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Dec 30, 2025

Social Media Regulation

A year ago, I predicted a wave of phone bans and cultural shifts around social media, and Australia is now leading the charge. Their landmark Online Safety Amendment, which went into effect on December 10, 2025, requires major platforms to bar users under 16 or face significant financial penalties. 

While Australia’s move is a massive step, broader phone and social media regulation hasn't quite kept pace with my expectations. I believe the public is starting to view phone addiction through a mental health lens, and the tide is certainly shifting just more slowly than I thought. But that is the nature of change: it rarely moves as fast as we anticipate.
*worth calling out that banning any form of communication, even if it is detrimental to health, is a slippery slope... Instead of sweeping bans, change in the U.S. is more likely to come from evolving social norms, local policies like school phone bans, and cultural shifts that reduce teen social-media use without outright legal prohibition.