particularly the United States) compiled by Haidt and Rausch. In long-running population-wide surveys, it is clear that the drop in mental wellbeing is much larger for young people than for middle aged adults, making it unlikely that we are simply capturing broad economic or social conditions. 

Another piece of evidence is that in Australian observational data, there is a clear dose-response relationship between mental ill-health and usage of social media, with heavy users reporting lower levels of mental wellbeing. Furthermore, when Australian teenagers are asked why they believe mental health problems have worsened, their top answer is “social media,” ranking it above concerns such as “work or study pressure,” “bullying,” or “political, social, and environmental issues.” 

To this, we can add the evidence that comes from natural experiments and randomized trials in other countries. One natural experiment, for example, found that as Facebook rolled out across US university campuses, mental wellbeing among students declined. In randomized trials, akin to the approach used to test new pharmaceuticals, people who forgo social media tend to experience improvement in their levels of anxiety and depression.² 

Acute and Specific Harms of Social Media

While the deterioration of youth mental health has been a key factor in the minds of policymakers, other acute and specific harms experienced by Australians have also surfaced. In 2023, Mac Holdsworth, a Melbourne teenager with dreams of becoming a carpenter, was targeted in a sextortion scheme. He was deceived into sending an explicit photo of himself and then blackmailed through his Snapchat and Instagram accounts. He took his own life on October 24, 2023. 

A year later, Mac’s father, Wayne Holdsworth, launched Unplug24, an initiative calling for a nationwide day of social media silence on October 24, 2024, the anniversary of his son’s death. The Holdsworth family intends to make Unplug24 an annual event. 

Young Australians report online harms at alarmingly high rates. According to research by the office of the eSafety Commissioner, the average Australian child encounters online pornography for the first time at age 13. Young people described unintentional encounters with online pornography (which often includes sexual violence) as frequent, unavoidable and unwelcome.  

Another survey by the office of the eSafety Commissioner asked young people in 2020 about their experiences online in the previous six months. According to the report, forty-four percent of teens experienced at least one negative online incident, including being contacted by a stranger (30 percent), receiving inappropriate content (20 percent), being deliberately excluded from social groups (16 percent), or facing online threats or abuse (15 percent). 

Evidence of benefits from the reduction of smartphones and social media is most clearly seen in Australian schools that have banned smartphones. Anecdotally, smartphone bans have been welcomed by educators, parents and students. At one of the earliest schools to adopt a phone ban, the principal told the media ‘I hadn’t anticipated the level of noise’, noting that ‘There was laughter, people were actually interacting and socialising.’ A year on from the smartphone ban taking effect in New South Wales, Australia’s largest state, a survey of public school principals found that 95 percent supported it.

Yet banning phones in school is not enough—the effect of social media on the lives of young people goes well beyond the thirty or so hours each week that they spend in school. 

In a recent speech, Communications Minister Michelle Rowland pointed to findings from the eSafety Commissioner’s Social Media Pulse Survey. That survey reveals that 84 percent of 8 to 12-year-olds have used at least one social media or messaging service, with 75 per cent accessing traditional social media platforms. Among 9-year-olds who used social media or messaging services, over a quarter had their own account or profile. Additionally, only 13 percent of 8 to 12-year-olds with an account reported having it shut down due to being underage. 

Social media platforms’ lax approach to underage users contrasts with their vigorous enforcement of copyright laws. Upload a copyrighted video, and you can expect it to be removed within minutes. Clearly, social media companies have the skills and tools to regulate who and what is allowed to be on their platforms. But the proliferation of underage users suggests that platforms are devoting little attention to enforcing their own age minimum.

Public Support Builds for a Social Media Age Minimum

A growing international movement is pushing for stronger action to reign in the social media giants. Parents don't just want better parental controls. They want a legislated minimum age for opening social media accounts and becoming customers of these companies. They want appropriate enforcement of age rules by platforms. In August 2024, a survey found that 61 percent of Australians supported banning the use of social media platforms for Australians younger than 17. Sixty-one percent of respondents also felt that social media had made their life worse.

State premiers have helped advance the conversation about limiting young people’s use of social media. In October 2024, the state governments of New South Wales and South Australia partnered to deliver a first of its kind, two-day, two-state summit focused on exploring and addressing the impacts of social media. The summit convened experts, policymakers, academics, young people, and community representatives to explore the impacts of social media.

Alongside the public summit, the Australian Government was consulting extensively with young people, parents, carers, academics, child development experts, community leaders, industry representatives, civil organizations, First Nations youth, and state and territory governments.

Governments Reach Consensus on Age 16

On 8 November 2024, the Australian Government convened National Cabinet, a body comprising federal, state and territory governments, to discuss the issue of setting a minimum age for social media access. All jurisdictions agreed with the policy, and all but one (Tasmania) agreed that the minimum age should be set at 16. While the Tasmanian Government would have preferred a minimum age of 14, it agreed to support the age minimum of 16 to maintain national consistency.

Legislation to implement this reform has now been introduced into parliament. It places responsibility on social media platforms, rather than on parents or young people, to take reasonable steps to ensure essential protections are in place. If they fail to comply, digital platforms face fines of up to A$49.5 million for systemic breaches.

Just as banning mobile phones in school has helped students become more focused in the classroom and more active during playtime, limiting access to social media will extend these positive outcomes beyond school grounds.

There will be a lead time of at least 12 months after the passage of the legislation to enable industry, governments, and the eSafety Commissioner to establish the necessary systems and processes. To prevent a rush to sign up for accounts, there will not be any ‘grandfathering’ of existing accounts. The age minimum will apply to all young Australians across all defined social media platforms. Punishments for breaches will apply to platforms, not users.

The worst effects of social media have been associated with user accounts. So the Australian age restrictions will apply to opening a social media account. The legislation will not regulate viewing social media platforms in a ‘logged out’ state. 

The Bill creates a new definition of ‘age-restricted social media platforms’. This will include Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and X, among others. Certain classes of services will be carved out. In the first instance, the legislation will not apply to messaging apps (which do not have the same risks such as infinite scrolling among content chosen by algorithm), online games (which are regulated under Australia’s National Classification Scheme), and services that primarily function to support the health and education of users (such as Headspace, Kids Helpline, and Google Classroom). The legislation contains flexibility to deal with evolving technology and emerging harms. 

An age assurance trial will inform the technological approach to implementing the new restriction. This transition period will also be used to develop clear guidance for parents, carers, and children ahead of the changes. 

From Legislation to Implementation

Australia’s legislation is a world first. So it’s no surprise that questions have been raised about the effectiveness of age assurance technologies. This will indeed be a challenge, but it is one for which the industry already has the tools. There are dozens of companies currently offering a great variety of age assurance methods. If Australia and other countries require the platforms to enforce minimum ages, the industry will improve the current set of choices rapidly.

Some critics of Australia’s approach have suggested that if it can’t be foolproof, we shouldn’t do it. This is wrong for two reasons. 

First, law reform is replete with examples in which some people seek to circumvent limits. Underage teens drink alcohol. Drivers run red lights. Taxpayers overclaim deductions. Employers underpay workers. Pedestrians jaywalk. People litter. The fact that a law will be tested is not in itself a reason against legislating.

Second, while some children may still find ways to bypass the restrictions, an age minimum for social media has value in establishing a strong societal standard. The age minimum will serve as an important reference point, empowering parents to have meaningful conversations with their children about appropriate online behaviour and setting clear boundaries.

Australia’s social media age minimum will reduce the online harms that are affecting young people. Like phone-free schools, keeping social media out of the lives of under-sixteens will help reduce cyberbullying and online exploitation, and it will improve mental wellbeing. It will encourage more young Australians to step out of the cycle of social media addiction and experience the many joys and opportunities of the physical world and face-to-face communication. And it will stop social media companies from continuing to use predatory business practices to take advantage of vulnerable young people. Australians pride ourselves on our beaches and parks, our love of playing sports and socializing with friends. Less doom-scrolling means more chances to spend our precious hours relishing the remarkable world around us. 

1. Our article is currently under revise and resubmit at the Australian Economic Review.

2. Note from Zach Rausch: The evidence from experimental studies is still hotly debated, with some researchers arguing that there is no evidence of benefits from social media reduction, others saying there is not enough evidence to make any claims, and others (ourselves) who find that the evidence consistently shows benefits to anxiety and depression after sustained reduction. The existence of high-quality experimental studies showing improvements in mental health is not disputed. What is disputed is the meta-analytic evidence around social media reduction studies.