Early days, early insights: Understanding experiences of social media age restrictions at the three-month follow-up

eSafety acknowledges First Nations people for their continuing care of everything Country encompasses - land, waters and community. We pay our respects to First Nations people and to Elders past and present, and we recognise the important role strong family, community and cultural connections play in supporting children's wellbeing.

Hello and thank you for joining us. Today we'll be sharing findings from the first report in eSafety’s evaluation of Australia's social media age restrictions. The age restrictions came into effect on 10 December 2025 and require age-restricted social media platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent Australians under 16 from holding accounts.

This evaluation is being conducted by eSafety in partnership with Stanford University's Social Media Lab and an independent Academic Advisory Group. The evaluation follows more than 4,000 children and one of their parents or carers over more than two years. In this first report, we look at findings from baseline data collected before the age restrictions started, as well as data collected three months after they came into effect. Before we get to the results, it's important to understand what we can realistically expect to see after only three months.

At this early stage, we're not asking whether the policy has achieved its long-term goals. Instead, we're looking at whether the conditions needed for change are starting to emerge. Our evaluation is guided by a change pathway that sets out how the policy is expected to work over time. The expectation is that awareness of the law, together with effective age assurance and the removal and prevention of under-age accounts, should lead to fewer children holding accounts on age-restricted platforms. If those conditions are in place, we would then expect to see changes in children's experiences online, including spending less time on age-restricted platforms and reduced exposure to online risks and harms. 

Over time, those changes may contribute to broader outcomes for children and families, across a range of areas, including online and offline behaviours, family dynamics, and wellbeing. Importantly, this change pathway depends on a number of assumptions holding true, particularly that platforms are implementing age assurance measures effectively. So, this report was really about assessing whether those foundations that activate the change pathway are emerging, rather than whether the longer-term outcomes have been achieved.

We'll focus on four questions that help us understand whether that change pathway is beginning to emerge. First, do children still have their own social media accounts? Second, how are children continuing to access and use social media accounts? Third, have there been any changes in how children spend their time? And finally, what do children and parents think about social media and the age restrictions three months after commencement? Together, these findings help us understand whether the foundations for longer-term change are beginning to take shape.

First, we looked at whether fewer children had social media accounts after the restrictions came into effect. Before the age restrictions started around 52% of children aged 10 to 15 held an account on at least one age-restricted social media platform. Three months later, that had fallen to 42%. This is evidence that we are seeing movement in account ownership. However, many children who held accounts before the age restrictions still held them three months later. So, while we are seeing movement in the right direction, platform implementation remains ineffective. 

The decline in account ownership was not limited to a single platform. We saw statistically significant reductions across YouTube, Snapchat, and TikTok, and smaller reductions on Instagram and Facebook. YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok remained the platforms where children were most likely to hold accounts at the three-month follow-up. Overall, the pattern we saw was one of modest reductions across major platforms, rather than widespread removal of accounts.

Although account ownership declined, platform use remained high. At baseline, almost 86% of children reported using at least one age-restricted platform. At three months, more than 81% were still using one. This highlights the difference between having a social media account and using social media. The age restrictions require platforms to take reasonable steps to prevent children from creating or holding accounts. Children may be accessing social media without their own account, through a shared account, or through platform features that don't require a login. So while ownership declined, most children were still accessing age restricted platforms in some way.
 

We wanted to understand why many children were still able to keep their accounts. The most common reason was that platforms had not yet checked their age. Around half of children who retained accounts reported this. Others told us their account listed them as being 16 years or older, or that a platform's age check had incorrectly estimated their age. 

Another important finding was that reliance on workarounds was relatively low. Only small proportions of children reported things like using another person's ID, receiving parental help to get around the age restrictions, opening a new account after deactivation, or using a VPN. So the main reason accounts remained active was not that children were finding sophisticated ways around the restrictions. Rather, many children reported that platforms had not yet checked their age. This suggests that effective and consistent age assurance, which is one of the key implementation assumptions underpinning the policy, are not yet fully in place. 

When we looked separately at YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook, the same patterns emerged. Across all of these major platforms, the main reasons for continuing to hold accounts were that children had not been age checked or had an age listed on their account of 16 or older.

Despite changes in account ownership, children's reported frequency of social media use changed very little. At baseline, around 61% used social media daily or more often. Three months later, that figure remained around 58%. This finding is consistent with what we've seen so far. Given many children have retained their accounts we would not necessarily expect large reductions in social media use at this stage.

One finding that stood out was a decline in parental awareness. Among children who reported using social media, around one in four parents were not aware of that use at baseline. At three months, that had increased to one in three. This decline in parental awareness was especially apparent among parents of children aged 10 to 12 and parents of girls. This finding may reflect a range of factors, including children being less likely to disclose social media use, or parents assuming their children are no longer using social media because the age restriction obligation is now in place. At this stage, we can't determine the cause, but it is a potentially important unintended consequence that we’ll continue to monitor closely.

While social media use remained relatively stable, we saw some shifts in other parts of children's digital lives. Use of messaging platforms increased, as did the frequency of online gaming. These findings may be early signals that children are redistributing their online activities. At this stage, it is still too early to know whether these patterns will persist over time and whether they are directly related to age restrictions or reflect broader changes in children's digital habits. Again, this is something we'll be watching closely as the study progresses.

We also looked at a range of broader outcomes, including offline activities and behaviours associated with problematic online use. At three months, we found very little change across these outcomes. Both children and parents reported little change in participation in activities such as sport, spending time with family and friends, and community activities. 

Measures of problematic online behaviour, for example, going without eating or sleep also remained largely unchanged. This finding is important because it highlights what we haven't seen yet. At three months, there is little evidence of population level change in these broader outcomes. Given the early stage of implementation and the continued access many children retain to social media, this is not surprising.

One of the more interesting findings in the report is that perceptions may be shifting more quickly than behaviours. We saw modest changes in attitudes towards social media. Fewer children believed that most kids their age use social media. And fewer believed that children who don't have social media are missing out. Despite these changes, children reported that the ‘right age’ to have a social media account was on average around 13.6 years. This aligns with the age of access prior to the introduction of the age restrictions.

We saw a similar pattern among parents. With modest changes being observed. Fewer parents believed it was common for children in their child's peer group to have social media accounts.  We also saw a decline in the proportion of parents who felt pressure to conform to what other parents were allowing. Parents reported that the ‘right age’ to have a social media account was, on average, around 15.2 years. This is more closely aligned with the current age restrictions. Together, these findings may suggest we are seeing early signals of change in social norms around children's social media use. Even if related changes in behaviour such as social media use and account ownership remain limited.

Despite the implementation challenges identified throughout the report, parental support for age restrictions remained stable. Around two in three parents supported the restrictions before commencement, and support remained at the same level three months later. This suggests strong and sustained parental support for the policy even during these early stages of implementation.

One of the striking findings from the report is the difference between what children expected before the restrictions commenced and what they reported experiencing three months later. While many children anticipated the restrictions would have a significant impact on their lives, almost two thirds reported no impact at all at the three month follow up. This aligns closely with the broader findings we've discussed today, namely that many children retained access to their social media accounts. Among those who did report impacts, experiences were mixed, with some describing challenges with communication and connection and others reporting benefits such as reduced use or feeling less pressure to be on social media.

Parents told a very similar story. Many reported little or no impact, often because their child's access to social media had not meaningfully changed. Others described positive impacts, including support for family rules, reduced screen time, or improved engagement with family and friends. Some also raised concerns about social isolation or children becoming more secretive about their online behaviour. Overall, many parents reported limited impact so far, which is consistent with the findings presented here.

So what are the key takeaways? First, we observed a decline in account ownership, but many children continue to hold accounts on age restricted platforms. Second, ineffective implementation of age assurance measures appears to be the primary reason accounts remain active. Third, we're seeing some early signals of changing norms and redistribution of online activities. Fourth, parental awareness of children's social media use has declined and should continue to be monitored as a potential unintended consequence. And finally, most children and families report limited impacts so far, which is consistent with the fact that many of the conditions needed for longer term change are not yet fully in place.

Today’s presentation provides only a snapshot of the findings. The full report explores these results in much greater depth, including differences by age and gender, family dynamics, wellbeing outcomes, experiences of account deactivation, perceived social norms and emerging unintended consequences. We encourage anyone interested in these findings to read the full report. 

As we look ahead, it's important to remember that this report reflects a very early point in the implementation journey. The findings provide valuable insight into whether the conditions required for longer term change are beginning to emerge. Three months in, we've seen some early changes, particularly in account ownership and attitudes towards children's social media use. 

However, the findings also show that a key assumption underpinning the policy, effective platform implementation of age assurance measures, does not yet appear to be met. Because of this, it is still too early to meaningfully assess whether the policies intended long term outcomes will be achieved. Future waves of the evaluation will continue to track how implementation evolves, how this impacts children's and parents experiences of the restrictions, and whether broader impacts for children and families emerge over time. Thank you.