Anthony Albanese's teen social media ban has a shark problem

Years into Australia's quest to get teens off social media, the Albanese government is suddenly in a hurry.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last month declared it was "outrageous" that the Coalition and the Greens had voted to scrutinise proposed reforms to social media minimum age law at an inquiry.

It was oddly urgent for a policy that had been in the works for more than two years — and one that he declared a "success" a week before it even came into effect.

Now, eight months after the law was implemented, there is a clearer explanation for the government's haste: its world-first policy for Australians aged under 16 has so far produced little visible change.

Late last month, the government's independent online safety regulator, eSafety Commissioner Julie Inman Grant, released the first findings of its expert-led study of the ban's results.

The top line was that use of social media by teens had barely budged. Most teens (81.5 per cent) were still using social media after the ban, down just a few percentage points from 85.9 per cent before the ban.

(It also reported a 20 per cent decrease in teens with accounts on social media, although the ban's law, as written, actually doesn't require social media companies to stop teens from using social media in a logged-out state).

It found little change to kids' offline activities, problematic internet use or wellbeing, nor to parental stress.

A bigger impact found by the research was that parents are now increasingly in the dark about their teens' social media use, with those who were unaware their teens had used social media going from 23 per cent to 33 per cent.

Then, at the inquiry into the ban's amendments on Friday, the eSafety Commissioner acknowledged that the office had also seen a rise in messaging and gaming use — two exclusions from the teen social media ban that, nevertheless, undercut the government's promise to get kids "back onto the footy field".

Now, this is just a policy that's only been in effect for a few months. Online child safety group SmackTalk's founder Wayne Holesworth told the hearing that it would take three to five years for the ban's effects to be fully felt.

But it's still remarkable that, eight months after coming into effect, the most positive case for Albanese's globally celebrated teen social media ban is: Well, we haven't actually done it properly yet so it still might work out .

It's easy to say that we couldn't have known how this world-first ban would play out.

But if you look back at the public submissions made before the ban was legislated, back in November 2024, some experts and groups concerned about the ban seemed to have a good idea.