About a month ago, the Canadian government announced Bill C-34, the “Safe Social Media Act.” It came in response to growing concerns about the unsuitability of children having unfettered access to social media platforms and AI chatbots. It aligns with efforts made by numerous other countries to do the same, including Spain, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia, Malaysia, Poland, Slovenia, and others. The idea of a ban is also supported by 75% of Canadians, based on a March 2026 poll conducted by the Angus Reid Institute.
When the announcement came, I was frantically packing my suitcase for the first true vacation of my adult life—two weeks of travelling through Corsica and Sardinia without either kids or laptop. (Oddly, the prospect of leaving the latter behind was more anxiety-inducing than the former, which was likely a sign of me needing a break.) And so, despite my eagerness to address what might be Canada’s biggest tech-and-kid-related news in years, I stowed my laptop in a closet at home and strove to practice what I preach—the necessity of an occasional total tech detox.
Now that I’m home, feeling rested and rejuvenated, stuffed with superb gelato, and somewhat tanned (though my kids say it’s just a surplus of freckles that have melded together to create the impression of a tan), I am turning my thoughts to this legislation, which I believe is a good thing, a step in the right direction.
Progress, Not Perfection
In reading various op-eds and breakdowns and analyses about the Safe Social Media Act, I am struck by how critical people are of its supposed inadequacies. There are concerns about loopholes, about the futility of trying to keep kids off platforms that they’re motivated to be on, about how policing social media use should be the job of the parents, not the government. There are concerns that the bill is too broad, that many issues are left undecided, that it could infringe on privacy. Some wonder if it’s even constitutional and whether it could leave the government open to legal challenges.
These are all valid questions, though I can’t help but think they miss the point, which is to do the best we can to protect children from platforms that have been proven harmful. This is not an easy or straightforward task. It will be fraught with inconsistencies and unforeseen complications. There is no clearly marked path forward, but we should not let that stop us from trying.
As Dr. Jean Twenge put it in her latest book, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.” We can’t wait around for the day when, suddenly, miraculously, we know exactly what to do; instead, we have to start trying things and learn as we go. Honestly, do we have any other choice? To choose inaction, knowing what we know about social media’s effects on young brains, would be negligent.
What If 25% Is a Win?
We’ve had a mere seven months to watch Australia roll out its social media ban for kids under the age of 16, but it seems that skewering it has already become an international sport. Many people are contemptuous, citing the fact that non-compliance rates are high and, as of April, only one quarter of 14- and 15-year-olds had stopped using social media. Data from the country’s e-Safety commissioner indicated a 37 percent reduction in under-16s holding accounts in the first four months of the ban.
This, critics say, is indicative of failure. And yet, is it? To me, those numbers sound like a success. Surely, no one in their right mind thought there’d be 100% compliance right away. If anywhere from a quarter to a third of kids has left social media because of this ban, while the other three-quarters to two-thirds is finding loopholes, is that not still a win? I would say, resoundingly, yes!
It is said that roughly 20% of a population must change its practices in order to alter social norms, which means that, given time, even at relatively low uptake rates, the necessary shift will occur. Eventually, it will become easier for other children and teens to get off these platforms, without feeling like they’re the odd ones out. Of course, there will be ups and downs, tweaks and adjustments needed, but the point is always to be striving in the right direction.
Australia’s eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, made some interesting points in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald. When asked whether the ban has been a success, she said, “It depends on what your expectations are.” The interviewer then asked what her expectations had been; perhaps surprisingly, she said that when the ban was first proposed, she was not in favour of it, mainly because she understood how difficult it would be to implement:
What you’re effectively asking us to do with this is fence the ocean. We might be able to create some friction and some degree of safety, but it’s a futile exercise if you think you’re totally stemming the ocean.
I think that’s extremely insightful—that creating friction and impediments to access is the point, more so than building a full-on dam.
Why ‘Delay’ Is the Better Word
Inman Grant made another memorable point. She dislikes the word “ban” and prefers to call Australia’s legislation “the delay.” Words are powerful; they elicit strong reactions from people. Bans are generally not received well by people who instinctively don’t like being told what to do. Delay has a softer undertone; it suggests a temporary need for the collective protection of our children and youth that, I suspect, most people can get behind. If we all shifted our language to speak less of banning and more of delaying, that might help to bridge divides and subtly shift expectations. (I also wish we’d stop referring to kids as “digital natives.”)
It reminds me of a point that Jonathan Haidt makes repeatedly in interviews, when he points out that we’re not trying to block kids from the Internet, but rather from specific algorithmically driven platforms (namely social media) that have been shown to be harmful and prone to compulsive use. No one is saying, “Don’t ever Google stuff or use a web browser.” That would be ridiculous. Rather, those of us advocating for change in the way young people use digital media prefer a nuanced approach. We’re saying, “Be judicious. Say no to certain things, yes to others, and proceed with caution.”
A Good Start Is Better Than No Start
Back to Canada’s legislation and the debate simmering around it—a vocal segment of the population will always complain and grumble about overreach, inefficacy, futility, etc. Major change is always scary and met with resistance. Young people are unlikely ever to agree that a delay is a good idea, particularly if they’ve grown up using these platforms and don’t know any other way of life; plus, it’s a kid’s job to test limits and challenge boundaries. Similarly, their parents will resist because they, too, don’t have an alternate template for raising kids, or they don’t want to put in the hard work that’s required, at least initially, by a low-tech approach to parenting, or they’re assuaging their own guilt at having been lenient for so long.
Implementing an official national delay on social media access will, at the very least, reinforce and validate the efforts of parents who do want to preserve their kids’ experience of analog childhood for as long as possible, and it will help boost the confidence of those kids whose parents expect something other than the status quo. There will always be those who find loopholes, but that should not deter others from striving to improve circumstances for the youngest and most vulnerable members of our society.
It doesn’t have to be perfect; it’s about making progress, with the right intentions at heart.
I agree that we need to keep kids offline and help them to live in the real world. Friction is good but ideally it would be imposed by families, not the state.
From my perspective, the unanticipated knockon effects of these types of rules lead to things like digital IDs and an empowered technocratic state. Not things I'm super excited about.
I so wish the US would consider implementing something like this. I can't imagine it happening, but a girl can dream.