Social media is now a normal part of everyday life for almost every human. The day starts by getting your phone and opening Instagram, Facebook, X and Snapchat to see what you missed overnight. The fear of missing out (FOMO) has completely taken over. This is exactly the same for Australian teenagers who are now facing a ban on social media for those under the age of 16. The social media ban comes into place on December 1st 2025 all over Australia meaning teenagers under the age of 16 are not able to access social media accounts. This is being monitored using proper verification with approved identifications. The Australian government argues the “delay” will allow teenagers to “develop important skills and maturity” (eSafety Commissioner, 2025). Social media platforms in this ban include Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, X, YouTube, TikTok and more. While social media can have positive impacts on mental and physical health, it has more negative impacts which is why we should be protecting young people from it. Youth mental health issues has increased since the expansion of social media as well as physical health complaints. Research shows that social media can have both positive and negative impacts on all people but especially young people.
The overarching opinion of social media and young people’s use of social media is that it is not good for them. This is echoed by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine who conducted a study which found that the high schoolers who had been browsing social media and “engaged in higher levels of negative social comparison” had “significantly worse post-browsing feelings” (Buckley, et.al 2024) than those who had browsed and scrolled less. They further suggest that “comparisons of popularity, happiness, and likeability are part of social media.” This highlights the huge negative impact social media has on mental health, distinctly happiness, which can be faked on social media. Another study shows that there is a potential for “romanticizing” self-harm and promoting a “normalization of self-harm behaviours” (Abi Jaoude, et.al, 2020). The detriment of normalising and romanticising self-harm is extremely significant as it could lead to more people, particularly young people, engaging in self-harm behaviours as they may believe it is a normal part of life. Social media has a way of implying that certain things, such as self-harm behaviours, are a way of life and happen to everyone which is absolutely not the case. Additionally, there are both mental and physical health concerns regarding social media use. Merino and their team suggest that body dissatisfaction can come from social media comparisons, impacting a person’s mental health which comes with a “notable risk” of “developing eating disorders” (Merino, et.al, 2024) such as anorexia, binge eating and bulimia. Similarly, there are widespread concerns for young people’s physical health and use of social media, specifically with brain health as studies show an increase in “headaches” and “eye strain” (Indian Journal of Health, 2023) in those using social media consistently. There is an extensive sense of worry when it comes to exposing young people to these images and comparative behaviours.
While there is a sense of concern around social media use in young people, other research has suggested there are positive benefits to social media use. Rebecca Brown and her team conducting a study which focussed on non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The study found that while adolescents were sharing about their personal NSSI’s or sharing images of them was not to encourage others to engage in those activities but as a way of “connecting [and] receiving empathy]” (Brown, et.al, 2020). This study highlighted that while the young people had engaged in NSSI’s, they were using social media to connect with people who had also gone through those injuries and they helped each other by using empathy. This then gave the young people sense of belonging and allowed them to help others, whilst also helping themselves. It can also be said that social media can enhance mental health of young people by “facilitating social connections and peer support” (Zsila, et.al 2023). This is further explored by stating that online communities can “provide a space for discussions regarding” a number of different topics including health and wellbeing, life events and shared interests. Additionally, they share that “friendships, rewarding social interactions and humour” reduced stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Everyone, including young people, were at home all day everyday bored out of their minds and for some, the only thing they had to communicate with others was social media. It is inevitable that Australian teenagers will find their way around the ban as social media and the digital age has made them quite smart. Social media can provide connection between strong relationships and friendships, and can allow for distance to not be a factor in said friendships with extra means of communication. Although there are many concerns around social media and the health and wellbeing of young people, there are upsides to social media use including the ability to create meaningful relationships and communities and enhancing social skills.
The argument for both sides of the issue are compelling and both hold different degrees of truth to them. While there are upsides to social media use for adolescents, I believe the negative impacts outweigh the positive. Firstly, the mental health concerns overshadow the good parts of social media. Growing up in the digital age, I have seen it all before my very eyes. Seeing young people join social media and immediately compare themselves to others and stressing to the point they are starving themselves, consequently impacting not only their mental health but their physical health as well. Social media comparison can lead to “depression, anxiety,… low self-esteem and negative body image” (Papageorgiou, et.al, 2022) which can be detrimental to young people, especially when the images they are comparing themselves to can be heavily photoshopped and edited. While young adolescents are smarter nowadays, they are still naive and do not always notice when an image is heavily edited or, more so in 2025, if an image is AI (artificial intelligence) generated, therefore there is barely anything real about the image. The combination of social media use, comparison and naivety can be destructive for adolescents bodies and minds. Another detriment to mental health, especially for young girls, is sexual objectification. When on social media from a young age, girls are subjected to being objectified which is harmful to a young woman. This objectification can lead to the “internalisation of conventional ideas of femininity” which can subsequently lead to unwanted thoughts of the way in which a young woman is perceived. Young women will greatly benefit from being away from this world and preserving some sense of innocence.
Secondly, the physical damages to a developing body push all positive impacts off the table immediately. As time goes on, there is becoming more and more online communities that are promoting behaviours of an eating disorder. These communities are “encouraging a thin ideal and/or harmful weight loss” (Fitzsimmons-Craft, et.al 2020) practices. These communities used tags such as “thinspiration” and “fitspiration” to be easily found by users. The content posted to these tags was mildly disturbing, showing women with figures so small you could see every bone in their bodies. This is still being echoed in Hollywood today, as many celebrities and influencers are losing significant amounts of weight to the point where fans are concerned for their wellbeing and their health. The promotion of the ‘skinny lifestyle’ is detrimental to all people, but especially to young people who may not yet realise how damaging those lifestyle choices can be do their mental and physical health and wellbeing. A study conducted by B.Morigine and their team found that 42.85% of people in the study diagnosed with an eating disorder said that social networking “content influence their lifestyle”. Additionally, 71.42% of the same group noted that social medial content increased their feelings of “body uneasiness”. As much as people like to think eating disorders or eating disorder behaviours are not influenced by others, they very much can be. This study was conducted on people with a mean age of 34, underlining that even adults are influenced by what they see on social media. This is alarming as adolescents have less of an understanding of social media, the world that is ‘influencing’ and how damaging it can be. The worries around brain health are additionally just as concerning as the concerns with body health, as headaches and eye strains become more and more common. Blue light glasses became quite popular throughout the pandemic to help with the headaches when using devices, but they are a temporary fix for something that could have an extra underlying issues.
As a young person who found herself on social media by the age of 13, I wish I did not. I wish I had waited a few more years to engage in that side of the digital world. Was it fun to share photos and videos to all my friends and family online all at once? Yes it was. But did I encounter things I probably should not have been encountering at a young age? Yes I did. Did I have ways of communicating with my friends and family before being on social media? Yes, I did, and I still have those means of communication to this day. Most email services have introduced chat boxes in which you can quickly message someone instead of emailing them and having to wait for a reply. Young people will be fine in the sense of communicating, they all have phones now anyway, therefore they will be able to text and call people without social media. I saw ‘thinspiration’ from a young age and it definitely made me think differently about my body. Exposing young people to images of self-harm and promotions of eating disorders causes so much more harm than good. Yes it is fine if they realise that it is not healthy to be that skinny or harming yourself is not the way to get help, but more 11-13 year olds do not understand that. A social media ban will benefit these young people as they will have developed a better sense of what is and is not healthy when they eventually reach 16 and can go on social media.
Social media has many different uses. It can be used for communication, creating meaningful relationships and communities and sharing fun content. However, it can be used as a source of bullying, promoting unhealthy eating and exercise habits and exposure to self-harm images and behaviours. A social media ban is coming to Australia in December for young people under the age of 16. While young people will inevitably find their own ways around the ban including using parents or sibling accounts, they will benefit greatly from being removed from social media and the dark world that can be seen on the platforms. By being removed from social media, adolescents will be able to develop important social skills face to face rather than through a screen. They will also be given the opportunity to be kids again by going outside and spending time with people personally. With the recent expansion of artificial intelligence (AI) in everything, anyone and everyone can fall for it especially young people. AI is being used in everything, including images of people to make them appear smaller than they are, causing young people to compare themselves which can lead to eating disorders or other mental health issues. Allowing adolescents to not be exposed to this at a young age through the ban will be the best thing to happen to them, as their mental health is being protected. No doubt the ban will be removed when they realise young people will find their way around it, but in the mean time the ban allows for kids to be kids again. They can engage with friends face to face, spend time outside and out in public and build important social skills.
LeighCor 
Elizabeth Harris