Social Media and Children
- 1 day ago
- 11 min read
Impact, maintaining a healthy relationship, managing issues, suggestions for social work practice
Four sections follow:
Background Material that provides the context for the topic
Suggestions for Practice
A list of Supporting Material / References
Appendix 1: Social media use in Australia—September 2024 to July 21 2026
Feedback welcome!
Background Material
It appears that many social media organisations are resisting recent legislation passed by the Australian Government (and potentially other Governments across the world) to remove young people below the age of 16 years from their social media platform. If interested in the situation in Australia as of July 31, 2026, consult Appendix 1 at the end of this post.
In implementing the social media ban the Australian Government was responding to concerns of the wider community about the negative impacts of social media on a significant number of young people. Even if Governments across the world are successful in preventing young people from accessing certain social media sites, becoming aware of the pitfalls around using social media will still remain relevant for parents and the wider community for two main reasons: (i) It appears young people may still be able to access social media for some time into the future, despite the bans that are imposed on social media organisations (see the eSafety Commissioner’s report (2026c) for an outline of the steps social media platforms have taken to allow young people to stay connected), (ii) Even if a ban becomes effective for children less than 16-years old, young people will ultimately need education into how to manage social media contact once they reach the age of 16. The issues around social media use that led to the Australian Government imposing restrictions on organisations will not disappear once young people turn 16.
Social media impact on young people
As screen time increases, mental wellbeing tends to decline, with young people reporting lower life satisfaction. This is because of how they use screens, the content they see and whether screen use crowds out sleep, physical activity or offline relationships. The primary risks of social media for young people arise through cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, and social comparison (University of Queensland, 2026).
Some of the signals of mental wellbeing decline include mood changes, irritability, withdrawal, sleep problems and feeling distressed after being online. If these symptoms occur alongside increased screen use, or if they are unusually intense or persistent, they may be due to screen use. Depending on the specific nature of a young person’s social media use, recent research suggests that social media is linked to small but real effects on anxiety and depression, risky behaviour (e.g. self-injurious thoughts and behaviours), low self-esteem (e.g. body image problems), sleep disorders, lower subjective wellbeing, envy and loneliness (MHA, 2026; University of Queensland, 2026).
Social media has this impact because of its design, and its potential to impact a young person’s self-identity and sense of belonging, and overall healthy lifestyle. The algorithm used by social media is designed to keep users scrolling for as long as possible. The algorithm also taps into what young people display interest in and provides more of that content. This can include content that is harmful, e.g. alcohol, gambling, fast food, crypto and vaping (University of Queensland, 2026).
Social media can also shape how a young people see themselves. Young people’s identities have always been shaped by their environments: home, school, friend groups, sports teams, and local communities. When used, social media becomes another of those factors – for better or for worse. While young people can maintain friendships, find others of like mind and express their creativity through social media, it can also intensify pressure to be someone the young person is not. It can overemphasise appearance, popularity, present extreme content and distort perceptions of what is normal (MHA, 2026; University of Queensland, 2026).
Sleep is one of the clearest pathways through which social media may affect mental health. Night-time social media use can delay sleep onset, fragment sleep through notifications, increase emotional arousal and create a pattern in which the adolescent wakes already depleted. Since poor sleep is itself a risk factor for depression, anxiety, emotional dysregulation and impaired school functioning, bedtime media use deserves direct intervention, but as an emotion-regulation issue, not as a moral failure (MHA, 2026).
As well as loss of sleep, screen use can reduce physical activity, and impact on diet by exposing young people to food advertising, by encouraging snacking, and reducing time for meals (University of Queensland, 2026).
It can allow cyberbullying (e.g. being removed from group chats, left on read, mocked in private stories, impersonated, pressured for images, screenshotted, sub tweeted, excluded from events, or targeted through anonymous question tools) (MHA, 2026).
Some young people can benefit from social media use. For some young people, online spaces provide forms of support unavailable offline. Social media can support friendship maintenance, identity exploration, creativity, humour, civic engagement, help-seeking and access to psychoeducation. Those who maintain close off-screen relationships, who use social media in moderation to educate themselves and find communities they cannot find offline, might benefit from social media use. But the harm to most young people from social media use doesn’t offset any benefits they receive (MHA, 2026; University of Queensland, 2026).
What can young people and their parents do to maintain a healthy relationship with social media?
In Australia (and other countries) where a social media “ban” is in place, the issues outlined above may gradually disappear. However, young people can be creative, and media reports suggest they are already finding ways around the restrictions imposed on the social media organisations. So, it is wise to consider how to support young people to have a healthy relationship with social media, regardless of government restrictions, for two reasons. First, they can access approved social media sites that may not have the approach of sites used by the wider community and, therefore, less potential for causing harm. Second, when young people turn 16 years they will be able to access this restricted social media. As the University of Queensland (2026) and Mental Health Academy (MHA, 2026) suggest, there is a need build digital resilience and digital literacy before young people turn 16. They should be taught about social media “so they know what to expect when they join—how to navigate a system that was designed as a commercial venture to make money, not with users’ wellbeing in mind” (University of Queensland, 2026).
The overall aim should be for social media to be one aspect of young people’s balanced daily routine. The goal is to support identity and belonging with safeguards – healthier feeds, kinder communities, and strong offline anchors such as sport, clubs, and family connection. Parents should keep open communication with young people and take a non-judgemental interest in their online life. They should move past strict screen limits and focus on healthy use patterns, for example:
Protect sleep (no phones in bed or phone charging in the bedroom, create a consistent wind-down evening routine).
Switch off non-essential notifications.
Curate feeds by muting or unfollowing accounts that trigger comparison or distress.
Use privacy and safety settings to reduce unwanted contact.
Encourage active, purposeful use (messaging, creating, learning) rather than endless, passive scrolling.
Regularly check in about how different platforms are making young people feel.
Prioritise physical activity, outdoor activities and offline social routines over recreational scrolling (University of Queensland, 2026).
When issues arise
Even if healthy use patterns are in place, issues can arise. When this occurs, the following options may assist.
Normalise help-seeking. Reach out for external support when necessary, e.g. a GP or psychologist, as screens may not be the only problem.
Work together with the young person to set expectations—limits and boundaries are most effective when young people feel heard and involved.
Check in with the young person if they’re using social media more often than usual. Heavy screen use can indicate a young person is struggling.
Remain open, calm and honest when talking to a young person about their social media use.
Teach the young person how to recognise cyberbullying, block or report harmful content, and report serious online abuse through (in Australia) eSafety at https://www.esafety.gov.au/report.
Use screens to bond. Watch something with the young person, ask questions about the games they play to understand young people’s online world (University of Queensland, 2026).
Suggestions for Practice
For health professionals, social media should be assessed much like sleep, school, family functioning, peer relationships, substance use or trauma exposure. The task is not to demonise online life, but to understand how it is functioning in a young person. Explore what social media is doing for the young person, what it is doing to them, and what would need to change for their online life to better support sleep, safety, identity, relationships, and emotional regulation (MHA, 2026).
A practical assessment framework for clinicians
Social media assessment can be integrated into ordinary biopsychosocial formulation. The following domains are more clinically useful and emphasise that hours online are not necessarily the problem; it is the impact that these hours have on sleep, safety, identity, relationships and emotional regulation that could be the problem. MHA (2026) suggests the following assessment approach:
Pattern Ask which platforms the adolescent uses, when they use them, and what they are usually doing. Distinguish direct messaging, passive scrolling, posting, short-form video consumption, image-based browsing, fandom, gaming-adjacent communities, activism, anonymous forums, and school-related groups.
Function Ask what social media helps the adolescent get, avoid, prove, or regulate. Common functions include soothing, numbing, belonging, distraction, reassurance, comparison, status management, and surveillance of peers.
Emotional aftertaste Ask: “When you close the app, do you usually feel better, worse, calmer, more anxious, connected, excluded, or just blank?” This helps differentiate restorative connection from compulsive or dysregulating use.
Sleep and body rhythms Assess bedtime access, night waking, notifications, morning fatigue, meal disruption, exercise displacement, and family conflict. Adopt personalised family media planning rather than one-size-fits-all rules.
Harmful content and contact Screen for self-harm content, eating-disorder content, sexual coercion, image-based abuse, cyberbullying, discrimination, hate, gambling-like reward loops, extremist content, and adult contact. Escalate when there is suicidal ideation, coercion, threats, exploitation, severe sleep disruption, or significant deterioration in eating, school attendance, or functioning.
Protective online use Ask: “Where online do you feel genuinely supported, creative, informed or like yourself?” This prevents the assessment from becoming a one-way interrogation about risk.
Interventions that show promise
“Sleep-first” media planning For many young people, the highest-yield intervention is protecting sleep. This may include charging devices outside the bedroom, disabling notifications, limit app use after a set time, creating a family-wide digital sunset, or replacing late-night scrolling with a predictable regulation routine. A useful comment: “I’m not asking whether social media is good or bad. I’m asking whether your brain gets a fair chance to recover at night.”
Feed restructuring and algorithmic hygiene Clinicians can help young people conduct a “feed audit”. The goal is to identify content that worsens shame, anxiety, anger, exclusion, or compulsive checking, and to intentionally increase content that supports values, creativity, humour, learning, identity, or healthy connection. A simple social media audit:
Platform I use most:
Three accounts or content types that usually worsen my mood:
Three accounts or content types that support my wellbeing or values:
What I notice in my body after scrolling:
What I will mute, unfollow, restrict or block:
What I will intentionally add:
One no-phone zone:
One no-phone time:
One person who can help me stick to this:
What to review in two weeks:
This intervention is clinically coherent because it targets content, affect and agency, rather than relying only on blunt time limits.
Body image and social comparison work For young people affected by appearance-based comparison, clinicians can help young people identify the comparison loop: trigger, content, thought, body sensation, behaviour, and after-effect. “Let’s separate what you saw from what your brain concluded. The post showed an edited image. Your brain concluded, ‘I am behind, ugly, and unwanted.’ That conclusion deserves examination.”
Cyberbullying and online harm response planning A cyberbullying plan should be concrete and rehearsed before crisis escalates:
Preserve evidence through screenshots.
Avoid retaliating while emotionally escalated.
Block, mute, or restrict where appropriate.
Report through platform and school channels.
Identify one calm adult who will help.
Assess self-harm risk, school refusal, and safety.
Involve caregivers without automatically removing all autonomy from the young person.
The clinician’s stance should be validating and practical: online harm is real, and the young person should not have to solve it alone.
References
ABC: Australian Broadcasting Corporation. (2026, July 31). Most teens still on social media three months after under-16 ban began, study finds. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-31/most-australian-teens-still-on-social-media-after-ban/106983414
eSafety Commissioner. (2025). Behind the screen: The reality of age assurance and social media access for young Australians. Australian Government. https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2025-02/Behind-the-screen-transparency-report-Feb2025.pdf
eSafety Commissioner. (2026a). Children and social media. Australian Government. https://www.esafety.gov.au/research/children-and-social-media
eSafety Commissioner. (2026b). Social media age restrictions. Australian Government. https://www.esafety.gov.au/about-us/industry-regulation/social-media-age-restrictions
eSafety Commissioner (2026c). Social media minimum age: Compliance update. https://www.esafety.gov.au/sites/default/files/2026-03/SocialMediaMinimumAgeComplianceUpdateMarch2026.pdf
MHA: Mental Health Academy. (2026). Teen social media use and mental health: A clinical guide beyond the noise. https://www.mentalhealthacademy.com.au/blog/teen-social-media-and-mental-health-a-clinical-guide-beyond-the-noise
University of Queensland. (2026). How does social media affect teenagers? https://study.uq.edu.au/stories/how-social-media-affects-teenagers
Appendix 1
Social media use—September 2024 to July 2026—in Australia
The Survey
This research draws on data from eSafety’s ‘Children and Social Media Survey’ and ‘Social Media Minimum Age: Compliance update’. The survey, conducted in September 2024, with a nationally representative sample of 8 to 15-year-olds living in Australia, explored the use of social media and messaging services by young people since the beginning of 2024. A total of 1,504 children participated in the survey, with most being 8 to 12-year-olds (1,049) and the rest being 13 to 15-year-olds (455).
The survey found that most 8- to 12-year-old children in Australia have used social media or messaging services. The most popular services were YouTube (68%), TikTok (31% and Snapchat (19%). 84% of children aged 8 to 12 had used at least one social media or messaging service since the beginning of the year. This was despite being under the age limit of 13+. The research found:
40% of children who had used social media or messaging services had their own account on at least one of these services.
58% of children accessed one or more social media services via their parent’s or carer’s account(s).
Many children (80%) who said that they currently had a social media or messaging account(s) had help setting up their account(s) – with this help mostly coming from parents or carers.
Where children go undetected on services which were not designed with their safety in mind, they may be exposed to harmful material and activity that they are not developmentally ready for, nor equipped to manage and process (eSafety Commissioner, 2026a).
The Response
In response to the above survey the Australian Government, legislated that from December 10, 2025 “age-restricted social media platforms need to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or keeping an account” (eSafety Commissioner, 2026b). The social media age restrictions aim to protect young Australians (less than 16 years old) from pressures and risks that users can be exposed to while logged in to social media accounts. These come from design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing (eSafety Commissioner, 2026b). The overall impact of social media use on young people, the motivation for the age restriction legislation, is outlined below.
In November 2025, the age restrictions applied to Facebook, Instagram, Kick, Reddit, Snapchat, Threads, TikTok, Twitch, X (formerly Twitter) and YouTube. Social media platforms that were not age-restricted were Discord, GitHub, Google Classroom, LEGO play, Messenger, Pinterest, Roblox, Steam and Steam Chat, WhatsAppp and YouTube Kids. Some platforms considered themselves age-restricted and agreed to being listed in this category: BlueSky, Match services (Tinder, Hinge, OKCupid, Plenty of Fist, Match.com and Azar), Yubo, Wizz, Lemon8, and BigoLive. Online gaming and standalone messaging apps were excluded from these restricted lists (eSafety Commissioner, 2026b).
Update July 31, 2026—Early Insights
Between 19 January and 2 February 2026, eSafety surveyed 898 parents and carers of children aged 8 to 15 years to derive key early insights into children’s experiences of the social media minimum age obligation from the perspective of their parents and carers. Of the parents who reported their child had an account on each platform prior to 10 December 2025, around 7 in 10 reported that their child still had an account on various social media platforms. Around 3 in 10 reported that their child no longer had an account (eSafety Commissioner, 2026c). In fact, “Most under-16s who had social media accounts before commencement were able to either retain them or create new ones at the three-month mark, with social media platforms' failure to implement effective age assurance measures cited as the main reason.” (ABC, 2026, quoting eSafety Commissioner). Before the ban, nearly 86 per cent of children surveyed reported using at least one age-restricted platform. Three months later, that figure remained above 81 per cent. The government has announced it will double the maximum penalty on tech firms that fail to uphold the ban and strengthen the eSafety commissioner's information-gathering powers (ABC, 2026).
