Critics argue that the onus should instead be on the social media companies themselves to create safer and age-appropriate experiences online.

The Government’ s move follows South Australia’s draft legislation based on a report from former High Court chief justice Robert French, which proposes forcing social media providers to bar access by children under 14.

Children aged between 14 and 16 will need parental consent to have a social media account and the tech companies will face hefty fines for failing to comply.

The Federal legislation will be informed by French’s report and national cabinet discussions, including preliminary talks held at last Friday’s meeting.

SA Premier Peter Malinausakas says the problem demands swift and decisive leadership given the research that shows early access to addictive social media is harming children.

“This is no different to cigarettes or alcohol. When a product or service hurts children, governments must act,” Malinausakas says.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is yet to nominate the proposed minimum age limit, but says his aim is to set a national benchmark.

ACU associate professor Laura Scholes says banning social media is not the answer.

“Governance around bans on social media for young people is not practical,” Scholes says.

“Setting an age limit just makes invisible the critical need to equip young people with the skills they need now and into the future.

“Once young people reach the mandated age limit, what then? Research shows even young adults experience adverse effects from social media.”

Associate Professor Scholes says young people need to be equipped to navigate online spaces such as social media. “This approach needs to be shared with effect from parents, teachers, schools, and the broader community,” she says.

The expert in digital critical literacy at ACU’s Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education says the ability for young people, and older, to be able to critically read and evaluate social media is increasingly vital.

“Young people urgently need advanced literacies to optimise the benefits of online social engagement while mitigating the negative consequences of social media use,” Scholes says.

“Unlike traditional media, social media demands critical literacy competencies to navigate generative AI tools.

Scholes says traditional media literacy taught in schools is based on mass media produced independent of the individual consumer.

“It does not account for individual beliefs and values, the porous boundaries between media production and choices of the user.

“It also does not account for the insidious impact of algorithms with an urgent need for new media principles to inform teaching in schools.”

SA principal Kylie McCullah, however, strongly supports the proposed age restrictions and believes that increasing the minimum age for social media access will help mitigate the growing concerns around anxiety, depression, and body image issues, particularly among young girls.

The Loreto College Marryatville leader says a successfully implemented ‘No Phone Policy’ for the past two years, has resulted in noticeable improvements in student focus and academic outcomes.

“New, stronger safety measures, such as more rigorous age verification processes and enhanced parental controls, must be exercised and implemented for real safety to be delivered,” McCullah says.

A core focus of the school’s Social, Emotional and Academic Development (SEAD) Program sees students not only reflect on positive phone usage, but importantly, on how to keep safe online.

Yet Australian Association of Psychologists director Carly Dober says a ban distracts from the real issues at hand.

“It’s a band-aid response to a very complicated and deeply entrenched issue,” she says.

“The fundamental issues around how the internet can be unsafe for people has not changed.

“There’s still hate speech and deeply misogynistic, deeply racist, deeply sexist content online ... (children will) still be targeted with very sophisticated ads designed purely to make them consume different products and services.”

Dober says it also overlooks the benefits online spaces can offer to young people, especially those from marginalised communities.

“LGBTQI people, refugee youth, disabled youth – they find community in different spaces if their experience at school or in their communities isn’t so welcoming,” she says.

“What happens for those young people who are then locked out of their valuable online communities?”

Something all experts agree on is the need for more interrogation to determine social media’s harm to young people, including more consultation with young people and their parents.

Other academics agree. Dr Justine Humphry, a senior lecturer in Digital Cultures at Sydney University, says an over-reliance on age shifts government attention away from changes that would provide long-term benefits for all internet users.

“A ban has the potential to make harms worse by excluding groups of young people from important social networks and access to information and support, and undermining development in digital skills and literacies,” Humphry says.

“A ban may impact open dialogue and trust-based relationships between young people and adults.”

Research carried out earlier this year by Sydney University into social media use and online harms affecting Australian teenagers focused on young people aged 12–17 and their parents, and drew from focus groups and a national survey in 2022–23.

Overall, the survey showed broad support for age verification.

Specifically, 72 per cent of young people and 86 per cent of parents believed more effective age limits would improve online safety for young people.

But researchers also heard about drawbacks. For instance, young people saw age verification as something that would benefit adults.

Others said they could find ways around age verification tools using things like VPNs (virtual private networks), and pointed out that such tools don’t account for evolving maturity levels and differing capabilities among individuals.

Parents shared concerns about the burden of providing proof of their age and managing consent, while both parents and teens were worried about the risk of data breaches and leaks of sensitive information.

Dr Catherine Page Jeffery, a lecturer and researcher in Media and Communications at Sydney University, says more interrogation is needed to determine social media’s harm to young people, including more consultation with young people and their parents

“There are substantial benefits of using social media for young people, including social connection, civic engagement, learning, the development of digital media literacies and entertainment,” Jeffery says.

“Exclusion from social media may be harmful to some youth, particularly marginalised groups.

“There is no single minimum age that captures the stage at which young people may have the skills and capacity to safely use social media.”

While the Government and Opposition are in favour of the ban, The Greens oppose it, and say they would prefer harm education over a ham-fisted blanket ban.

The Federal Government is at present undertaking a trial of methods to verify the age of people accessing social networks and adult sites.

Its latest phase involves testing tools to prevent children from accessing porn, and teens aged between 13 and 16 from accessing social media sites.

Companies will be invited to participate in a consultation process as the trial is conducted.

Meta’s vice-president and global head of safety Antigone Davis told a parliamentary inquiry last week the company believes it is better to make app stores, not social media platforms, responsible for policing the age of users.

The legislation announced today will give the Government the power to enforce such a limit in future, once the trial is completed.