{"id":738015,"date":"2026-06-15T12:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738015\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T12:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T12:08:08","slug":"how-australias-social-media-ban-has-affected-families-six-months-on-social-media-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/738015\/","title":{"rendered":"How Australia\u2019s social media ban has affected families six months on | Social media bans"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has confirmed a social media ban for under-16s<\/a> in the UK. It is now six months since Australia introduced its ban.<\/a><\/p>\n

While supporters say it is helping to protect young people online, critics argue many teenagers are still using social media<\/a> and that the restrictions are difficult to enforce.<\/p>\n

We asked parents and carers in Australia about how the ban has affected their families.<\/p>\n

Here are some of their responses.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think it is worthwhile\u2019<\/p>\n

Freya, 44, from Melbourne, says the ban had given her \u201can extra tool in the battle against devices\u201d with her children, aged 12 and 14.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ban has highlighted to my kids that there are genuine reasons why young people should be wary of social media,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s not just that their mum is old and doesn\u2019t get it. It\u2019s reduced arguments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freya says the impact of the ban depends on the child\u2019s age. \u201cWith my 12-year-old, it\u2019s more iPad-based, so it\u2019s not a constant scroll. Phones are a bit more insidious.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freya says that TikTok and Snapchat are the most popular among her children and their friends, but their social media use \u2013 and peer pressure to use it \u2013 has reduced since the ban: \u201cI don\u2019t get the argument of \u2018so-and-so has TikTok\u2019 as much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Freya acknowledges she cannot always control what her children see online. \u201cI have a sneaking suspicion that my daughter is still on Snapchat,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s one girl that my daughter knows who\u2019s on TikTok. I think they gather around her on the bus to look at her phone.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ban is \u201cstill worth having\u201d, she says. \u201cNo legislation can eliminate any behaviour \u2013 look at vaping or underage drinking. But it does make things more difficult. Does it work 100%? No. Is it worthwhile? Yes, I think it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

The social media ban slogan \u2018Let Them Be Kids\u2019 is projected on to Sydney Harbour Bridge in December. Photograph: Mick Tsikas\/AP\u2018The ban has failed\u2019<\/p>\n

Boris*, who is the father of two children aged 11 and 13, feels the social media ban has failed, and the legislation is toothless.<\/p>\n

He says the more tech-savvy kids can get around the ban, adding that many of his son\u2019s friends are still on social media. He cites his 13-year-old son, who says he feels left out as the teenager is \u201cthe only one not on\u201d Snapchat, adding that \u201call his friends are using it\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s ridiculous that you can bring in this legislation that you can so easily get around,\u201d he says. \u201cApparently, the whole thing is seen as a joke by teenagers and has stopped nothing. Why bother introducing legislation if you\u2019re not going to be strict about enforcing it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Boris, who is in his forties, lives in Brisbane and works in the design industry, thought his family were \u201clucky\u201d that the legislation came into force just as his children were at the age when social media became appealing. And while he says the ban has been useful to refer to when framing discussions on the subject with them, he is \u201cmostly disappointed\u201d with how it has panned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel strongly about protecting our children and young teenagers from phone and online addiction, and we as parents are very protective about how we control our children\u2019s access to digital technologies,\u201d he says. \u201cBut I can only see this ban now as a failure of implementation of what should have been a paradigm shift in how we protect our younger generations from digital addiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I think that, given time, it will have a positive effect\u2019<\/p>\n

Simon* has two children aged 12 and 16. He says he is in favour of the ban and reflects on how one of his children has had social media since starting high school, while the other has not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the ban was introduced, one child was 15, and the other was 11,\u201d says Simon, who lives in Perth. \u201cOur older son had an iPad in primary school, but never had a mobile phone. Once he got to high school, we let him have a phone, and pretty much all the kids at that age were on Snapchat and TikTok.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon set up parental controls and \u201ckept an eye on who he [his oldest son] was connecting with\u201d. In contrast, his youngest son got to high school age just as the ban was coming into force.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe got a mobile phone, and he just understood that he won\u2019t have that [access to social media],\u201d says Simon. \u201cHe\u2019s not even asked. He talks to his friends on WhatsApp and watches a bit of YouTube, but doesn\u2019t have an account. It has been a completely different experience for him. I don\u2019t think social media has been hugely negative for my older son, but I would rather he didn\u2019t default to doomscrolling when he doesn\u2019t have other things to do. I am a lot more positive about my younger son\u2019s internet use.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon thinks a lot of the commentary on the social media ban has been negative.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that people need to be patient,\u201d he says. \u201cThe kids who are already on social media are not really the target; it\u2019s the younger generation. It would also be naive to think it is going to be 100% effective from the get-go. I think that, given time, it will have a positive effect. It is going to be a cultural change over time as opposed to the immediate flicking of a switch.\u201d<\/p>\n

One parent in Melbourne says her children have managed to circumvent TikTok and Instagram\u2019s age verification technology. Photograph: AFP\/Getty Images\u2018They interact less with friends after school and on weekends\u2019<\/p>\n

Elizabeth*, from Melbourne, says the social media ban has not reduced usage for her two 15-year-olds, who were on Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok at the time the ban came in. She says her children have since managed to circumvent TikTok and Instagram\u2019s age verification technology, although \u201cboth lost access to Snapchat\u201d.<\/p>\n

Her 13-year-old was \u201cless affected\u201d by the ban, she says, as he was not using social media at the time. \u201cIt is likely that the ban will delay his first use,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth points out that the ban could lead to social isolation for some children. \u201cSnapchat was the main way my 15-year-olds interacted with friends in group chats, so they now interact less with friends after school and on weekends,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Her children also have friends living abroad who are members of a Snapchat group chat that they are now excluded from. \u201cWe recently lived overseas, and my son and daughter are upset to be excluded from Snapchat and the ability to do \u2018snap streaks\u2019. That group of friends [outside Australia] have low motivation to move to another platform, such as WhatsApp, because the group isn\u2019t impacted by the ban.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018It has made monitoring more difficult\u2019<\/p>\n

The ban has done \u201cmore harm than good\u201d, says Edward*, a single father of a 14-year-old in Canberra. \u201cIt has made monitoring and managing device use even more difficult,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Edward, 45, says his son still uses favourite platform YouTube, just without signing in. \u201cMy son\u2019s YouTube account used to be governed by parental controls. An algorithm that I could see was serving him content he was interested in and was reasonable. Now I can\u2019t restrict channels and he only gets served the most popular slop on the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Edward says his son does not mind the ban much. \u201cHe\u2019s actually thanked me for keeping him off TikTok, for example, because his friends still have their accounts and tell him about the stuff they see on there. We\u2019re talking pretty abysmal things.\u201d Edward says he would have preferred other measures than an all-out ban. \u201cAll that needed to be done was to mandate minimum standards for free parental controls for services and platforms, and provide training on their use.\u201d<\/p>\n

*Names have been changed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British prime minister, Keir Starmer, has confirmed a social media ban for under-16s in the UK. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-738015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}