Three months into Australia's ban, 81.5% of children were still using social media
The first hard measurement of an under-16 ban is in, and it points at age checks as the thing that decides everything else.
Australia's eSafety Commissioner published research on 31 July 2026 finding that81.5% of children aged 10 to 15 were still using an age-restricted platform three months after the country's under-16 ban took effect, down from 85.9% shortly before it started. The report surveyed the same 803 children and their parents at both points, and is the first of a two-year evaluation.
Account ownership moved further than use. The share of under-16s holding an account on a restricted platform fell from 52.4% to 42.1%, and roughly a third of children had an account shut down or deactivated. But most children who had accounts before the ban either kept them or made new ones.
The reason, in eSafety's own reading, is that the checks were not there to stop them. Around half the children said no platform had ever asked them to verify their age. Another37.2% said their account simply listed their age as over 16. VPNs accounted for 7.4%, and about 11% said a parent had helped them get around the restrictions. eSafety puts the gap down mainly to platforms failing to put effective age assurance in place.
Some things did shift. Messaging use rose from 40.5% to 52.3% and Pinterest from 16.6% to about 22%, which eSafety reads as an early signal of children moving sideways rather than off. The share of children who felt they were missing out dropped from 43.3% to 36.3%. Less welcome: the proportion of parents who did not know their child was using social media went up by 10 points.
Why this matters for a UK parent
The UK ban is due in force by spring 2027, and Ofcom has to tell Parliament by the end of October what counts as an effective age check for 16. Australia's numbers say that one decision will determine most of what our ban actually does to children's use: get age assurance wrong and you move the headline figure by four percentage points. Ourage-checks explainer covers the methods still in contention here.
Two honest caveats. The fieldwork ran in March and April, so this measures the first three months and nothing since. And eSafety says the report set out to test whether early changes were happening at all, not whether the policy works over time.
Nothing here changes anything you need to do this week. It does make the case for not treating spring 2027 as the moment supervision ends: the Australian data suggests children keep their access, so the free controls in our setup guides stay worth having afterwards.