Social media ban could increase bullying and harm mental health, Darwin teenager Harriet Hendry fears
Australia’s under-16 social media ban takes effect Wednesday but one teenager warns the timing and approach could backfire spectacularly for vulnerable young people. Read the details.
Harriet Hendry, 14, doesn’t expect the social media ban to upend her life.
After all, she keeps most of her friends’ contacts on the iMessage app.
But the frequent TikTok user concedes the adjustment period might be tough at first, especially given the timing of the ban.
“Doing it right before the six week holidays is incredibly stupid,” she said.
“If kids are going away and their only connection to their friends during the holidays is on social media, then you won’t be able to talk to your friend’s for six weeks.”
Yet despite the seemingly ill-timed introduction of the legislation, Harriet believes the ban will have little long-term impact.
Teenagers, she said, will always find workarounds.
“Kids are already finding ways around it,” she said.
“They’re already using VPNs to change their country.”
A nationwide social media ban will take effect come Wednesday, but tech giants such as Meta are believed to have already started imposing age verification measures on its users.
Children under 16 will no longer be able to use dozens of popular social media platforms, including Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Kick, X and Twitch.
While she has yet to be banned from any of her accounts, Harriet said she would switch platforms if necessary.
She suggested Lemon8, a lifestyle-focused social media app from ByteDance, TikTok’s parent company, as one alternative.
“If I don’t get banned, I’ll stay on the apps,” she said. “But if I do, I’ll switch.”
Harriet’s bigger concern centred on bullying.
Born around the same time Snapchat and Instagram were released, she said social media had given victims of bullying a “safe haven online to talk to people with shared experiences and find comfort in sharing their experiences.”
That observation led Harriet to conclude the ban could actually increase bullying and the negative feelings it triggers.
“People that used to have those safe spaces will now have nowhere to turn to, and their mental health will decrease,” she said. “It’s going to do more harm than good.”
She also questioned the government’s priorities.
“Dangerous websites and content are not being banned, but they’re banning social media from kids,” she said.
“They should instead be regulating or restricting more content on the internet.”
Harriet’s mother Sam, a proud Gen X-er who briefly reminisced on what bullying was like when she was growing up, said she didn’t think a “lot is going to change” with the ban in place.
She added her children had been using these platforms – such as Snapchat and Instagram – for many years, often for specific purposes such as communicating with their friends.
Asked if she thought the ban would lead to a reduction in bullying rates, Sam admitted she was unsure.
“By and large, people don’t stop being bullies because their immediate means of bullying is taken away from them,” she said.
“This isn’t the simple, easy fix that we all want it to be.”
More Coverage
Originally published as Social media ban could increase bullying and harm mental health, Darwin teenager Harriet Hendry fears
