Social Media bans and restrictions for minors have become a hotly debated topic recently, with many state and federal laws being drafted or passed, restricting the access of young people to social media platforms and online communities. Many other countries, including the UK and Australia are planning to or already have completely banned minors under 16 from being able to access social media at all. These bans and restrictions are harmful for minors in many ways – here’s why:
1. Social media helps teenagers maintain friendships and prevents isolation.
Social media is one of the primary ways teenagers communicate with friends, form new relationships, and maintain social connections. According to a 2025 Pew Research Center survey of 1,391 American teenagers and their parents, 74% of teenagers reported that social media helps them feel more connected to their friends, while 52% said it makes them feel supported during difficult times, and another 52% said it helps them feel accepted. These connections are especially important for teenagers who struggle to make friends in person, experience bullying or social anxiety, or live in communities with limited opportunities for socialization. Young people also face age-based restrictions on gathering in public places, including shopping malls and entertainment venues imposing parental chaperone requirements. Removing access to social media does not eliminate these barriers or create new opportunities to socialize in person; it can instead leave teenagers increasingly isolated.
The consequences of these restrictions are already being documented. Following Australia’s under-16 social media ban, 14-year-old Evie Thomas lost access to Snapchat, which had been one of her primary ways of communicating with friends. Social media is also important for maintaining relationships across geographical distances, particularly among immigrant and diasporic families. Latisha, a 15-year-old Cambodian-Australian teenager, described using Facebook and Messenger to communicate with relatives in Cambodia, learn about cultural events, and strengthen her language skills. Banning young people from these platforms can therefore separate them not only from their friends, but also from extended family members and important cultural communities.
2. Social media provides lifesaving support systems for vulnerable teenagers.
Teenagers experiencing parental abuse, family instability, bullying, homelessness, or foster care often lack dependable support systems in their offline lives. For these individuals, online friendships can provide a crucial escape from harmful environments and a place to seek emotional support. Pavlova, a teenager who experienced emotional abuse, severe bullying, and social isolation through homeschooling, described how friends on Discord and Twitter comforted them during crises and gave them reasons to keep going. Another teenager going by the name of Abyss, described joining a Discord mental-health support community at age 15 while living in foster care. She credited the friendships and support she received with helping her survive an extremely difficult period of her life. For teenagers in these circumstances, restricting social media can mean removing one of their only opportunities to communicate with people who understand and support them.
These experiences are reinforced by research examining how vulnerable teenagers use online communication during mental-health crises. A psychological-autopsy study of adolescents’ social media experiences documented how some teenagers receiving inpatient psychiatric treatment relied on social media to maintain connections with friends and family outside the hospital, providing reassurance and a connection to ordinary life. These findings highlight how restricting online communication can deprive already struggling teenagers of meaningful emotional support, potentially making their circumstances worse rather than addressing the problems causing their distress.
3. Social media bans disproportionately harm LGBTQ youth.
LGBTQ teenagers often rely on online communities to explore their identities, find acceptance, and connect with others who understand their experiences, particularly when living with unsupportive parents or in hostile communities. According to The Trevor Project’s 2024 National Survey of LGBTQ Young People, 68% reported access to affirming spaces online, compared with only 40% who reported having those spaces at home. Among transgender and nonbinary youth, 73% reported affirming online spaces, compared with just 38% at home. A peer-reviewed qualitative study involving 30 LGBTQ adolescents aged 14–17 similarly documented how participants used social media to develop friendships, explore their identities, access sexual-health information, and receive emotional support. Restricting access to these communities can disproportionately harm teenagers who lack accepting relationships in their immediate surroundings.
Firsthand accounts demonstrate the significance of these connections. Maggie, a 15-year-old transgender girl living in rural Queensland, described relying on Discord and Snapchat to find other transgender people because she feared expressing her identity openly in her local community. Abbie Jane, an Australian LGBTQ activist, similarly credited online LGBTQ communities with helping her survive years of homophobic bullying. A separate peer-reviewed study of socially isolated rural LGBTQ youth documented how one participant, Elliot, lost access to an important LGBTQ support community after their parents discovered and blocked Tumblr. Social media bans and parental-consent requirements can therefore leave LGBTQ teenagers increasingly isolated, particularly when they depend on online communities to find acceptance unavailable at home.
4. Social media is especially important for disabled and geographically isolated teenagers.
Disabled teenagers can face physical, sensory, communication, or accessibility barriers that prevent them from participating in traditional social activities. Online communities allow them to maintain friendships and interact with others without facing those same obstacles. Ezra Sholl, a 15-year-old Australian teenager who experienced paralysis following complications from Hodgkin’s lymphoma, described how social media allowed him to maintain friendships and make new connections after losing the ability to participate in activities such as basketball. Following Australia’s under-16 ban, Amanda Brummell Lennestaal described how her disabled teenage children lost access to important online communities. Because mainstream holiday programs and organized sports were often inaccessible to her children, social media had provided valuable opportunities for friendship, self-expression, and community participation. She also reported that the restrictions pushed her children toward alternative platforms that she considered less safe.
Teenagers living in rural communities face similar challenges because geographical isolation limits their opportunities to meet people with shared interests, backgrounds, or experiences. A 2022 peer-reviewed study of 16 socially isolated rural LGBTQ young people found that social media communities provided important opportunities for emotional support, identity exploration, and access to information that could be difficult to obtain locally. The study documented participants using platforms such as Discord, Tumblr, Reddit, and Facebook to develop supportive relationships and connect with people who understood their circumstances. For disabled, geographically isolated, and socially marginalized teenagers, online communication is not simply entertainment; it can provide access to friendships and communities that would otherwise be unavailable.
5. Social media bans violate young people’s freedom of speech and political expression.
Social media allows teenagers to express political opinions, organize demonstrations, advocate for social change, and participate in public discussions about issues affecting their lives. This is particularly important because minors are generally excluded from voting and holding political office, making online advocacy one of the most accessible ways for young people to participate in politics. Youth-led movements such as March for Our Lives and Fridays for Future have used social media to coordinate demonstrations, mobilize supporters, and bring attention to political issues on a national and international scale. Social media has also created opportunities for teenagers to participate directly in journalism. Maggie, a 15-year-old Australian teenager, worked as an election reporter for the youth-run news organization 6News and expressed concern that Australia’s proposed ban would prevent her from continuing that work because the organization depended heavily on social media.
Banning teenagers from major social media platforms raises significant concerns about freedom of expression and access to information. The United States Supreme Court has recognized that minors possess First Amendment rights, and in Packingham v. North Carolina, the Court emphasized the importance of social media as a place for lawful speech, communication, and exchanging ideas. Although that decision involved adults rather than minors, it illustrates the constitutional importance of access to major online platforms. Restrictions on teenagers’ social media use can interfere with their ability to express political opinions, participate in activism, communicate with organizations, and access information about public affairs. Excluding an entire age group from these platforms can substantially diminish young people’s ability to participate in the political discussions and decisions that affect their lives. Put simply, social media bans targeted at youth violate free speech, because they give adults a monopoly on the narrative.
6. Social media restrictions violate teenagers’ privacy and give controlling parents more power.
Teenagers deserve the ability to communicate privately with friends, explore their identities, and discuss personal difficulties without constant parental monitoring. However, social media restrictions and parental-control proposals such as the KIDS Act can give parents greater control over teenagers’ online relationships and communications. These requirements are especially concerning for teenagers living in abusive or controlling households, where parents may use surveillance to monitor private conversations, prevent contact with supportive friends, or discover attempts to seek help. They also create risks for closeted LGBTQ teenagers whose parents may react with hostility or punishment if they discover their identities. In a peer-reviewed study of socially isolated LGBTQ youth, one participant described creating alternative social media accounts to communicate without family members discovering their identity, while another lost an important LGBTQ support community after their parents blocked access to Tumblr.
Research on parental responses to teenagers experiencing mental-health difficulties further illustrates how increased parental control can become harmful. A qualitative study examining adolescents’ disclosures of self-injurious thoughts and behaviors documented numerous reports of parents restricting their children’s access to technology, friendships, romantic partners, and privacy after learning about their emotional distress. Among the responses researchers classified as restrictions of access, 17.6% involved technology restrictions, 13% involved social restrictions, and 48.1% involved reduced privacy or increased monitoring. These accounts demonstrate how restrictions can also separate vulnerable young people from supportive relationships when they need them most. Adolescent privacy and developing independence are important considerations in promoting healthy development, and giving parents sweeping control over teenagers’ digital communications can undermine both.
7. Age-verification requirements threaten everyone’s online privacy.
Enforcing social media bans requires platforms to distinguish minors from adults, potentially forcing millions of users to submit government identification, undergo facial recognition or age estimation, or provide other sensitive personal information. These requirements threaten the privacy of adults and minors alike, as mandatory age-verification systems can create extensive records of users’ identities and online activities. Collecting and storing this information also creates serious risks of data breaches, identity theft, and other forms of exploitation. Unlike passwords, sensitive information such as birthdates, facial biometrics, and government identification numbers cannot easily be changed after being compromised.
These dangers have already materialized. In October 2025, Discord disclosed a data breach involving a third-party customer service provider, revealing that approximately 70,000 users may have had photographs of their government IDs exposed after submitting them for age-related appeals. Similarly, in July 2025, the Tea dating app suffered a major data breach exposing approximately 72,000 images, including 13,000 selfies and identification photographs submitted for account verification. A 2026 investigation into identity-verification data breaches documented 88 incidents since 2011 involving identity or age-verification information, including dozens involving exposed identification documents or biometric data. These incidents demonstrate the serious privacy risks created when online platforms collect sensitive personal information, particularly when such requirements are imposed on millions of people simply to access social media.
8. Research debunks the idea that social media causes the teenage mental health crisis.
One of the primary justifications for social media bans is the claim that these platforms are responsible for rising rates of depression, anxiety, and suicide among teenagers. However, research suggests that abusive parents, harmful living environments, bullying, and other adverse experiences are much more strongly associated with poor youth mental health. Researcher Mike Males, in his analysis of the 2025 Philadelphia Youth Risk Behavior Survey, found that 50% of the identified factors associated with frequently poor mental health involved parental or family circumstances, while only 7% involved an online factor, specifically cyberbullying. His analysis of the CDC’s 2023 Youth Risk Behavior Survey similarly found that teenagers experiencing frequent or severe family adversity were approximately seven times more likely to report frequently poor mental health. The original datasets are available through the School District of Philadelphia and the CDC.
These findings also suggest that the commonly assumed causal relationship between social media use and poor teenage mental health may be reversed: teenagers struggling with depression, parental abuse, or harmful living situations may turn to social media more frequently to escape their circumstances and find supportive friendships. In another analysis of the CDC’s 2023 survey, Males found that teenagers experiencing more serious family adversity tended to use social media more frequently while also reporting worse mental health, demonstrating how overlooking family circumstances can create a misleading association between social media use and depression. Furthermore, his analysis of the Philadelphia survey found that teenagers who rarely used social media were 2.3 times more likely to report attempting suicide than those who used it daily to hourly, despite frequent users reporting somewhat worse overall mental health. These observational findings challenge the assumption that social media is responsible for teenagers’ mental health problems. Banning social media risks removing an important source of emotional support from struggling teenagers while ignoring the harmful circumstances contributing to their distress. Simply put, social media is an easy scapegoat for problems that youth face in their homes, with the economy and school system.
9. Social media helps teenagers develop creativity, independence, and valuable life skills.
Social media allows teenagers to access educational resources, explore new ideas, develop creative skills, and pursue interests that may not be supported in their immediate communities. According to Pew Research Center, 63% of teenagers say social media gives them a place to express their creativity. These platforms also provide significant economic opportunities, allowing young people to become YouTubers, livestreamers, musicians, and entrepreneurs who earn income through advertising, sponsorships, merchandise, and other creative ventures. Several hugely successful internet personalities began their careers as minors. IShowSpeed began streaming seriously at just 15 years old and became a millionaire while still a teenager, eventually building an audience of tens of millions. British Minecraft streamer TommyInnit surpassed one billion YouTube views at just 17 years old, turning his teenage content creation into a successful career involving livestreaming, publishing, and live performances. These examples demonstrate how social media allows young people to develop successful careers and earn substantial income long before reaching adulthood.
Social media bans and restrictions threaten these opportunities by preventing young people from creating content, building audiences, and managing their own businesses. After Australia’s under-16 social media ban took effect, 15-year-old Pete De Waard Jr. lost the ability to manage the social media accounts for his teenage rock band, the Wave Raiders, despite having managed them since he was 12 under his father’s supervision. His father was forced to take over the accounts, even though the band relied on social media to attract audiences and secure performances. Restricting teenagers’ access to these platforms can deprive them of valuable economic opportunities, interfere with their creative ambitions, and prevent them from developing the independence and professional skills needed for their future careers.
10. Social media bans fail to address the underlying problems and can make teenagers less safe.
Banning social media does not eliminate bullying, parental abuse, discrimination, mental health problems, or the many other difficulties teenagers face. Instead, it can remove valuable sources of friendship, information, and support while leaving the underlying problems untouched. In a December 2025 statement, UNICEF warned that social media bans can backfire, particularly for marginalized children, and may push young people toward less regulated platforms or other methods of circumventing restrictions. Rather than banning an entire age group from participating online, lawmakers should focus on addressing specific dangers such as exploitation, harassment, harmful platform practices, and privacy violations. The National Academies’ recommendations emphasize improving platform design, digital literacy, transparency, and accountability. Protecting young people should mean addressing genuine harms without depriving them of their freedom, privacy, friendships, and access to information.
Read more about the Reasons to Oppose Social Media Bans and Restrictions for Minors:
The Harms of Social Media Restrictions and Bans for Minors
Debunking Myths Of Social Media Use & Teenage Mental Health
Social Media For Teenagers Has More Benefits than Harms
How the US House’s Agreement on KOSA and the KIDS act Threatens Everyone
How the KOSA and KIDS Acts will Harm Vulnerable Teenagers
The KIDS Act will KILL Kids – Firsthand Story From a Teenager
The National Youth Rights Association
If you’re interested in Youth Rights, consider volunteering with us. We are always looking for new members and would love to have you on board. If you have a personal story to share about how social media benefitted you as a teen, about how social media restrictions negatively impacted your life, or about any other youth rights violation you’ve experienced, consider sending us an email at nyra@youthrights.org. We’d love to help get your story out to the world.
