Social Media and Young People, Part 2: The Case For

In Part 1, we examined the mounting evidence against social media –  from the Zuckerberg trial to the Australian ban and the UK’s legislative momentum. The case that social media is causing harm is strong. But there is another side to this debate, and educators cannot afford to ignore it.

Digital Literacy Is Not Optional

Here is the uncomfortable truth, which the headlines obfuscate: technology is not going away. AI, automation, digital communications, robotics, data analytics and sustainability technologies are reshaping every industry. The young people we teach today will enter a workforce where digital fluency is as fundamental a skill as reading and writing. Eighty-five per cent of parents agree that digital skills are essential for their child’s future.

We cannot prepare young people for that future world by shielding them from it entirely. Social media, used thoughtfully, helps young people develop essential practical skills: managing privacy settings, crafting messages for different audiences, evaluating information, building a positive digital footprint. These are the building blocks of professional and adult life in the 21st century.

The data backs this up. A BBC Worklife investigation found that digital literacy is now a workplace non-negotiable. This has gone way beyond a basic grasp of computers and now requires the ability to work adaptably across tools, devices and platforms. Workers with advanced digital skills earn on average 65% more than those without. Since the pandemic, hybrid and remote working has expanded from 5% of the workforce to nearly half, and employers now expect new hires to either arrive digitally fluent or learn very fast.

The Problem with Bans

Australia’s social media ban enjoys strong public support, but the early signs are instructive. Reports show that some teenagers are still accessing platforms while others feel more isolated from their peers. Given that 84% of Australian children aged 8–12 were already using social media despite the previous minimum age of 13, enforcement will clearly be the central challenge.

The problem with bans is that young people routinely circumvent the restrictions. Similar bans in China, South Korea and France have seen increased use of VPNs, which allow that. On the day the Australian ban came into force, alternative apps, like Lemon8 (owned by TikTok’s parent ByteDance) and Yope surged up the Australian app store charts. One RMIT professor warned that the government would be left playing “whack-a-mole” as young users migrated to less regulated platforms and apps we know far less about and so are far harder to hold accountable.

In the UK, the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute has warned that the scope of the proposed social media ban for young people could extend far beyond Australia’s, potentially capturing messaging apps, Wikipedia’s editing functions and online games with social features. Age verification also creates serious privacy trade-offs, with digital rights groups warning of mass surveillance and data-collection infrastructure affecting all users, not just children. Amnesty International has argued that blanket bans may isolate young people and push them towards less safe corners of the ‘dark web’. UNICEF Australia states that the real fix should be improving social media safety, not simply restricting access.

Even the NSPCC, which has hardly been soft on tech companies, has stopped short of calling for an outright ban as the primary solution. Its preferred approach is forcing platforms to enforce existing age restrictions, eliminate addictive design features and block harmful content at source. The ban, they say, would only be better than doing nothing at all.

The Digital Cliff Edge

Banning young people from social media completely risks creating what child safety experts call a “digital cliff edge”; this is a place where they arrive at 16 with no scaffolded experience of navigating online spaces. It is the educational equivalent of never letting a child cross a road, or even be a passenger in a vehicle, then expecting them to drive a car on their 17th birthday.

Research on digital skills and young people consistently shows that it is those with stronger digital literacy who experience fewer harms online and cope better with risks when they do encounter them. It is the skills which are protective, not the absence of exposure. As one researcher at The University of East Anglia argued, a ban is “the wrong tool for the job” – it addresses the avoidance of symptoms while leaving the underlying platform design untouched.

Connection, Community and Opportunity

For young people there is connection through social media. Two-thirds of teenagers report having a supportive community online. For young people who feel isolated, whether that’s through geography, disability, sexuality or other factors, social media can be a lifeline. LGBTQ+ young people consistently report that online spaces provide essential connection unavailable in their immediate environments. Removing access does not remove the need; it removes the support.

Social media also builds what researchers call “social capital”. This consists of networks which can be leveraged for jobs, mentoring and practical support. For teenagers from underrepresented backgrounds, platforms can connect them with academic, career and life mentors they would never otherwise encounter. Every employer now expects digital competence. Many expect social media fluency. Denying young people the opportunity to develop these skills in a supervised environment does them a disservice.

What Teachers Should Do

Teach With Technology, Not Against It

Structured, guided use of digital tools gives young people the scaffolded experience they need. Co-constructing knowledge about online spaces and techniques with students is more effective than lecturing from the front, because the landscape shifts faster than any policy document.

Spot The Vulnerable

The harms from social media are not evenly distributed. The Nature meta-analysis showed that inequality amplifies other risk factors. Young people already struggling with mental health, poverty or social isolation are most at risk. Pastoral systems must be equipped to identify problematic social media use as part of wider wellbeing support.

Have The Conversation

Young people in Meta’s own research said they knew social media was bad for them but couldn’t stop. That awareness is something to work with. Open dialogue about how algorithms work, why content feels addictive, and what real life actually looks like can be genuinely empowering. The Social Dilemma is an excellent classroom resource for older students.

Prepare Them for the World They Will Inherit

Creative industries, marketing, journalism, science communication, and education itself all require effective digital navigation. The goal is to develop resilient, critical, digitally literate young adults who can harness technology’s benefits while recognising and mitigating its risks. That does not happen by accident; it can happen through education.

Neither Panic Nor Complacency

The evidence of harm from social media is real. The evidence that technology is central to young people’s futures is equally undeniable. The way forward is not to pretend that risks do not exist, nor to ban young people from the digital world they will inevitably inhabit as adults.

As is so often the case in education, the answer lies in equipping young people with the knowledge, critical thinking, experience and resilience to navigate the digital world well. Right now, that has never been more important.

By Neil Wolstenholme, Kloodle Chairman

Sources

Internet Matters — Social media benefits for young people, 2025

NCBI — Potential Benefits of Social Media: Social Media and Adolescent Health, 2024

PMC — Young People’s Health-Related Learning Through Social Media: What Do Teachers Need to Know?, 2021

Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute — UK Social Media Ban: Implications and Challenges, Feb 2026

NSPCC — Three actions for government on social media, Feb 2026

House of Commons Library — Proposals to ban social media for children, CBP-10468

UNICEF Australia; Amnesty International Australia — Responses to the Online Safety Amendment Act

Livingstone, Mascheroni & Stoilova — Digital skills outcomes for young people, Sage Journals, 2023