On 15th June 2026, then prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced a social media ban for under-16s in the UK, covering Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and X. It follows the same model as Australia, which implemented something similar last year. Enforcement will fall on platforms, not families, with implementation expected as soon as Spring 2027. After a long day at secondary school back in the mid-2000s, I would often find myself on the family computer, MSN loaded along with MySpace and, later, Tumblr. I was probably among the first generations exposed to social media at a young age, and arguably the first to be exposed to a particular kind of toxicity that comes from people hiding behind a keyboard with no thought for the consequences. As someone who was on the receiving end many times, when I heard the government’s plans for a social media ban on under-16s, I wasn’t surprised. If anything, I understood exactly why it had come to this. Government polling by YouGov ahead of the announcement found the ban was backed by 90% of parents, while a separate survey put support at 75%, with parents citing concerns over their children’s wellbeing. This generation of parents are now watching their kids grow up online as they did, and seeing the same, if not increasing, impact it is having on their mental health. Scrolling Could Be as Addictive as Gambling What I didn’t have back then, as a teenager on MySpace and Tumblr, was an algorithm working out how to keep me there. Designer Aza Raskin, who has been widely credited with inventing the infinite scroll, has since described it as something close to a compulsion built by design. There was no natural stopping point, no moment to decide you’re done. You were being shown another post loading before you’d even finished processing the last one. Researchers studying the mechanism compare it to a slot machine. With every scroll, you get a small, uncertain reward, and that uncertainty is precisely what keeps a brain, especially a developing one, coming back. Research shows that Meta knows this is happening. Court filings and whistleblower testimony, including from Frances Haugen in 2021, allege the company’s own researchers documented Instagram andFacebook’sharm to teenage mental health for years, while executives repeatedly shelved fixes that would have limited engagement. Meta disputes how that evidence has been characterised. But the pattern is hard to ignore. My generation grew up exposed to the harm social media could do. This generation has grown up inside platMarketing manager, and freelance marketing consultant, Rachael Hunt, talks about the impact a social media ban could have on print and the wider trend of disconnecting from digital technology to interact with tactile experiences for both practical and marketing purposes What the Under-16s Social Media Ban Means for Print forms engineered, deliberately, to be difficult to put down. Arguably, the social media ban for under16s is going to have an impact. Whether that is going to be positive or negative in the long term is up for debate. But from a marketing perspective, this will definitely change things. Especially for companies whose marketing strategy involves targeting, even if not directly, those aged under 16. The Audience Could Be About to Get Expensive Analysts at eMarketer have revised UK digital ad spend forecasts for 2027 down by roughly £1.3bn, from £18.3bn to around £17bn. This is on the assumption that a huge, highly engaged under-16 segment simply stops being reachable through social media. Fewer eligible users means the same pool of advertisers competing for fewer impressions. For those in digital marketing, this could mean higher costs for everyone still bidding. There’s a reputational hit coming too. As platforms purge unverified and underCLOSER LOOK | SOCIAL MEDIA BAN AND PRINT 58 Issue 362 - September | October 2026 email: editor@printmonthly.co.uk
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