In December 2025, Australia became the first country to bar anyone under 16 from keeping or making social media accounts. The penalty for companies violating the law is a fine of up to $49.5 million AUD ($34.9 million USD).
The goal is “to protect young Australians from pressures and risks” that emerge from social media use, according to the government’s eSafety Commissioner website. Risks include “design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens” and harmful content they might encounter.
Companies like Meta, TikTok and Snap have said that they oppose the age limits, but will comply. In a recent op-ed for the Financial Times, Snap CEO Evan Spiegel wrote that “compliance with the law does not guarantee that Australian teens will be safer or better off.”
Around the world, other countries are following suit.
Malaysia began barring kids under 16 from creating social media accounts in January, and Spain began doing so in February. Countries like Greece, France, and Denmark are currently working on their own restrictions for under 15 or 16-year-olds as well.
Given this domino effect, could the U.S. be the next country to outlaw teens from using various social media platforms?
That’s very likely, says Ravi Iyer, managing director of the USC Marshall’s School Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and policy advisor at Jonathan Haidt’s Anxious Generation Movement.
Here’s what he and Holly Grosshans, senior counsel for tech policy at the nonprofit Common Sense Media, think could happen.
Social media ‘has contributed to this full-blown youth mental health crisis’
In the U.S. and worldwide, people are worried about the toll this tech has taken on young people.
Legislators and parents alike “have seen that [social media use] has contributed to this full-blown youth mental health crisis,” says Grosshans.
A 2018 study of half a million adolescents published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science found that depressive symptoms increased between 2010 and 2015, and that adolescents who spent more time on social media were more likely to report mental health issues.
Though companies like Meta have introduced safety features for young users, these age limits solve a problem for both kids and parents, says Iyer.
“Parents don’t want to be the one parent saying that their kids can’t be on the platform,” he says, “and kids also don’t want to be the one kid who’s not on a platform.”
‘Almost every single state’ is tackling teen social media use
On a local level, “almost every single state” has taken on some sort of online safety or privacy legislation regarding this tech, says Grosshans.
For some states, it’s about outright age limits. For others, it’s about tackling some component of how social media functions.
Local social media laws include the following:
- Florida prohibits kids younger than 14 from creating a social media account and kids 14 and 15-years-old from creating an account without parental consent.
- In Virginia, companies must limit the use of their platforms for kids younger than 16 to one hour per day.
- California prohibits online platforms from knowingly providing an addictive feed to a minor without parental consent. It also prohibits social media platforms from sending minors notifications during school hours and late at night.
- In New York, social media platforms that offer addictive feeds, autoplay or infinite scroll must post warning labels.
Big picture, 40 states and Washington, D.C., have also banned or partially banned phones from schools.
‘It’s almost inevitable’ that a federal age limit will be enacted
On a federal level, according to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, sites must obtain parental consent before allowing children under the age of 13 to create an account.
A court can hold operators who violate COPPA liable for a penalty of up to $53,088 per violation.
Grosshans is not convinced a law barring kids from creating profiles on social media sites altogether could pass on a federal level.
“The tech lobby is really, really strong,” she says. And laws around access to information are different in the U.S. than they are abroad.
But Iyer is optimistic. “I would say it’s almost inevitable,” he says.
Whatever version of that law could be passed nationally, “it’s one of the last bipartisan issues that I think we have in this country.”
For parents hoping to quell their kids’ social media use, Haidt would avoid giving them smartphones before high school and forbid social media use before the age of 16. And psychologist Jean Twenge would ban devices from kids’ bedrooms overnight altogether.
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