The Royal Australian College of GPs (RACGP) has supported the Social Media Minimum Age obligation requiring social media platforms to prevent children under 16 from creating accounts from today.
While social media use in adolescence has been associated with positive engagement and peer support, research has also linked it to negative mental health outcomes, sleep disruption, bullying, and exposure to harmful content.
The 2021 HILDA survey estimated around 7% of adolescents aged 15–17 had a long-term mental health condition requiring treatment or a mental illness which requires help or supervision, while 19% of patients in this age group were diagnosed with depression, anxiety, or another mental illness, three times the rate in 2009 (6%).
Meanwhile, recent University of Adelaide research of 14,000 South Australian children aged 11–14 found the share of daily social media users had tripled in the four years from 2019 to 2022, from 26% to 85%. The share of non-users in this age group plummeted from 31% to just 3% over the pandemic period.
RACGP President Dr Michael Wright welcomed the changes.
"Adolescents are experiencing significantly higher rates of anxiety, alongside increased incidents of bullying," he said.
"Much of that happens on social media. We know that children and young people are spending extensive time on social media, and this is restricting their sleep and impacting their overall wellbeing.
"While many parents are deeply concerned about the effects of social media, there is often reluctance among children themselves to reduce their usage. This highlights the challenge families face in managing online engagement.
"We have spoken to the eSafety Commissioner to better understand these changes. There is growing recognition of the need to place controls on the type of information children are exposed to online.
"Ensuring young people receive credible, high-quality information, rather than unfiltered and unrestricted content, will be a positive step. We encourage GPs to check the eSafety website for more information about these changes."
RACGP Specific Interest Child and Young Person's Health Chair Dr Tim Jones also backed the new requirements for social platforms, but warned that parents, teachers, carers, and peers should stay vigilant against risks of online harm.
"The changes mean kids won't be targeted by algorithms, not that they'll be completely protected from harmful content or contact altogether – it's not a silver bullet, and that's clear in the eSafety advice," Dr Jones said.
"We all still have an obligation to ensure kids' online experiences are safe and watch for online harms. The key thing is to have open conversations about your online lives and mental health, and to be aware of changes.
"There's always been harmful content online, and kids have always dared or bullied each other to seek it out. Messaging platforms like WhatsApp are still accessible, popular online gaming platforms like Roblox, Discord, and Steam too.
"Those can help kids stay connected, but they're also a way bullying, harmful content, or exclusion can continue. It can make it feel inescapable, even after a bad day at school or if a child is in an online space which they found safe and rewarding before.
"Every GP is a mental health professional. We can raise issues it might be awkward for a teen to raise with a family member or speak to you about any changes you're concerned about.
"Especially if the change means a child in your house will be losing access to their social accounts, it might be a good time to reflect on how you use social media and phones as well. As people and patients, we're all shaped by our environment, our friends, our colleagues, our families. Social media has now been around for decades, and many of the parents with children affected by the changes have lived a lot of our lives on social media, too.
"It's easy to let good habits slip in the often-stressful and always-changing environment of a house with growing kids.
"It can also be worth, as parents, looking at how you use social media and model behaviour for your kids. We're all vulnerable to online harms – that doesn't stop at 16.
"GPs are also specialists in whole-of-person care and family medicine, and we can help the whole family to use social media positively. That might mean talking about how everyone can an environment that fosters positive and open internet use to create good habits for the whole household, child, teen, or adult."
