Australian teen social media ban brings holiday headspace woes

SYDNEY: Teenager Ayris Tolson believes the start of her first summer holiday under Australia’s youth social media ban will be relatively easy as she spends time with family, but as the weeks drift by, she fears being alone and isolated.

From December 10, Australia will impose a world-first social media ban on under-16s, blocking them from TikTok, Alphabet’s YouTube and Meta’s Instagram.

More than one million under-16s will lose their accounts and nine days later break for the long December-to-January holidays when most of Australia shuts down until February.

“You’re basically isolated for about six weeks during the school holidays,” Tolson, 15, told Reuters. “As it continues on, I will probably feel more attached to social media. It’s not such a good time.”

Mental health experts say a rollout right before the longest school holiday of the year may worsen the shock for teenagers who rely on the technology for socialisation and won’t have the grounding routines, or institutional supports, of school.

The cold turkey effect of no school and no socials will be especially pronounced for children in remote locations or minority groups like migrants and LGBTQI+ people, who lean more on the internet for connection with like-minded people, the experts say.

No quantitative studies show how many Australians under 16 use social media to access mental health services, but a 2024 survey by youth service ReachOut.com found 72% of those aged 16-25 use it to seek mental health advice and nearly half use it to find professional help.

“If you were at school, there would have been a lot of conversation and chatter around it; it’s a shared experience,” said Nicola Palfrey, head of clinical leadership at headspace, a government-funded youth mental health service.

“If you’ve got more time on your hands and you’re in your head quite a bit, if you’re feeling quite anxious or worried or sad, that’s the sort of thing where time alone with your thoughts is not ideal. It’s those people that are starting to feel concerned.”

The Australian government has pitched the ban, which threatens platforms with a fine up to A$49.5 million ($33 million), as beneficial to mental health since it will protect young people from bullying, harmful content and addictive algorithms.

At a conference this month, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant said some young people in marginalised groups “feel more themselves online than they do in the real world”, and should visit various exempted online spaces ,including those run by headspace.

The government will collect two years of data following the ban on its “benefits, but also the unintended consequences”, she said.

YOUTH SERVICES READY FOR INCREASE IN CASES

Already the timing – a byproduct of when the law passed through parliament – is prompting changes in youth services which rely on social media to reach young people.

Kids Helpline, a telephone and online service, typically experiences a lull over the summer. This year, it is training 16 additional counsellors, an increase of 10%, for a possible deluge of referrals due to the social media ban, said its head of virtual services Tony FitzGerald.

School-related stress typically eases over holidays, but “with young people being disconnected from being able to communicate, potentially, with each other on these platforms, that may actually increase anxiety”, he said.

“We’ll be making sure that we’ve got adequate counselling resources available to support that surge.”

Lauren Frost, head of policy for the Youth Affairs Council Victoria, said she was getting so many inquiries from youth organisations about how to function without social media, she was planning a new national body to discuss reaching young people offline. But over the holidays, even offline options will be in short supply.

“The interaction that young people have with teachers or support staff or youth workers will be less, so they won’t be able to play that role of supporting young people through this time of transition,” Frost said.

“They’re feeling a lot of fear and a lot of anxiety.”

At Fiona Stanley Hospital in Perth, a clinic treating addiction to gaming and social media will monitor for an uptick of presentations over the holidays, said its head of mental health and addiction services Daniela Vecchio.

Annie Wang, 14, said she uses various social media apps but wasn’t too worried about the ban because she did most of her communicating on Discord, which is exempt since its main purpose is messaging.

For those without Discord, she said: “They’re basically just shut off from everyone, and they will be probably inside all of the school holidays, which is not good”.