Should children be banned from social media?
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 11 December 2025
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As Australia begins its pioneering social media ban for under-16s, governments around the world will be watching closely. The move, which represents a significant challenge to Big Tech's dominance, aims to protect children from online harms like cyberbullying, grooming, exposure to violent/misogynistic content, as well as anxiety and depression linked to excessive screen time and addictive platform designs. Should other countries, including the UK, follow suit?
Evidence suggests social media ‘doom scrolling’ changes our brainwave activity, affecting attention spans (children are reading less than in the past), altering reward pathways with dopamine ‘hits’, and influencing emotional regulation and social processing (combined with a decline in outdoor play). Critics argue a blanket social media ban treats all under-16s as a homogeneous risk group, denying them moral agency, rather than distinguishing between responsible and problematic use. Others fear a loss of mainstream online community spaces could lead to further isolation and push some teenagers toward more dangerous platforms or behaviours.
Should children be banned from social media?
Chair: Michael Buerk Panel: Carmody Grey, Mona Siddiqui, Giles Fraser and Anne McElvoy Witnesses: Jennifer Powers, Timandra Harkness, James Williams and Tony D Sampson. Producer: Dan Tierney
Transcript
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| 0:35.9 | Good evening. History may well see the arrival of social media on the internet as one of the |
| 0:41.0 | swiftest and most significant changes in human behaviour ever. If so, today might go down as the |
| 0:47.1 | moment we woke up to it. Australia's ban the world's first on under 16s, having accounts on |
| 0:53.5 | 10 of the major platforms, has just come into force. |
| 0:57.0 | It followed a government report that said 7 out of 10 youngsters had been exposed to harmful material online, |
| 1:03.6 | pornography, extreme violence, misogyny, suicide suggestions. |
| 1:08.1 | A wider argument blames the platforms for anxiety, depression, for rewiring young brains and |
| 1:14.0 | damaging their intellectual and social lives. Critics say it won't work. Three-quarters of these youngsters |
| 1:20.4 | say they'll still use the platforms one way or another, that a blanket ban fails to distinguish between |
| 1:26.3 | benefits and harms. |
| 1:28.4 | And prohibition will lead to social isolation and recourse to darker corners of the internet. |
| 1:34.3 | And yet, the world is watching. |
| 1:36.7 | The European Commission, Denmark, Norway, France, Spain, thinking of similar measures. |
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