The problem with banning social media

I know this might be an unpopular opinion, but I'm not in favour of banning social media for under 16s. Before anyone jumps on me, let me be clear, I absolutely understand why people are calling for it.

As a therapist, I've seen the damage social media can do. I've worked with young people who have been bullied online, been exposed to harmful content, compared themselves to hugely unrealistic standards and spent far too much time scrolling when they should have been asleep. There are real risks, that’s for sure, but I don't think a ban is the answer. I worry it could actually create a whole new set of problems.

We spend so much time talking about what's wrong with social media that we sometimes forget what young people get from it. For many social media isn't just about having fun, it’s the only way they connect with others. I've worked with so many who struggle socially, feel different from their peers or don't quite fit in at school and for some of them, the online world is where they find their people. That might be through gaming, football accounts, fan groups, creative interests or just finding others who think like they do. For those who do feel isolated, that sense of belonging matters enormously and if that is taken away, we risk removing an important source of support from some of the children who need it most.

Social media is often where young people learn, create, discover new interests and sometimes build incredible opportunities for themselves. A lovely young client of mine told me just today how much she has learnt from YouTube, from revision to bracelet making and lots in between. My oldest son is another perfect example. He was never particularly academic and when Covid hit, he spent hours on Twitter helping to run football accounts and talking about something he genuinely loved. That hobby grew into something much bigger and today he has over 170,000 followers and has built a successful career as a journalist. I'm not sharing that to brag (although I am ridiculously proud of him), or because I think every teenager is going to gain a big following, I'm sharing it because social media isn't always the villain in the story. Sometimes it's the thing that helps a young person find their way in life.

Let’s be real, a ban won't actually stop social media use. There has already been talk of parents offering to use their faces to help their teenagers login if Face ID is needed! Teenagers are incredibly resourceful and if they want accss to something, they'll usually find it. They can make fake accounts, use different phones or VPNs, so the likely outcome isn't that social media disappears altogether, it’s that they do it secretly and we have even less idea what they are doing online. That isn't making children safer, if anything it's making them harder to keep safe. My client today also told me she fears what will happen in school if there is a divide between those whose parents enforce this ban and those who don’t.

Then of course there's the practical reality of who exactly is going to enforce this, because it will largely fall to parents who are already trying to navigate everything else that comes with raising children in 2026. Do they have to be the social media police too?

The truth is that many adults, me included, aren't exactly modelling healthy relationships with social media themselves. It is going to be pretty hard to tell your teenager to get off their phone while you're scrolling Instagram from the sofa every evening. Some teenagers can manage social media reasonably well with guidance and boundaries, some find it harder. Some parents want to delay or restrict access and others don't and that’s fine, but I really believe those decisions should sit with families, not the government.

Of course, social media companies should have been doing far more years ago. The question is why social media platforms are still allowed to operate in ways that we know can be harmful to children. There absolutely need to be better safeguards and more accountability, rather than closing the stable door after the horse has bolted. Social media isn't going anywhere but our job isn't to pretend we can remove it from young people's lives. We need to focus on making it safer, teaching young people how to navigate it and holding the platforms themselves to account.