Will the social media ban help mental health?

I was delighted to interview for TIME this week, following the social media ban in the UK for under 16s. We got into a lot of detail, but the one quote they used was about mental health.

There is a hope that the mental health of young people will improve as a result of this ban, but there is very little evidence to attribute any rise in mental health problems to social media use. While aspects of this seem self-evident to people - scrolling through content hours each day is undoubtedly having an impact on a whole range of things - it doesn’t explain how it begins and it’s not just a matter of the so-called addictive design of these apps.

That, for me, is a red herring in this entire debate, but it’s used so often to explain the problem.

With the social media ban story breaking this week, I interviewed for Callum Sutherland at TIME.

We got into a lot of detail, but one aspect that we covered, which hasn't been discussed a lot is the mental health impact.

I think a lot of people intuitively think that the ban will bring a drop in mental health, but this is a really simplistic way of looking at the state of mental health in young people today.

Some things seem straightforward; if a teenager is being bullied on snapchat or feels excluded, then this will likely report as a mental health impact. If they spend 12 hours a day scrolling through content and doing nothing else, then they will likely have a mental health impact.

Add into the mix the tension is causes in the household or the classroom and we now have a third party - parents and teachers - looking at the behaviour defining it as a problem, feeling that something is lost and using social media as the scapegoat.

However, explaining these circumstances is key and it's not just that the apps are designed to be addictive. I don't think we have a very sophisticated model of addiction, when it comes to app design.

Young people are in a very difficult position today. That teenage demographic is likely still sufffering the impact of post-pandemic disruption, there will likely be socioeconomic stress that exists around them, they are told that higher education isn't worth it and costs too much, but there are no roles for them because AI is taking their jobs.

All of these narratives on their future may well have a macro impact that is a kind of helplnesses and the devices are the easiest escapee into another world.

I've seen a lot of young voices respond to this ban saying they have not been consulted and feel let down by the ban. Why didn't we have a BIG conversation in schools and in society about this before it took place? Schools could have done a huge amount to invite reactions and understand the perspectives of young lives more effectively.

Maybe we should start that now.

https://time.com/article/2026/06/16/uk-social-media-ban-under16-children-australia-framework/