Blanket bans on social media for teens — like the one introduced by Australia in 2025 — are ‘unlikely to be the best answer’, according to the author of a new paper on young people’s wellbeing.
Dr Ben Singh was the lead researcher of a study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, that used government survey data to look into how children’s wellbeing correlated with after-school social media use.
‘Our findings suggest that complete avoidance isn’t always protective, especially for older adolescents,’ explained Singh. He argued that banning children or teenagers was ‘unlikely to be the best answer’, and that a more effective solution would likely involve ‘appropriate limits, delaying access for younger children, and helping young people learn how to use social media in healthy ways’.
Australia, where the surveys were carried out, introduced an age restriction on social media in December, and other countries, including the UK, are considering doing the same. Meanwhile, social media companies continue to argue their corner against accusations that their platforms are addictive or otherwise deleterious to emotional or mental health.
This week TikTok settled a youth social media addiction case out of court, hours before the trial was scheduled — with some speculating that this may have been in order to evade precedent being set.
‘TikTok’s settlement allows the company to sidestep the first-ever US jury trial that will force social media companies to confront allegations that they negligently created products that cause addiction, depression and other harms,’ said Tyler Katzenberger, a technology reporter writing for Politico.
Similar cases against Meta and Snap are still expected to go to trial, however. Attorney Matthew Bergman, of the Social Media Victims Law Center, which brought the cases, has alleged that the platforms (namely those owned by Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube) are addictive, and that once users are unable to quit the habit they begin to develop further mental health problems including eating disorders and depression.
But ‘for most young people, social media isn’t addictive in a clinical sense,’ said Singh. Nonethess, he added, ‘there is good evidence that a small subgroup experience problematic or compulsive use, and this is where the real mental health risks lie. These patterns are more about loss of control and emotional reliance than time alone. Labelling all social media use as “addictive” oversimplifies the issue and may distract from identifying the young people who genuinely need support.’
One of the clearest findings from Singh’s paper was that there is a ‘sweet spot’ for social media use, where ‘teenagers who used social media in moderation consistently had the best wellbeing’.
‘Both heavy use (around two or more hours each weekday after school) and no use at all were linked with poorer outcomes,’ he said. ‘This pattern showed up across all the areas we measured, including happiness, life satisfaction, emotional control, and engagement at school. It suggests that what really matters isn’t just how long teens are online, but how social media fits into their daily lives.’
Where this ‘sweet spot’ lies did vary significantly between affinity groups, though, particularly between age ranges and genders.
Singh explained: ‘For girls, especially in early to mid-adolescence, heavy social media use was strongly linked with poorer wellbeing. For example, girls in Years seven-to-nine who were heavy users had about three times the risk of low wellbeing compared with those who used social media in moderation.
‘For boys, the pattern was different. While very high use was linked with poorer wellbeing earlier on, by late adolescence it was boys who didn’t use social media at all who showed the worst outcomes. In Years 10-12, boys with no social media use had around three times the risk of low wellbeing compared with moderate users. This suggests that for older boys, being disconnected from social media may also mean being disconnected socially.’
Last year, one study published in Journal of Public Health found that the impact of mental health on social media usage was also split between genders, with boys who showed symptoms of mental health problems being significantly more likely to decrease the amount of time they spent on social platforms and online video games within the next year.
On 19 Jan, the UK government announced a consultation on children’s social media use, including a proposal to ban social media for under-18s. Three days later, Conservative peer Lord Nash told the House of Lords: ‘We face nothing short of a societal catastrophe caused by the fact that so many of our children are addicted to social media. Many teenagers are spending long hours — five, six, seven or more a day — on social media. The evidence of the damage this is causing is now overwhelming. We have long passed the point of correlation or causation. There is now so much evidence from across the world that it is clear that, by every metric—health, cognitive ability, educational attainment, crime and economic productivity—children are being harmed.’
This new study contradicts that narrative. Its authors conclude: ‘Both abstinence and heavy use can be problematic and […] the impact of social media is contingent on age and sex. Public health recommendations should therefore move beyond simple time-based limits to promote healthy, balanced, and purposeful digital engagement as part of a broader strategy to support adolescent well-being.’
Two-hundred-and-sixty-one UK peers voted to amend the upcoming schools bill to include a ban on under-16s accessing social media. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer confirmed that the Government ‘won’t accept the amendment’, but many Labour MPs have confirmed that they are in favour of the ban — despite opposition from children’s charities including the NSPCC.
A joint statement from these organisations reads: ‘Banning children from social media risks an array of unintended consequences. It would create a false sense of safety that would see children — but also the threats to them — migrate to other areas online. Children aged 16 would face a dangerous cliff edge when they start to use high-risk platforms, with girls particularly being exposed to a range of threats from misogyny to sexual abuse.
‘Social media bans would offer limited protection from the toxic effects of algorithms, but children — including LGBTQ and neurodiverse children — also require platforms for connection, self-identity, peer support and access to trusted sources of advice and help (including Childline).
‘A social media ban is not the answer. Instead, an approach which is both broader and more targeted is needed.’
Social Media Use and Well-Being Across Adolescent Development was written by Ben Singh, PhD, Mason Zhou, BSc, Rachel Curtis, PhD, Carol Maher, PhD, and Dorothea Dumuid, PhD, and published in JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association)Pediatrics on 12 Jan 2026.
Image by Vanessa Loring.