Research
Self-declared age minimums have failed comprehensively — roughly 40% of U.S. children aged 8–12 use platforms that formally ban them — driving a rapid global shift toward legally enforced age assurance, with OECD members enacting or actively considering such restrictions rising from one to at least 25 between 2023 and 2026. The central tension is not whether to act but how: proponents argue restrictions protect children during critical developmental windows, while critics — including civil liberties organizations, adolescent psychologists, and Global South scholars — warn that enforcement requires surveillance infrastructure that disproportionately burdens marginalized users, that restrictions may push minors toward less-regulated platforms, and that the 13-or-16 developmental threshold reflects Western cultural assumptions rather than universal science. No jurisdiction has yet produced rigorous longitudinal evidence that enacted age minimums actually reduce measurable harm, and the effects on youth for whom social media serves as primary community infrastructure — LGBTQ+, neurodivergent, and rural populations — remain almost entirely absent from policy impact assessments.
As of April 2026: at least 19 states have enacted laws addressing minors' access to or treatment on social media and/or “addictive feeds,” but litigation ...
Half of the U.S. now mandates age verification for accessing adult content or social media platforms. Nine states saw their laws take effect ...
As of 10 December 2025, age-restricted social media platforms need to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under the age of 16 from creating or ...
Many social media companies do not allow those under 13 to use their sites. Still, there's a growing movement to develop stricter age ...
The global adoption of age-based restrictions for online content risks creating a fragmented and challenging landscape for Internet and Web architects.
Major social media platforms, including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok, require users to be at least 13. This includes those in ...
Government will "delay access" to social media accounts for children under 16 through a ministerial regulation issued on March 6. Starting ...
As countries move to tighten social media age limits, new OECD analysis reveals widespread gaps in age assurance practices and highlights the risks younger ...
Studies show that facial recognition is least reliable for people of color, women, and nonbinary individuals. And that can be life-threatening ...
Laws that lock such broad swathes of online content behind age gates can almost never withstand First Amendment scrutiny because they violate all internet users ...
About one-in-five teens say social media hurt their mental health (19%) or grades (22%). Roughly one-in-ten each say these platforms help. But ...
No. There's a range of reasons why users may be asked to verify their age or identity, apart from compliance with Australia's age restrictions for under-16s.
Recent studies have reported negative effects of social media use on mental health of young people, including social comparison pressure with others and greater ...
Social media addiction is characterized by excessive and compulsive usage that affects daily functioning and overall well-being.
COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age, and on operators of other websites
New state and federal bills seek to limit minors' access to social media, but civil liberties advocates warn that the resulting online ...
On 14 July 2025, the Commission has published its guidelines on the protection of minors under the DSA to ensure a safe online experience ...
Like the larger age verification legislation they are a part of, VPN-blocking provisions simply don't work. They harm millions of people and they set a ...
The laws being challenged require age verification of new and existing social media accounts. Additionally, some of these laws also require ...
And every age-verification system is, at its core, a surveillance system. While there are several different age-checking methods on the market, there is no ...
Twenty-five OECD Members and accession candidate economies now have social media age restrictions in force, enacted, or under active ...
11, 13 Frequent social media use may be associated with distinct changes in the developing brain in the amygdala (important for emotional learning and behavior) ...
This article explores the complex relationship between digital media use and adolescent mental health, focusing on its neurobiological implications.
It is the aim of the present work to analyze several prominent smartphone apps to carve out such elements. As a result of the analysis, a total of six different ...
Smartphone and social media use among teenagers relates to an increase in mental distress, self-harming behaviors, and suicidality.
[Social media] allows youth to connect with people near and far, create friendships, maintain those friendships, stay in touch with family who ...
The majority held that the government can force adults to disclose personal, age-verifying information in order to access sexual content they ...
In 2025, a major area of focus is the push for online safety measures, including age verification or restrictions, parental consent mandates, data privacy ...
The results of this study reveal that restrictive parental monitoring of adolescents' digital media use is positively associated with child's problematic ...
Jonathan David Haidt is an American social psychologist and author. He is the Thomas Cooley Professor of Ethical Leadership at the New York University Stern ...
New psychological research exposes the harms and positive outcomes of social media. APA's recommendations aim to add science-backed balance to the discussion.
Recommender systems present unique risks and harms, which are affected by context and specific design choices and can extend beyond the impacts ...
The Court ruled that “no person—adult or child—has a First Amendment right to access speech that is obscene to minors without first submitting ...
On April 16, 2025, a federal judge permanently blocked Ohio's so-called teen social media law, which had been scheduled to take effect in January 2024.
“These findings indicate the potentially harmful influences of inequality at the individual, school and country level on adolescents' problematic social media ...
Background. The correct interpretation of Section 230 is crucial for ensuring that platform companies are held accountable when they harm their users.
After NetChoice challenged Utah's 2023 law regulating social media websites, the Utah Legislature in March 2024 repealed and replaced that law. Appellate Case ...
Overall, this study shows that risk-related social media behaviours may harm low-SES adolescents more than high-SES adolescents, whereas the relationship ...
For over two decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) has served as a powerful liability shield for online platforms.
For example, TikTok scans public videos of users to help determine account holders' ages. 4 Meta uses artificial intelligence to detect underage account holders ...
This scoping review synthesized published recommendations for social media companies and governments in relation to young people's (aged 12-25 years) mental ...
Age verification mandates' potential to infringe on individuals' privacy and free expression has fueled criticism and litigation in the United ...
Large social media platforms negatively impact the Orange. Economy by not adequately rewarding the independent cre- ators who originally ...
Teenagers are often early adapters to social media platforms; spikes and drops in platform popularity among young people are crucially important to social media ...
We find that governments are applying a responsibilization strategy, which has led to widespread deployment of privacy-invasive or ineffective age verification.
This paper connects the attention economy to the institutional foundations of modernity. It then discusses how attention can be accumulated and exchanged like ...
Algorithms on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn favor content generating immediate engagement, creating a self-reinforcing ...
Never participating in online gaming was associated with lower odds of lower general mental health and suicidal ideation among girls, but not ...
Learn the newest tricks minors use—VPNs, deep-fake selfies, borrowed IDs—to dodge online age checks, and discover proven counter-measures ...
Each new state requirement interacts with every other, creating multiplicative — not additive — technical burdens for platforms. This ...
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