Four Claims, Four Rebuttals

While some platform features, like variable reward notifications and infinite scroll, do exploit well-understood psychological engagement mechanisms, this is not unique to social media. The same features can be found in many games, online shopping apps, streaming services and EdTech. Nor is there evidence their presence on social media causes neurological harm. Odgers & Jensen (2020) found that fears about lasting harm to adolescent mental health at the population level are not supported by available science, and Przybylski & Weinstein (2017), in a study of over 120,000 English adolescents, found the relationship between screen time and well-being to be curvilinear rather than linearly harmful, with moderate use showing no detrimental effects. What the evidence and recent court rulings against major social media platforms do show is that these features are intentionally designed to maximize engagement at the cost of children’s wellbeing, which in itself infringes on children’s rights. What the evidence supports is regulating the commercial practices that exploit these mechanisms — across all digital platforms, not just the ones a ban would cover. Odgers & Jensen 2020; Przybylski & Weinstein 2017; NPR 2026

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses of peer-reviewed research on the impacts of social media on mental health consistently find that associations are absent or weak, inconsistent, and highly context-dependent. This was most recently confirmed by a 2026 umbrella review of 72 such reviews, which found that general social media use shows weak and inconsistent associations with both well-being and ill-being, while problematic patterns of use — characterized by compulsive, uncontrolled engagement — show more consistent links to ill-being. Crucially, causality and its (potential) direction remain unresolved, with multiple studies suggesting that declining mental health leads to increased social media use, not the reverse. Vuorre, Orben & Przybylski (2021), drawing on three nationally representative datasets covering hundreds of thousands of adolescents, found no overall evidence that digital technology use has become more harmful to adolescents’ mental health over time, with mixed results across specific outcomes that on balance contradict the narrative of an accelerating, social-media-driven crisis. Presenting correlation as settled causation in legislative rationale is not a neutral act. Tølbøll 2026; Vuorre et al. 2021; Odgers & Jensen 2020; Valkenburg et al. 2022

Concerns about harmful media representations are not new, and they do not begin or end with social media. Scholars including Bishop (2018) and Crystal Abidin (2017) have documented how platform algorithms actively amplify these dynamics, connecting them to broader commercial agendas. But the Geena Davis Institute has been documenting identical gender stereotyping in screen media and its negative impacts on girls and young women since 2004. The Canadian government has spent years funding media interventions and self-esteem programs to counter these same dynamics, from WAGE’s girls’ body confidence initiatives to the CRTC’s gender parity requirements in Canadian film and television production. A ban ignores decades of scholarship and public investment showing that the amplification of harmful representations is regrettably common across media — and that the solution lies in regulating what platforms are permitted to amplify, not in removing children from the spaces where it happens. Bishop 2018; Abidin 2017; Geena Davis Institute; WAGE 2024; CRTC 2019

The surveillance capitalism critique is legitimate and well-established in the scholarly literature (Zuboff, 2019; Couldry & Mejias, 2019), with a growing body of work documenting how these dynamics specifically target children (Barassi, 2020; Stoilova, Nandagiri & Livingstone, 2019; Lupton & Williamson, 2017). It could be the foundation of a regulatory framework that actually holds tech companies accountable. But an age ban is, in many ways, the most industry-friendly possible response. Consider what a ban does not require: no changes to algorithmic design, no restrictions on data collection, no transparency in recommendation systems, no liability for harmful content, no removal of manipulative design features. Platforms that “comply” by excluding under-16s face no obligation to become safer for anyone. Meanwhile, the age assurance systems required to enforce any ban will generate entirely new data flows. Verifying users’ ages means collecting identity-adjacent information at scale, creating new commercial opportunities for platforms and a booming age verification industry that profits directly from the legislation. Premier Kinew’s rhetoric names the right enemy. His policy lets them off the hook. Barassi 2020; Stoilova, Nandagiri & Livingstone 2019; Lupton & Williamson 2017; 5Rights Foundation 2018/2023; McNair & Grimes 2024