There actually isn't much evidence of this. Most of the thrust for this hypothesis comes from The Anxious Generation, which was written by a moral psychologist as opposed to an adolescent researcher, and has been widely criticized by experts.
https://kidsplaytech.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Panic_Fi...
There is evidence that social media use is associated with poor mental health but the causation piece is contested. Most stories about social media harm are kids who were already struggling.
> Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification?
As far as protection from social media, the best solutions I've seen are:
- Antitrust and interoperability: people want social media, just not the toxicity. Give them a way to migrate to better platforms. CA tried this with the Digital Choice Act (AB 2169) but it got shot down by Big Tech lobbyists.
- Education: Teach kids how to be responsible with social media. There's a CA bill authored in cooperation with high schoolers doing exactly this: https://edsource.org/2026/social-media-ai-mental-health/7559...
- Privacy protection: rather that detect who's a child and protect only them from being tracked and surveilled, protect everyone.
IMO social media is a red herring. There are much more obvious sources of youth distress with far stronger effects in the data: poverty and economic hardship, abuse in the home, parental mental illness, drug abuse, marginalized demographics (e.g. LGBTQ+ youth have way higher suicide rates).
The kids would be way better served by things like universal healthcare, universal childcare, a better foster care system, etc.
> People without teenagers often say that parents can restrict phone access and use parental controls. In reality most parents don’t do this because it’s very hard to get a teenager to accept something that is not “normal” in their friend group.
It would follow from your argument a solution would be to make this normal. A solution to make this normal would be to classify as child abuse to give an under 16 more than short access to a device without parental controls.
This would not be a good law. But it would be less bad.
My take:
These laws exist because _everyone_ not just kids needs to be tracked by real ID. Make no mistake you won't be exempt from this when you have to prove you are over 16. Sure just don't use social media but that's just the first step. Next step will be games (already exist to some extent in China and South Korea) and then who knows what. Mind you sign your git commits and your emails with real ID?
https://www.thegamer.com/online-games-chat-ban-for-children-...
I think we've also seen this in action with playstation, i remember people complaining about it.
These laws exist because people will believe any nonsense if they see it repeated enough times in news headlines.
"Social media", as presently incarnated, depending on what definition you choose, may be somewhat damaging to some people, including some children. That does not justify ghettoizing all children.
It also doesn't justify creating (yet another) pervasive tracking infrastructure for both children and adults, but that's the part everybody alway harps on. Cutting off teenagers from society as a whole? Nobody's willing to say that's bad.
Well, it's bad. It's especially bad for the ones who are getting the least support at home.
> destroying their attention,
Maybe. Strongest among the claims. Applies to adults, too; there's no sign that adults are one tiny bit more resistant. Best addressed by structural changes to the platforms.
> exposing them to online bullying and extortion,
Occasionally happens. Occasionally happens offline, too. And in online venues that aren't "social media" unless you have an insanely broad definition. One does not lock people in a vault because of that.
> and showing them horrific and traumatic content.
Oh, get a damned grip. You see a picture. Which you probably sought out. It won't kill you. If you're so sensitive that it really gets to you for the long term, your problem is your capacity for "trauma". Something else will "traumatize" you up to whatever that capacity is.
> Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification?
Restructure the platforms. For everyone.
> In a trade off between child protection and online freedom child protection will win.
Well, yes, when the "tradeoff" is being made by hysterical idiots. Which admittedly is what tends to happen.
Every dad I know who works in tech supports some kind of restriction on social media/smartphones for kids. The argument is how to do it, not whether we should.
I promise you, within a few years there is going to be an underground social media network or sites that are harder to monitor, don't give a shit what the UK government thinks, and definitely don't care about children's safety at all.
They probably already exist.
I want it to not be normal to spend all day on TikTok. If something is illegal and underground then it’s much easier for me as a parent to ban it for my kids
I would like that too, but I genuinely believe these measures are going to make things worse for children, for the reason I explained.
No. You believed it would be effective was the most charitable interpretation.
There will always be people who get round the ban.
Will you still be claiming that this is "good enough"?
I have children and can suggest a better way. You're not going to like it though.
You can't have children without a license.
"But who decides what the test questions are?! Who decides on the criteria?! Who watches the watchers?! What a dystopian nightmare!"
Jokes aside, is the DVLA a dystopian nightmare? There's an obvious set of requirements and test procedures that make sense for getting a driving license, whether we like it or not.
Similarly, there are obvious things most of us can agree make a good parent. E.g. Caring about the emotional health of a child, caring about the physical health of a child, etc. We can disagree on what "caring about mental well being means", but picking the lowest common denominator for the test is better than having absolutely no requirement whatsoever for _creating a human being_.
Can anyone suggest a better way of protecting kids, other than age verification?
People without teenagers often say that parents can restrict phone access and use parental controls. In reality most parents don’t do this because it’s very hard to get a teenager to accept something that is not “normal” in their friend group.
In a trade off between child protection and online freedom child protection will win.