The medical and education records of more than 4000 children aged 10 to 16 will be monitored for more than two years as part of a major study evaluating the impact of Australia’s world-first under-16s social media ban on young people and their families.
NAPLAN scores, Medicare information and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme records will be analysed by the eSafety Commissioner’s research and evaluation team alongside surveys, interviews and smartphone usage tracking data to determine if the Albanese government’s signature policy is a success.
“[We’re] looking at some key things that I don’t think have been done before… this is social regulation meets tech regulation at its most complex,” eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said of the study, announced on Thursday.
“Are kids taking less Ritalin or fewer antidepressants, are they sleeping more or [is] the quality of their relationships better? All of this qualitative stuff that looks at families and children, individuals themselves that a legislative view would never contemplate.”
Age-restricted platforms in Australia have been required from December 10 to prove to eSafety that they have made reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from creating or holding accounts. Failure to comply risks a fine of up to $49.5 million.
Although Inman Grant confirmed all 10 age-restricted platforms were in compliance with the legislation on January 16, and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said more than 4.7 million accounts had been removed across all age-restricted platforms, reports of loopholes and stonewalling from platforms when circumvention was flagged by parents have sparked concerns that the law is a purely symbolic gesture.
But instant action, said Inman Grant, is not the way technology regulation works “particularly when you’re talking about 10 of the largest and most powerful companies in the world being brought into a social experiment they don’t want to be part of, or do well… [because] then this will become the norm for them”.
Platforms included in Australia’s under-16s social media ban
- BlueSky
- ByteDance: Lemon 8, TikTok
- Meta: Facebook, Instagram, Threads
- Google: YouTube
- Kick
- Snapchat
- Twitch
- Wizz
- X (formerly Twitter)
Inman Grant is liaising with government leaders from around the globe, including in the United Kingdom and France, who are looking to implement similar legislation in their own countries.
Findings from the new study – which is being conducted in partnership with Stanford University’s Social Media Lab and an academic advisory group of 11 wellbeing, education and technology experts – will be released progressively, starting this year.
The federal Communications Department is currently conducting a review of the social media minimum-age legislation.
The eSafety Commissioner expects the evaluation results to be a source of evidence for replica international policies, in addition to a landmark social media addiction civil case in Los Angeles, at which Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg was grilled on the witness stand this week.
Meta, which is complying with Australia’s ban despite disagreeing with it, has long argued that age verification should happen before a user downloads an app.
This would put the onus of age-restricting certain experiences on Apple and Google, which control dominant mobile operating systems and app stores. Inman Grant views this as “pointing the finger the other way and shirking responsibility”.
The eSafety Commissioner is expecting a second round of compliance notices from age-restricted platforms next week. A directions hearing in Reddit’s High Court challenge of the ban is imminent, and the Commonwealth is expected to respond to the Digital Freedom Project’s separate challenge, brought by 15-year-olds Macy Neyland and Noah Jones, this month.
Bronte Gossling is a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAtoday and Brisbane Times.Connect via email.