‘We cannot ban our way out of a youth mental health crisis’: social media bans for teenagers lack evidence and pose risks, scientists say

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Their proponents claim that social media bans will improve young people’s mental health, but what evidence supports these claims? In their new Frontiers in Developmental Psychology article, Dr Monika Neff Lind and her co-authors argue that there is no solid scientific evidence behind these bans, and reason to believe they could backfire. In this guest editorial, Neff Lind explains why she and her colleagues doubt that social media bans will work, and how bans should be evaluated to determine whether they have any positive effects.By Monika Neff Lind, PhDIn December 2025, Australia banned young people under 16 from having social media accounts. France, Greece, Spain, Denmark, Malaysia, Norway, India, Egypt, Canada, Türkiye, and the United Kingdom are hot on their heels. French president Emmanuel Macron said, “Banning social media for those under 15: this is what scientists recommend.” American senator Brian Schatz, author of the Kids Off Social Media Act, said, “Studies have revealed that when children and teens reduce or eliminate exposure to social media for longer than a month, their mental health benefits.” Proponents of youth social media bans claim that we have strong scientific evidence showing that bans will improve teenagers’ wellbeing. As a clinical psychologist and parent, I would be thrilled if this were true, but it is not. We do not know how social media bans will affect youth because we have never studied that question. Let me explain.Searching for evidenceWhen we want to test claims like ‘banning social media improves youth wellbeing’, scientific experiments are one of our most powerful tools to figure out what is causing something to happen. In experiments testing the effects of social media restriction on wellbeing, we randomly assign people to at least two groups: one quits using social media for a period of time and the other is the control or comparison group, which continues to use social media as usual. Given the strength of ban proponents’ claims, my co-authors and I were curious to know how strong the experimental evidence supporting their position was. In our new study, we collected and reviewed all of the experiments that have tested whether social media restriction improves wellbeing, and we were shocked by what we found.Not a single social media restriction experiment has included people under the age of 16. We do not know how social media bans will affect the young people being targeted by them because we have never tested this with them! To be fair, sometimes strong evidence in adults warrants making the leap to apply the same conclusions to teenagers. But even that leap is not justified here. The experiments with adults show weak, null, and mixed effects, with 40% of experimental studies showing harmful effects (eg, decreased life satisfaction and increased loneliness) or no effects of social media restriction. So even when adults are told repeatedly that social media is bad for their mental health and that giving it up will help, we find, on average, few to no benefits.Read and download the original articleUnintended consequences?There is also good reason to believe that bans may backfire. First, enforcing a youth social media ban raises major ethical concerns. Enforcement efforts invade people’s privacy and are likely to hurt marginalized people more. For example, the technology that determines age based on selfie uploads makes more mistakes with young faces and people of color. Banned youth may also miss out on important resources and communications provided via social media, as schools, clubs, and most other youth-serving organizations use social media as a main form of communication.What happens when enforcement efforts fail? Many young people will circumvent bans by creating fraudulent ‘adult’ accounts or lurking anonymously. They will retain access to social media without any of the benefits of parental controls or content filters enabled by youth accounts. The vast majority of young people oppose youth social media bans, and teens are well known for their defiance of top-down edicts that disregard their needs. Expect more conflict between teens and caregivers, not less.To recap, we don’t know how social media bans will affect teens, and the bans may backfire. Yet the bans are still happening! Like other policies that consume resources, political capital, and time, it is imperative for governments to evaluate these actions by funding comprehensive assessments of the bans’ impacts. What next?The first step in measuring the impact of these bans is to determine if the bans actually change teenagers’ social media habits. Three months in, Australian authorities reported that close to 70% of social media accounts owned by people under 16 remained active. Second, we need a careful and well-resourced plan to measure both positive well-being and mental health problems from multiple sources, including self-report, caregiver report, and objective behavioral data, to get a full picture of whether and how altered social media use affects youth. Third, we need creative approaches to capture the real-world impacts of the bans, since true experiments are not possible and effects may be at the community as well as the individual level. For example, we could randomly assign a subset of youth (eg within a certain region) to delayed enactment of the ban. Whatever approach is taken, governments must collaborate with diverse stakeholders – including young people – to rigorously and openly evaluate potential impacts. Rushed or improvised assessment will leave room for politicization and motivated reasoning.Big Tech has become infamous for ‘moving fast and breaking things’. Policymakers rushing to enact these bans risk repeating Big Tech’s mistakes and compounding the problems the bans are trying to solve. We cannot ban our way out of a youth mental health crisis. Rather than take things away, we should make things better.About the authorDr Monika Neff Lind is a clinical psychologist, science communicator, and researcher in digital mental health based at the University of California Irvine. See more of her work here. REPUBLISHING GUIDELINES: Open access and sharing research is part of Frontiers’ mission. Unless otherwise noted, you can republish articles posted in the Frontiers news site — as long as you include a link back to the original research. Selling the articles is not allowed. 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Scientists argue that bans on social media usage for teenagers do not provide sufficient evidence and carry potential risks concerning youth mental health. Dr. Monika Neff Lind and her co-authors suggest that there is no solid scientific basis to support the claim that such bans will improve well-being, and they caution that these policies could have adverse effects.

The rationale behind the skepticism stems from a review of existing experimental evidence. To test claims about social media restriction and wellbeing, scientific methods typically involve random assignment to groups, but the proposed bans fail to account for the specific context of adolescents. The authors noted that no studies involving individuals under the age of sixteen have been conducted to evaluate the effects of social media restriction, making it impossible to determine how such bans will impact this group. Furthermore, existing studies involving adults have yielded weak, null, or mixed effects, with some experimental research indicating harmful outcomes such as decreased life satisfaction and increased loneliness following social media restriction, even when adults are advised that reducing exposure will be beneficial.

Beyond the lack of direct evidence, the authors raise concerns regarding the unintended consequences of implementing youth social media bans. Enforcement of such bans introduces significant ethical issues, primarily concerning privacy, as monitoring and enforcement can negatively affect marginalized populations, especially when technology used for age determination, such as analysis of selfie uploads, may introduce inaccuracies for young people and people of color. Moreover, banning access may cause excluded young people to miss out on crucial resources and communications provided through social media platforms by educational institutions and youth-serving organizations. There is also a risk that enforcement failures could lead to circumvention, where teenagers create fraudulent accounts to maintain access without benefiting from parental controls or content filters. Consequently, such bans may increase conflict between adolescents and caregivers rather than reduce it.

To address these concerns, the authors emphasize the necessity for governments to conduct comprehensive assessments of any proposed bans by allocating resources. Measuring the impact requires understanding how these restrictions actually change social media habits, necessitating a careful plan to measure both positive well-being outcomes and mental health issues using diverse data sources, including self-reports, caregiver accounts, and objective behavioral data. Since true experiments are impractical, creative approaches are needed to capture real-world effects at both individual and community levels, potentially involving randomized approaches or delayed enactment of policies. Ultimately, any assessment must involve collaboration with diverse stakeholders, including young people, to ensure that evaluations are rigorous and transparent, avoiding rushed or politicized reasoning. Instead of resorting to prohibition, the authors advocate for a shift in policy focus toward creating a better social media environment.