Social Media Is About to Have Its Big “Tobacco” Moment
And it will go beyond regulating teens
By Thierry Malleret, economist
Earlier this month, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said that “social media has become a failed state,” echoing the rising concerns of many policymakers and experts about the dangers it poses. The push to ban some digital platforms to users under a certain age is gaining traction, most notably in Europe with countries like Austria, France, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Spain and the UK considering a ban for those under 16. In the US, around two dozen states are exploring laws aimed at restricting access to social media or requiring age verification for teenagers. There is certainly a growing recognition (supported by scientific evidence, which so far remains limited) that digital platforms like TikTok, Grok, Facebook and Instagram negatively affect our cognitive, mental and physical wellbeing.
This said, some question marks remain about whether banning teenagers from social media could do more harm than good. As demonstrated by Australia—the first country to put in place a ban on social media consumption for teenagers last December—evaluating the effectiveness of such a policy can be tricky. After the initial four months, practical experience shows that enforcing a ban is very hard (mainly because of VPNs), and so is defining what social media really is. For example, WhatsApp—having escaped the ban— is now used by many Australian teenagers as a social media platform. Is the messaging app evolving into a social media platform?
Despite the vagaries of legislation, it’s likely that social media is living, or about to live, its big tobacco moment. Naturally, big tech is fighting back. Elon Musk denounced Pedro Sanchez as a “tyrant” and “fascist totalitarian,” framing the whole issue as one of freedom of speech and authoritarian censorship. For Europe, regulating social media platforms is almost certain to inflame tensions with the current US administration–and this is the point where wellness, geopolitics and tech intersect and collide.
From a global standpoint, the broader and fundamental question for the wellness community is: how do we protect ourselves from social media without depriving ourselves of its benefits? Today, the conversation is focused on children and teenagers, but is there any age at which someone becomes old enough to escape social media addiction and to digest unlimited amounts of hate, abuse, addictive material and violent pornography without mental harm? Similarly, is there a limit in terms of the time we should spend talking to an online chatbot? Finding, or providing, protection against social media excess and overconsumption goes beyond defining an age limit. It must also be a question of defining a “wellness limit,” the threshold beyond which too much social media becomes incompatible with a person’s wellbeing.
