Anthony Albanese

The toll on kids of relentless, dopamine-driven scrolling on social media is largely beyond dispute. In the decade following the proliferation of mobile internet services in 2010, youth depression, anxiety, and self-harm spiked across the developed world, including Australia, where mental health hospitalizations soared 81% for teen girls and 51% for boys. To protect his nation’s most valuable resource, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in November decided to ban under-16s from platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, and X. The world-first legislation comes into force in December 2025, and directly targets some of the world’s most influential companies run by its richest and most powerful people. While it has fallen to Albanese—who was returned by a landslide in federal elections on May 3—to show bold leadership on this global issue, today governments from France to Singapore are mulling similar moves. “These are developing minds, and young people need the space to be able to grow up,” Albanese told TIME in February.