Students across Australia returned to school this term navigating an unprecedented reality: for the first time in a decade, no one under 16 can legally access social media. The ban, which came into effect on December 10, 2025, covers 10 platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, X, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, Twitch, Threads and Kick. Yet three months into implementation, schools are discovering that banning something and managing its absence are entirely different challenges.
The government's Online Safety Amendment Act makes social media companies liable for fines up to $50 million if they fail to take reasonable steps to prevent underage accounts. Schools themselves are not responsible for enforcement. But the practical reality in classrooms has proved more complex. A survey of more than 400 Australian teachers, conducted early this year, found that most do not feel adequately prepared to deal with the ban's impact on everyday school life.
The ban's enforcement reveals a peculiar gap. In the first month alone, platforms deactivated nearly 5 million accounts held by Australian minors. Yet reporting from December and January made clear that many children have already circumvented the restrictions through various workarounds, from falsifying dates of birth to creating accounts under parents' names. The platforms' compliance efforts are underway, but the technology available to enforce age restrictions remains imperfect.
What troubles many educators most, however, is not the technical problem of enforcement but the human one. Young people's mental health was already under strain before the ban. Around a third of Australian teenagers now meet the criteria for diagnosable mental health conditions, a figure that has doubled over the past decade. For some students, particularly LGBTQIA+ youth, social media platforms provided informal peer support and community connection that few other spaces offered. Teachers are now observing signs of isolation among students who relied on those networks.
The government's response includes practical support for schools: ScrollSafe, a resource developed by Orygen, provides teachers, parents and students with a 10-tip guide and digital wellbeing plan to help young people reflect on their online habits. Additionally, every government and low-fee non-government primary school will have a dedicated mental health and wellbeing leader by 2026 to support students through transitions like this one. The eSafety Commissioner's schools hub offers guidance on how educators can prepare students with digital literacy skills for when they do turn 16.
Learning management systems used for education, such as Google Classroom, are excluded from the ban, allowing schools to continue online collaboration and resource sharing. Yet the exclusion highlights the underlying tension: some digital tools are genuinely educationally valuable, while others are designed to maximise engagement. Schools must now help students distinguish between the two.
The ban represents a genuine policy gamble. Australia is the world's first country to enforce such a restriction nationally, and the outcomes will be watched globally. The government's premise, supported by growing evidence of social media's harms to adolescent mental health, is reasonable. But so too are the concerns about isolation, reduced access to support communities, and the practicality of enforcement.
For teachers beginning their second term under these rules, the question is no longer whether the ban will work, but how to support students through a transition that many did not choose and some actively resist. That work sits firmly in schools' hands, even though the responsibility for enforcement sits elsewhere.