Beyond the ban: rethinking social media for teens

Published on 27 May 2026

By Professor Mary Aiken, Professor of Forensic Cyberpsychology, and Professor Julia Davidson OBE, Professor of Criminal Justice & Cybercrime and Director of the Institute for Connected Communities at the University of East London.

Debates around children and social media are intensifying across the UK as policymakers, parents and campaigners question whether current protections go far enough to safeguard young people online.

The issue has moved rapidly up the political agenda in recent months, with growing calls for stronger restrictions on children’s access to social media and renewed pressure on technology companies following concerns around online harms, addictive platform design and youth mental health. The UK government is facing increasing demands to strengthen protections for children online, including discussions around whether further restrictions for under-16s should form part of wider online safety reforms.

These discussions are taking place against a backdrop of growing evidence around the impact digital platforms can have on children’s wellbeing, attention, sleep, body image and emotional development. Concerns are also increasing about how algorithms can expose young users to harmful content, including self-harm material, misogyny, extremist narratives and eating disorder communities.

But while proposals such as banning social media for under-16s reflect genuine concerns, framing the debate simply as access versus prohibition risks overlooking a more important question: how are platforms designed, and what are they allowed to do to younger users?

A growing body of research in cyberpsychology suggests that online harms are often shaped by the interaction between adolescent development and platform design. Young people’s emotional regulation, impulse control and risk assessment are still developing throughout adolescence. At the same time, modern social media platforms are often built around features specifically designed to maximise engagement and keep users online for longer periods of time.

Infinite scrolling feeds, autoplay functions, algorithmic recommendations, streak-based rewards and push notifications can disproportionately affect younger users, particularly during early adolescence when sensitivity to peer feedback, social comparison and reward-seeking behaviour is heightened.

Research increasingly suggests that the issue is not simply how long children spend online, but what platforms are doing to keep them there.

Rather than relying on a single age cut-off or blanket ban, we believe policymakers should consider a three-tier framework for children’s and adolescents’ access to social media based on developmental stages.