The anxiety of age: Moral panics over children’s social media use as a tool to regulate

Throughout 2023 and 2024, in the lead up to the introduction of Australia’s social media age-restriction laws, calls to ban teenagers’ access to social media were widely reported by Australian news media. This media moment was in part driven by moves by governments of a range of countries to take action to address the harmful effects of social media on young people, high profile, popular academic books such as Haidt’s The Anxious Generation (2024), and parent-led campaigns advocating delayed access to social media based on age. This paper analyses Australian news media headlines from September 2023 to September 2024, drawing on theories regarding moral and media panics (Cohen, 2011; Drotner, 1992; McRobbie & Thornton, 1995), to understand the character and purpose of the Australian news discourse preceding the passage of the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill in November, 2024. It finds that the media coverage met Goode and Ben-Yehuda’s (1994) criteria of a moral panic, reproducing certain constructions of childhood and supporting government efforts to impose age-based restrictions to social media. In doing so, however, it constrained alternative policy approaches, particularly those that might better account for the diversity of young people's maturity and offer ways to create safer online environments and experiences for all.