Why Are We Still Regulating Teens Instead of Social Media?

There’s a growing political temptation to approach the relationship between adolescents and social networks as a problem to be solved simply by raising an age barrier, setting a round figure and solemnly announcing a ban. It’s an attractive idea because it sounds forceful, allows governments to present themselves as protectors of children and because it turns a complex problem into an easily communicable slogan. But that is precisely why it should be approached with caution: when a deeply structural issue is translated into a simple headline, appearances can be deceptive.

The European Commission has been working on this issue for some time, and taking a much more sophisticated approach than a simple ban on under 16s. In July 2025, it published its guidelines for the protection of minors under the Digital Services Act, which not only addresses harmful content, but problematic and addictive behaviors, cyberbullying and harmful business practices. At the same time, it presented a prototype of an age verification app designed as a transitory solution until the arrival of European digital identity wallet. Here in Spain, the government has been taking part in this, reflecting its long-standing interest in combining protection of minors with privacy guarantees, a balance much more difficult and much more interesting than the usual recourse to rhetorical prohibition.

That is, in fact, the central point: the problem exists, but it is not exactly the one that many policymakers seem to want to address. We are not simply dealing with “minors using networks”, as if the harm came from mere exposure to a neutral technology. We are dealing with environments designed specifically to capture attention, prolong permanence, encourage social comparison, exploit impulsive behavior and maximize recurrent use. The focus, therefore, should not only be on the age of the user, but also on the architecture of the service. If the business depends on engaging, on generating habits, on converting vulnerability into monetizable screen time, then the real regulatory object is not only minors, but the economic model that turns them into raw material to be exploited.

Moreover, the available evidence is far from justifying the intellectual shortcuts through which this issue is usually legislated. The US health authorities have already warned that social networks cannot be said to be safe enough for children and adolescents, calling for more transparency, responsibility and data. The OECD, for its part, wants a “whole of society” approach involving government, families, schools professionals and platforms to share responsibility. In other words, neither technological complacency or moral hysteria. Anyone who reads these documents with a minimum of honesty will see that none of them endorses the idea that banning by age, by itself, will solve the problem.

Furthermore, serious academic research does not fit well with the prohibitionist simplistic approach. A study published in Nature Human Behaviour highlights the relationship between social networks and adolescent mental health, which it says cannot be reduced to linear and uniform causality, showing that the effects depend much on the child’s previous profile, their emotional situation and the type of use. A recent study in JAMA introduces a decisive nuance: the problem most clear associated with suicidal ideation and damaging mental health outcomes is not about screen time so much as patterns of addictive use. In other words, we must understand dynamics of dependence, compulsive behavior, sleep impairment, poor performance and loss of control. This forces us to think about regulation from the design of the systems.

That is why I find so problematic the ease with which the public debate shifts towards age verification and forgets about the rest. Age verification can make sense in some contexts, especially in relation to accessing manifestly inappropriate content. The AEPD itself has developed reasonable principles to do so by minimizing identification and protecting personal data. But making that tool the absolute center of public policy is another matter. Because then the essentials are left intact: the recommendation systems, persuasive design, algorithmic opacity, invasive notifications, doom scrolling and behavioral engineering that defines many platforms today. We limit ourselves to regulating the surface and leave the underpinnings intact.

In Spain, moreover, this debate has a particularly significant political dimension. Here there is an opportunity to turn the protection of minors into a symbolic consensus, precisely because almost no one dares to publicly question a measure presented as protecting children But a mature democracy should distinguish between effective protection and moral panic. The first requires making platforms uncomfortable, auditing their practices, imposing technical obligations, demanding regulatory interoperability and assuming legal and economic conflicts. The second is about announcing age limits, solemn declarations, and trust that verification technology will do the rest. One strategy transforms the environment, the other simply shifts the conversation.

In the final analysis, the question is not about protecting minors. That, does not admit discussion. The question is what exactly do we want to protect them from. If the answer is “from the internet”, we are lost before we start, because the internet is not going to disappear from their lives. If the answer is business models that exploit vulnerability for profit, then the conversation changes completely. It is no longer a question of protecting children, and instead one of keeping the predator at bay. It is no longer just a matter of preventing access, but of redesigning the conditions of access. And it is no longer a user control policy, but a platform control policy.

In Europe, where privacy is protected as a fundamental right, where we can protect ourselves from companies that spy on us at all hours and sell our interests and patterns of behavior to the highest bidder. That’s where the serious debate really begins. The other, unfortunately, is too similar to legislating against the symptom, perhaps to avoid dealing with the disease.

UPDATE (04/16/2026): to add insult to injury, age-gating systems don’t work at all, as proven by the huge failure of the Australian example…

(En español, aquí)

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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