Australia has just relieved its anxiety over teens on social media – or has it?

Sydney, Australia (CNN) — For parents and campaigners who’ve long argued that incessant scrolling is damaging young minds, the start of Australia’s world-first social media ban for under-16s on Wednesday is just the beginning.

Wayne Holdsworth, the father of Mac, who took his life at 17 after being targeted by a sexual extortion scam on social media, joined other parents who’d lost children to suicide at a select gathering at the prime minister’s official residence in Sydney.

“It’s really sad. I shouldn’t be here because he should have been protected,” Holdsworth told CNN at the event to mark the law, which came into effect hours earlier. “I should have known more. He should have known more.”

For Australia’s Labor government, the ban is a political win that’s gaining international attention and puts it at the forefront of what appears to be global momentum to rein in the reach and influence of social media platforms.

“This is Australia leading the world. This is Australia responding to what is a global issue,” Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told CNN.

“We know that social harm is being caused, and therefore we have a responsibility as a government to respond to the pleas of parents and respond as well to the campaign of young people saying, just let us be kids.”

His comments came as 10 platforms, including Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, suspended or deleted the accounts of children under 16 under new laws that threaten multimillion-dollar fines for tech companies that don’t take “reasonable steps” to keep children off social media.

The rollout’s been messy, as the government predicted, with some children barred and others overjoyed to find that they are still online – though officials say platforms must continue to monitor users and eject anyone under 16 for as long as is needed.

Some experts say, however well-intentioned, the law won’t address cyberbullying, a broader societal problem that is not platform-specific.

“It has been massively overhyped,” said Tama Leaver, Professor of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia.

“It is world-leading, but it’s also world-leading because a lot of the world recognizes that the tools to do this don’t really work yet.”

US academic’s book got the ball rolling

One of the motivators of the Australian ban was a book, “The Anxious Generation,” by American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, published in March 2024.

The wife of South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas was reading the book last April and gave her husband a nightly summary of its contents.

“I will never forget one night, she finished the book, she turned to me and she said, ‘You better bloody do something about this,’” Malinauskas told the event in Sydney on Wednesday.

So, he commissioned a draft law on possible solutions in the state, and the idea spread to neighboring New South Wales, then on to a federal level, backed by campaigns driven by grieving parents like Holdsworth.

Haidt’s main point is that parents have overprotected children in the real world but failed to protect them online, exposing them to predators while depriving them of the real-life skills learned in the playground that build resilience.

On the eve of the ban, Albanese sent a direct video message to Australian teens, urging them to “start a new sport, learn a new instrument, or read that book that has been sitting there on your shelf for some time.”

His call for children to take up new interests is grounded in research by many experts that excessive screen time – and especially time spent scrolling curated feeds – is increasing anxiety, with long-term implications for the mental health of younger generations.

Experts who work closely with vulnerable and isolated children warn that taking away social media platforms from those children could deprive them of support networks, making them feel even more isolated and alone.

They’re warily watching the change – and finding new ways to reach out to children, either in person, through groups, or on other platforms to ensure they don’t slip through the safety net that Australia’s now wrapping around its children.

Australia set the bar on gun laws – now this?

The conversations had by parents around dinner tables are not substantially different from those in the US and other countries, demonstrated by the popularity of Haidt’s book, and suggestions that other governments may follow suit.

In recent months, the United Kingdom and France have made it harder for children to access age-inappropriate content, and members of the European Union, among others, look to follow suit.

The Australian government believes that the social media legislation could set a world-leading standard, as it did with gun laws in the 1990s, when the government of the day introduced tough new restrictions after the Port Arthur massacre.

Thirty-five people died when a shooter opened fire at a tourist site in Tasmania, prompting quick legislative action and vows that it would never happen again.

Shootings haven’t been entirely eradicated, but firearms aren’t common in Australia, and mass shootings in the US are a frequent reminder about why the laws are in place.

Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, who grew up in Seattle, says the ban will perhaps be the “first true antidote” to what some see as a vast social media experiment on young people.

“The world will follow like nations once followed our lead on plain tobacco packaging, gun reform, water and sun safety,” she said. “How can you not follow a country with clearly prioritizing teen safety ahead of tech profits?”

Ban is not a complete answer

Critics of the ban say it infringes privacy and impedes free speech, and warn that any measure that seeks to monitor online activity is the beginning of tighter surveillance.

Australia’s High Court will hear arguments about the ban’s impact on the freedoms of young people to engage in political discourse, and some of the platforms themselves may bring legal action to fight the ban.

As to the heartfelt pleas for action from parents who lost children, some caution that taking social media away will not necessarily end the type of bullying endured by some young people who took their own lives.

Leaver, from Curtin University, said bullies are likely to switch platforms, and fears the law has given parents a false sense of security. He’s worried about young people who don’t have a trusted adult to help them through this period, or those whose parents are the problem.

“I think if we just get every young person through summer without there being a tragic incident that I think we’ve done all right,” said Leaver. “I think in the long-term, because the government has set no goals or what success looks like, it’s very hard to tell if the ban has worked or not.”

Teenagers subject to the ban are already flocking to smaller platforms that likely don’t have the same level of protections built into child accounts by tech companies that have seen public sentiment shift.

eSafety commissioner Inman Grant has suggested the list of banned sites will grow – and those on the list will be subject to regular monitoring, to start immediately.

“Tomorrow, I will issue information notices to 10 major platforms, and we will provide information to the public before Christmas on how these age restrictions are being implemented, and whether preliminarily we see them working,” she said Wednesday.

“A few things are certain,” she added. “Parents will be backed, families can reconnect, technology tethers will loosen.

“Australia stands as a global changemaker firmly on the right side of history.”

Holdsworth says, for him, what comes next is more education for children under 16 about the risks they face online before they gain access to social media.

“We’ve got an opportunity now to educate kids between eight and 15, so when they do get access to social media, they’re prepared,” he told CNN.

Of his son Mac, he said, “He would be looking down today very proud, proud to be an Australian, proud to be my son.”

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