Molly Russell, at just 14, took her own life. Her parents blame the apps on her phone for exposing her to graphic and disturbing content that took control of her mindset.

These stories are not unique. Data from thousands of people shows that social media increases loneliness, depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts. Last week, a jury in California found that Meta and YouTube were liable for causing a teenager’s addiction to social media. The idea that social media causes harm is no longer in dispute.

The proposed response – in Australia, now proposed in the UK and elsewhere – is to ban social media for under-16s. It is an understandable impulse. But there are good reasons to think it won’t work – despite politicians claiming a successful start to the ban.

Teenagers have always found ways around rules. Getting an older sibling to buy alcohol is a time-honoured tradition. When it comes to social media, teenagers are more tech-savvy than the adults trying to restrict them, and evidence is emerging that many are working around the age verification systems put in place to enforce bans, such as by using VPNs (virtual private networks).

Rules will exist, but compliance will be patchy and hard to enforce. Those most determined to access social media may also be the most resourceful in getting around restrictions. This means that the teenagers most at risk may also be the least affected by a ban. Evidence from other areas shows that when certain activities are driven underground, they often become more harmful.

Not neutral tools

Even if the bans worked perfectly, they would address only part of the problem. It is difficult to disentangle the harms of social media from the devices that deliver it.

Smartphones are not neutral tools: they are engineered to hold attention through constant notifications, “frictionless” access to content, and rewards for regular interactions. Research links smartphone use – not just social media – to disrupted sleep, impaired attention and cognition, mental health problems, physical ailments such as chronic back pain and addiction.

Social media is one component of a broader “smartphone ecosystem”, and targeting one app while leaving the ecosystem intact is unlikely to solve much.

If social media is blocked, teenagers are not going to put their phones down. They will migrate to mobile games, group chats and endless web browsing – activities that rely on the same design features driving their social media use: notifications, streaks (features that track consecutive days of use and reward consistency), infinite scroll. The problem is not any single app but a pattern of behaviour that will find new outlets.

Nor is this only a problem for teenagers. Adults struggle with excessive smartphone use, too. Heavy use is associated with poorer sleep, reduced attention and higher stress – and in some respects, the adult consequences are more severe. Distracted driving, often fuelled by phone use, kills thousands of people every year.

This matters for teenagers because behaviour is learned by watching others. Children who see parents, teachers and other adults checking their phones absorb that as the norm. A policy that targets only young people does nothing to change the culture they are growing up inside.

And opting out is becoming harder for everyone. Primary school children are expected to use smartphones for homework – on apps that share more than a passing resemblance to addictive games. Online banking has become more difficult without one. Workplaces assume employees are reachable via multiple WhatsApp groups at all hours.

When opting out means opting out of modern life, restricting access to one category of app starts to look less like a solution and more like a gesture.

If the goal is to reduce harm, the focus needs to widen. The deeper issue is the central role smartphones now play in everyday life – for all of us, not just teenagers. That points towards different kinds of intervention: delaying smartphone adoption among younger children, encouraging simpler devices, redesigning compulsive features across all apps, and ensuring that essential services such as banking, education and travel stop assuming everyone is glued to a screen.

Banning social media for teenagers may feel like decisive action. But until the broader dependency is addressed, it will not deliver the change its advocates are hoping for.

• Jeremy Howick is a Professor and Director of the Stoneygate Centre for Excellence in Empathic Healthcare, University of Leicester
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

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Okay, fine, you’ll get a few other features non-paying users won’t have. But, as far as we can make out, handing over a monthly subscription won’t stop Meta from turning your clicks, views, preferences, and other things into ad sales. Good thing the new paid tier of Instagram is only in the testing phase in the Philippines.

Instagram Plus… what?

At least, that’s according to one Matt Navarra, who has screenshots of the apparent service ‘upgrade’ over on Threads. The existence of Instagram Plus was later confirmed by a Meta spokesperson. According to the company, “a few [unspecified] countries” are seeing the subscription service being trialled in their respective regions. At least pricing, as far as is known, isn’t awful.

A Plus subscription seems to give users the ability to create various Stories audiences for targeted reach. It also provides extra data on Stories rewatches, extends when Stories expire, and lets subscribers view said sections on other accounts without showing up as a view. That’s good for Instagram corporate spying, we suppose? There are other features, too. Whether they’re worth twenty bucks a month is probably up to the user.

It’s not like there hasn’t been talk of an Instagram subscription for five years or more. Earlier this year, a paid version of Meta’s WhatsApp was also outed. But, circling back to that bit about data harvesting, it’s unlikely that handing over money for new features will stop the company from using its standard tactics of turning clicks into advertising data.

In other words, users of these (and other) platforms will still be milked for everything they’ve got. They’ll just have to pay for it now. It’ll pay off for Meta, too. If Instagram Plus keeps its current pricing, goes global, and every one of Instagram’s three billion users pays up, the social media giant will make approximately R60 billion ($3.5 billion) a month. Plus, they’ll still sell your data to advertisers. Sounds very… lucrative.

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It’s been a long time coming

First, and most important, is multiple account support for iOS. No longer will iPhone users be condemned to switching phones when dealing with their mistress taking care of business. Now, they can simply switch over to their alt account with a few button presses. Only two accounts are allowed, so anything beyond that will require a second device. A profile picture at the bottom of the screen will let you know which account is active at a glance.

Setting one up is as simple as visiting Settings on your primary device. From there, tap the ‘+‘ next to your name. Tap Agree and Continue when presented with the ToS. Select your country and enter your phone number. Hit Continue to receive a code. Punch the six-digit code in. Enter your name, then tap Next.

Another boon for iOS users (or soon-to-be former iOS users) is cross-platform transfers, now supporting the migration of chat history from iOS to Android devices. It’s also simplified the process for iOS users, making the jump to a new iPhone. It’ll bring everything with the transfer, from individual chats to your curated settings.

If storage is an issue, WhatsApp now allows users to clear out large files from individual chats, without ever deleting the chat itself. “Simply tap the chat name and select Manage Storage. You can also choose to clear just media files when clearing a chat – keeping your chat history intact,” it said.

The rest — like ‘stickers that match your mood’ by suggesting them right as you type emojis — is certainly not worth the trouble of its own announcement. The same goes for allowing users to edit their photos with Meta AI right in the app, or ask Meta’s chatbot for help when writing a message. All these features have already begun rolling out to users globally, though some may take some time to hit your specific device.

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The Los Angeles jury took nearly nine days to reach its verdict in the landmark case brought by a woman known as KGM against social media platforms. It awarded US$3 million (A$4.3 million) in damages, with Meta (owner of Instagram) being 70% responsible and Google (owner of YouTube) 30%. The jury later awarded a further US$3 million in punitive damages.

Both TikTok and Snap settled on confidential terms before the six-week trial commenced.

This is Meta’s second big loss in the US courts this week, with a New Mexico jury finding the company guilty on March 24 of concealing information about the risks of child sexual exploitation and the harmful effects of its platforms on children’s mental health.

KGM’s case is the first of its kind, but won’t be the last: it is one of more than 20 “bellwether” trials due to go to court soon. These are essentially test cases used to gauge juries’ reactions and set a legal precedent.

As such, the verdict is set to have far-reaching ripple effects. It could be big tech’s big tobacco moment, with thousands more similar cases waiting in the wings.

Machines designed to addict

KGM – now 20 years old – said she began using YouTube at age six and Instagram at age nine, and allegedly developed compulsive use patterns, including up to 16 hours in a single day on Instagram. The platforms’ design features, she argued, contributed to her anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, and suicidal ideation.

Her case argued that Meta and YouTube made deliberate design choices – for example, “infinite scroll” – to make their platforms more addictive to children in order to boost profits. It alleged the companies borrowed heavily from the behavioural and neurobiological techniques used by poker machines and exploited by the cigarette industry to maximise youth engagement and drive advertising revenue.

KGM’s lawyer Mark Lanier told the jurors:

These companies built machines designed to addict the brains of children, and they did it on purpose.

Lanier cited an internal Meta study called “Project Myst”. This allegedly found that children who had experienced “adverse effects” were most likely to get addicted to Instagram, and that parents were powerless to stop the addiction.

He said:

The moment [KGM] was locked into the machine, her mom was locked out.

The jury heard that Meta’s internal communications compared the platform’s effects to pushing drugs and gambling. The jury found this internal awareness was the kind of corporate knowledge that supports liability.

In addition, a YouTube memo reportedly described “viewer addiction” as a goal, and an Instagram employee wrote the company was staffed by “basically pushers”.

Mark Lanier drew a direct parallel to tobacco litigation, arguing that where there is corporate knowledge, deliberate targeting, and public denial, liability follows.

Pointing the finger at the family

Meta argued KGM faced significant challenges before she ever used social media, and that the evidence did not support reducing a lifetime of hardship to a single factor.

Meta’s lawyer highlighted KGM’s family dynamics as responsible for her mental health struggles, and argued that social media may have actually provided a healthy outlet for her when she faced difficulties at home.

Meta’s chief executive Mark Zuckerberg gave evidence for the defence:

I’m not trying to maximise the amount of time people spend every month.

On safety tools Meta added in recent years, Zuckerberg said:

I always wish we could have gotten there sooner.

In closing arguments, YouTube’s lawyer argued there was not a single mention of an addiction to YouTube in KGM’s medical records.

The companies centred part of their defence on Section 230 protections, arguing they cannot be held liable for content posted on their platforms.

However, the judge instructed the jury that the way content is delivered is a separate consideration to what the content is. This limited Meta and Google’s ability to rely on Section 230 protections.

Challenging a legal protection

This was one of the first cases against big tech, which was a jury trial – something companies have previously been keen to avoid.

For example, in June 2024, a few months ahead of a scheduled jury trial in the Department of Justice’s challenge to Google’s advertising technology monopoly, Google paid more than US$2 million (A$2.8 million) to the Department of Justice.

This was triple the damages claimed, plus interest.

In the US, a jury trial is only required when monetary damages are at stake. By paying the full damages amount upfront in that case, Google eliminated the damages claim and with it, the right to a jury.

Until now, US courts have largely denied motions that focused on design.

This includes infinite scroll and notification systems. The distinction between “platform design” and “content curation” has been central to how courts have analysed First Amendment arguments in this litigation.

The effect of the jury’s verdict in KGM’s case is to demonstrate the limitations of the Section 230 protection.

The first – but not the last

This is the first big tech case, on a global basis, that has examined addiction as a cause of damage. Other cases have focused on breaches of law.

For example, in the case in New Mexico against Meta, the jury concluded the company made false or misleading statements and engaged in “unconscionable” trade practices that exploited children’s vulnerability and inexperience. It identified thousands of individual violations, resulting in a total penalty of US$375 million (A$539 million).

KGM’s case paves the way for the many other actions seeking damages from social media platforms for the effects of addiction.

There is logic for these cases to be heard concurrently in a class action in the US. The verdict could also be used as the basis for both class actions and individual actions on a global basis.

Meta and Google have said separately they plan to appeal the verdict.

• Rob Nicholls is a Senior Research Associate in Media and Communications, University of Sydney
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

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It also involves buying the phone and paying a monthly subscription fee, but that’s fine because it’s only available in the United States. But it’s an interesting concept that other companies could exploit on the international stage. A phone that isn’t going to spiral you into algorithm-based depression, but it still has navigation? How novel.

Relaxing in the Meadow

As you might have guessed, the Meadow phone doesn’t go too hard on the specs front. Why bother when its job is to keep you sane? It looks like half of one of Samsung’s Galaxy Flip devices, with a 3in TFT display, 6GB of RAM, and 128GB of storage. Other details are more murky, with battery capacity measured in days (one to two, according to its creators). There’s a single 13MP camera, because you might want to take photos. And then there’s permanent 4G access via the associated subscription. A SIM or eSIM doesn’t seem to be required.

That’s because you’re not supposed to use this device as a digital distraction. A batch of standard phone apps is installed, plus Spotify, Uber, Apple Music, a weather app, and something to handle notes. Audible is also included. Everything else? Yeah, that’s not going to happen. There isn’t even a connected app store.

Even your contacts list is severely reduced to just twelve people. That dozen can contact the person using the Meadow phone. Spam calls should, in theory, never, ever take place.

Again, though, this handset is confined to the US. Buyers will pay R6,750 ($400) for one, though the usual retail price is closer to R7,600. After that, it’s R170/m ($10) for network and messaging access, which translates to unlimited calls… somehow. Even then, the first nine months of access are free. It’s a genuinely exciting idea — a smartphone that won’t worsen your depression. Someone get Samsung to make a version for South Africa immediately.

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WhatsApp goes PG

The strict protections rely on a six-digit PIN generated by the parent. The kid, obviously, shouldn’t know the PIN. Certain features — like Meta AI, status updates, location sharing, view-once messages, and disappearing messages — will be walled off on protected accounts. Messaging is still allowed, though only saved contacts will be able to do so. The account’s profile picture, account info, and ‘last online’ status will also be blocked for non-contacts.

Parents will be regularly notified about changes to the account, like when a new contact is added or when their child exits a group chat. Should an unknown number attempt to contact the account, a message request will first be sent to the parent account to await approval. WhatsApp once again assures parents that messages are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that nobody — not even WhatsApp — can read them. Yeah, about that…

Read More: WhatsApp ‘Plus’ could be Meta’s latest money-grubbing scheme

Parents may have to wait before they can set one of these up, however. Meta noted that the rollout, beginning today, would be a gradual one — possibly making parents wait a few months. When it does arrive, parents will need to have their own device handy, as well as their child’s to start. First, install WhatsApp on the kid’s phone.

From there, the parent must agree to the Ts & Cs before hitting More options and selecting Create a parent-managed account. Enter the child’s phone number, and verify their age. Tap Continue, and a QR code should appear on-screen. The parent must scan this using their device and follow the link into WhatsApp. Hit Agree and continue. This is the bit where you create a secret six-digit PIN. Confirm it, and tap Done.

Finally, head back to the child’s device to complete the setup. Then punch in the parent PIN and hit Continue.

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We’re living in what scholars describe as a “polycrisis” — a set of interconnected crises that compound and intensify one another. Climate change intensifies displacement and conflict, economic precarity fuels political extremism and public health emergencies expose structural inequality.

As a result, the future can feel more uncertain than ever. If you feel overwhelmed by the constant influx of bad news and find it difficult to focus on day-to-day tasks, that response is understandable.

But research in psychology and cognitive science suggests there are ways to fight back against this and reclaim your attention.

The business model of outrage

Developing a critical awareness of how digital systems operate is an important first step. This sense of overwhelm is deliberately amplified by the way digital platforms and their profit-driven algorithms are designed.

Many of us go online to cope with stress or to escape, but the content that captures our attention most effectively often makes it worse.

Content that provokes anger, fear or moral outrage generates higher engagement. Negative headlines tend to attract more clicks than positive ones, creating incentives for media outlets to push content that increases engagement.

One study found that social media users are nearly twice as likely to share negative news articles that evoke strong negative emotions. Each interaction — a like, share or comment — signals to algorithms that similar content should be shown again. Increased engagement also reinforces users’ continued posting of negative material.

The result is a positive feedback loop in which emotionally charged content is amplified, often leading to the spread of misinformation and sowing of conflict.

Your brain is in a 24/7 threat environment

Part of why we are so drawn to outrage lies in human neurobiology. Studies show that we choose to read more negative or cynically framed news stories even when positive stories are also available.

Much of this is just how humans have been wired: we evolved to pay attention to the most threatening stimuli. From a very early age, we show a biased attention toward spiders, snakes and threatening faces, which activate an acute stress response from the sympathetic nervous system and trigger a fight-or-flight response.

However, we have only just recently started living in a world where negative stimuli are constantly at our fingertips. Digital media now intentionally uses these neural biases to hijack our attention for profit.

At the same time, we can only pay attention to so much at once. Our cognitive capacity is limited by what psychologists call our perceptual load.

If you’ve ever tried to work in an environment with many distractions — like in an office with construction next door — or attempted to juggle multiple tasks at once, you have experienced how quickly your attention can fragment. Multitasking typically results in poorer performance across tasks.

Doomscrolling and the stress spiral

This is where doomscrolling enters the picture. Doomscrolling refers to compulsive scrolling through negative news on digital platforms.

An unlimited stream of negative information that our brains must both react to (through sympathetic arousal) and sort through (perceptual load) can lead to information overload and chronic stress.

Stress and perceptual load interact to worsen our attention and diminish performance on certain attention-demanding tasks, suggesting that each utilises similar attentional resources.

You may find yourself in a vicious cycle: stress impairs your attention and task performance, leading to more stress, which then worsens your attention. You may then reach for your phone seeking distraction or relief, only to encounter more alarming content.

Research shows doomscrolling is more likely to cause psychological distress and worsen mental well-being, since the content that we are using to distract ourselves is often negative.

How to reclaim your attention

In the face of our current global polycrisis, the algorithmic manipulation of our emotions poses a serious challenge. If you want to interrupt this cycle, research suggests there are several practical steps you can take.

First, try to reduce time online. A particularly healthy time to be screen-free is before bed as screens can negatively impact sleep. Notably, poor sleep can lead to stress, and high stress can impair sleep.

Second, replace screen time with new hobbies. Behavioural economics shows that reducing unwanted behaviour, such as drinking alcohol, may be easier when people engage with other activities they enjoy. Ride a bike, do a puzzle or take a cooking class.

Third, reduce stress through exercise, meditation or spending time with friends to break the negativity cycle. Form new, healthy habits that bring you joy.

But perhaps the most important step is simply becoming more aware of the behind-the-scenes forces vying for our attention that exploit our most visceral emotions. While we shouldn’t completely disengage from the news media, we need to better equip ourselves to defend against these threats to our attention and well-being.

• Megan Shipman is a Behavioural Neuroscientist and Fellow at the Cascade Institute, Royal Roads University
• Zachary Pierce-Messick is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

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But this formula is changing. Rather than being passively served content that search engines decide is most relevant (or businesses have paid to have promoted), some big tech platforms have started providing users more control over what they see online.

Earlier this year, Google launched the Preferred Sources feature in Australia and New Zealand. Through it, users can select organisations that are “preferred” and whose content they’d like to see more of in relevant search results.

In response, a raft of organisations, from news outlets to big banks, have started inviting their audiences and customers to choose them, with instructions on how to use this feature. News outlets such as the ABC, News.com.au, RNZ and The Conversation have all done so, among many others.

If you decide to use this new feature, there are potential benefits – but there can be unintended outcomes as well.

Where do you get your news?

In Australia, more adults say they get news from social media (26%) than from online news websites (23%). This means that a feature like “preferred sources” might influence readers who get their news from search engines. But it won’t affect users who primarily get their news from social media apps.

Trading phones with someone and looking at their browsing history or recommended YouTube videos reveals just how much personalisation influences what we see online.

Big tech companies are known to harvest large amounts of data, making money in an attention economy from audience engagement. They also make money from knowing more about their users so they can sell this information to advertisers.

Much of the internet is governed by invisible algorithms – hidden rules dictating who sees what, for which reasons. Algorithms often prioritise content that is engaging and sensational, which is one reason why misinformation can flourish online.

As helpful as it can be to get recommendations of products to buy or Netflix shows to watch, based on your history, when it comes to voting and politics, recommendations become much more fraught.

Our own research has shown people’s online news and information environments are fragmented, complex, opaque, chaotic and polluted, and that users desire more control over what they see. But what are the potential impacts of this?

More control is good

At face value, more control over what we see online is a positive and empowering thing.

This rebalances the equation from the loudest, most popular, or wealthiest voices – or ones that manipulate algorithms the most – to the ones users are actually interested in hearing from.

It potentially also helps with cognitive overload. Rather than having to spend the time and mental energy to decide on a case-by-case basis whether each source you encounter is trustworthy, making this decision once for particular news brands or organisations can make engaging with search results more relevant and efficient.

But a lack of balance is risky

However, the voices people want to hear from aren’t necessarily the ones that are best for them. As with any choice, you need a level of maturity and critical thinking to act responsibly.

As data companies, search engines benefit from knowing ever more information about user behaviour and preferences. Knowing which media outlet you prefer may in some cases indicate your political party preferences. Knowing that you prefer sports news over celebrity news can help companies target you with advertising more effectively.

In addition, more choice could potentially affect the diversity of people’s media diets. Just like with food diets, if people rely too much on low-quality media, over time that may affect their opinions, attitudes and behaviours. This has important implications for democracies that rely on well-informed and engaged citizens to cast votes.

There’s also a risk in conflating news sources with other types of sources. Journalists at news organisations are often held accountable to professional codes of conduct that, for example, aim to prevent reporters from personally benefiting from their reporting.

In theory, this allows audiences to receive independent analysis on important topics with confidence that the source has fact-checked claims and doesn’t have a vested interest in the reporting.

But if you select a business – such as the blog of a hardware store or a bank – as a source, you don’t have those same guarantees around editorial codes of conduct and professional ethics.

Should you use this feature?

Overall, allowing users more control over what they see is a good thing. But appropriate governance and regulation – possibly championed by Australia’s Digital Platform Regulators Forum – is needed to ensure people’s privacy and that their source preferences aren’t unfairly monetised.

Being more involved in your media diet is a positive step, as is thinking about its balance and diversity.

Ensuring a mix of sources across types (think local, regional, national, and international) and varieties (political, social, sports, entertainment news, and so on) can lead to a better balance.

Also think about whether the sources you are relying on are based on opinions or on facts. Doing this and actively creating a high-quality media diet is better for you and for others in your community.

• T.J. Thomson is an Associate Professor of Visual Communication & Digital Media, RMIT University
• Aimee Hourigan is a Research Fellow, Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, Queensland University of Technology
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

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The service, currently under development for both Android and iOS, is more about customising the app, rather than ridding it of ads. Judging by Meta’s ‘no ads’ subscription for Instagram users in Europe, we imagine the Facebook company could entertain a similar idea for WhatsApp. As it stands, however, it looks a bit of a mess.

That’s a big Plus

Note that, without WhatsApp Plus, all of the core features you’ve come to expect from the app will remain free. With ads plaguing them sometime in the future. The features that form the Plus tier include the ability to change the WhatsApp icon (with fourteen to choose from) and new colours for interface elements.

As it is, users can only pin up to three chats at a time. The Plus subscription will give users up to seventeen more slots to better organise chats. Exclusive ringtones will also be made available. So far, so bad, right? WABetaInfo reckons the service will add new features over time, such as exclusive stickers and “more immersive and interactive” reactions to messages. Whatever that means. 

“WhatsApp Plus is expected to include even more features over time, expanding the ways subscribers can personalize and enhance their WhatsApp experience,” WABetaInfo wrote.

We worry that when Plus can’t grab the number of signups it’s hoping for, it’ll begin locking core features and new releases behind a paywall. At the moment, it’s unclear when the service will debut or how much it’ll cost. The feature hasn’t arrived with beta testers yet, so it’s likely still a ways off from an official release.

Source

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These harms are not abstract. Research shows that young people are exposed to violent misogynistic cultures and toxic manospheres online.

But despite being consistently critical of the viral and experiential platform business models driving much of today’s social media harm, as an expert in digital communication, I do not support the ban. This is not because I defend the kind of libertarian politics adopted by Silicon Valley.

It isn’t because I consider social media harmless either. The situation is more nuanced. I oppose the ban because it is based on questionable assumptions about under-16s’ vulnerability to social media and overlooks the broader harms platform business models present to all users.

What’s needed is a hardline regime of regulation and education across all age ranges.

I challenge the pro-ban debate because it too often rests on a crude and narrow adult perception of young online experiences. This often overstates media effects on attention and other brain functions. It also crucially underestimates the significance of learning about wider digital cultures in the everyday social, political, creative and emotional experiences of young people.

More profound issues persist in the business models that structure digital experiences. There is little doubt that doomscrolling has negative psychological effects, as many users discovered during the COVID pandemic.

As an invention of the attention economy, endless feeds are not accidental: they are shaped by design choices that keep users scrolling long past the point of diminishing returns. These systems are purposefully optimised for engagement metrics, not well-being. Platforms do not sell content; they sell scarcity of attention, optimising and farming user experiences for advertisers and data companies.

Where I am more sceptical is in claims that social media rewires young people’s brains or directly destroys attention spans. Such arguments often imply a simple cause-and-effect relationship between screens and declining cognition. Historically, anxieties about distraction long predate social media. Technology scholars point out that forms of shorter, more fragmented attention most probably preceded the deep attention required to read books.

The problem is not that under-16s are uniquely vulnerable to encounters with screens. It is that all users are navigating systems engineered to optimise distraction at scale. Attention is not disappearing. It is being captured and redirected.

Regulation, not prohibition

There is no question that under-16s face particular risks online. But banning social media will not eliminate those risks. Young people are adept at working around restrictions, whether through VPNs, shared logins or burner accounts. When a cultural practice is pushed underground, it does not disappear. It becomes more secretive, less supervised and often more socially risky.

Prohibition also tends to increase desirability. Social media does not become less tempting because it is forbidden. It becomes rebellious, status-laden and harder for parents, educators and researchers to engage with openly. Historically, prohibitionist approaches to alcohol and gambling have driven cultures of harm underground rather than eliminating them.

In the UK context, this matters. While policymakers debate bans, the same global platforms continue to operate with limited accountability, despite legislation such as the Online Safety Act. Silicon Valley companies have become too powerful to self-regulate and increasingly unwilling to act in the public interest. Decades of government-backed deregulation (or re-regulation) driven by digitisation have left platforms with unprecedented reach and minimal responsibility.

This situation is not sustainable.

Social media is a media industry, no different in principle from film, television, radio or newspapers. Yet it has grown with almost no editorial responsibility or enforceable public standards. Leaning on automated filters or AI moderation does not remove harmful content at the source.

The answer is not prohibition, but stringent regulation: clearer rules, enforced transparency, content governance and meaningful oversight of how algorithms function. A ban avoids the hard questions. Regulation forces us to confront them, including how recommendation systems shape experience, and whose interests those systems ultimately serve.

Why media literacy matters

Media studies is often derided as a shallow subject lacking rigour, but digital media literacy is now essential. Understanding how algorithms work is crucial for grasping how attention is farmed, manipulated and sold.

Social media is not only informational but also emotional. Platforms trade heavily in outrage, affirmation, anxiety and belonging. Media literacy must therefore go beyond recognising misinformation, fact-checking or managing screen time. It must involve an “education of the senses”. In this case, learning how to discern between commodified emotional experiences and what constitutes a genuinely flourishing online life.

This is not about teaching young people to simply resist platforms. It is about equipping them with conceptual tools to recognise how digital experiences are designed, how their feelings are being engaged, and how their attention is being steered.

If the UK government is serious about protecting young people online, it needs to regulate social media as the powerful media industry it is. It needs to educate users about how their emotional experiences are extracted and commodified. That approach is slower and more politically demanding. But it addresses the problem at its source.

• Tony D Sampson is a Reader in Digital Communication, University of Essex
• This article first appeared in The Conversation

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