Wellbeing Matters

Social Media Age Restrictions – What this means for families..

Social media age restrictions for Australians under the age of 16 are due to take effect by 11 December 2025. The social media minimum age obligations will be implemented in line with the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Act 2024. The new law requires age-restricted social media platforms to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent children under 16 from having an account.

The restrictions aim to protect young Australians from pressures and risks that users can be exposed to while logged in to social media accounts. These come from design features that encourage them to spend more time on screens, while also serving up content that can harm their health and wellbeing. More information regarding the changes can be found on the eSafety website via this link.

What can this mean? Families will have a task ahead of them in navigating their child’s responses to this new legislation. For some students, it will mean very little. However, for many teens, especially, it may come with some sense of loss and even grief. Estimation is that some adolescents may feel that their connection, communication and some forms of social outlet have been unfairly ripped from them. Perhaps for some students it may well be accompanied by a sense of anxiety.

It’s suggested that the time to start planning for and discussing with your children, and what this will mean for them, is now. It might be instructive to have conversations about some of the following:

• How we connect with (and feel connected to) our peers other than through social media.
• What other forms of social outlet might be employed in real time, with real people.
• If it is not part of your family routine, re-establishing a dinner time routine with all family members at the dinner table, which is a phone-free zone.
• Encouragement of outdoor activities including sports, running, walking, a trip to the park, bike riding and so on.
• Inviting children/adolescents to play board games, cards, play a musical instrument.
• Becoming a “joiner” – join a group of some sort in the community, including volunteering. Vinnies is always looking for volunteers either in-store or in the warehouse.
• Managing those times where we feel the “loss” of opportunity that social media presents. For a small number of young people, this could look like withdrawal from an addictive substance.
• The ways in which some young people may attempt to subvert or circumvent the legislation. Adolescents are creative and industrious!

Parents and families are encouraged to access the latest information and news from eSafety’s ‘Social media age restrictions hub’.

‘It’s not a ban, it’s a delay to having accounts’

Mark Coster
Leader of Student Engagement