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Social media start age

The age at which your child may have social media accounts, from the platform minimum of 13 to later at 15, 16 or 18.

What age should a child start social media?

In short: Parents choose between 5 main approaches: 13 (platform terms); 13 with adult monitoring and coaching (APA); 15 or 16 (Haidt; Australia's law, in force since December 2025; Denmark and others planned); 18; Platform by platform. Evidence: guidance changing. Official guidance changed recently and is still moving — check current sources. Best settled: tween.

Evidence
Guidance changing
Best settled
Tween
Part of
Learning & the wider world

Social media start age: what are the options?

Parents usually land on one of these 5 approaches.

  1. 1. 13 (platform terms)

    The child joins at thirteen, the minimum most platforms set.

  2. 2. 13 with adult monitoring and coaching (APA)

    The child joins at thirteen with an adult watching and teaching, as the American Psychological Association suggests.

  3. 3. 15 or 16 (Haidt; Australia's law, in force since December 2025; Denmark and others planned)

    The child waits until fifteen or sixteen, as Jonathan Haidt argues and Australian law now requires.

  4. 4. 18

    The child waits until adulthood.

  5. 5. Platform by platform

    You decide separately for each app.

Social media start age: what does the evidence say?

Guidance changing. Official guidance changed recently and is still moving — check current sources. (In flux)

APA advises adult monitoring in early adolescence; the causal science is openly disputed. Law is moving fast but unevenly: Australia's under-16 ban has applied since December 10, 2025, with Indonesia and Malaysia also reported as in effect, while Britain, France, Denmark, Spain, Greece and the EU are at planned or proposed stages and sources disagree on whether France's law has passed. In the US, state age-verification and parental-consent laws are tied up in First Amendment litigation, with some enjoined in 2026 (for example Virginia and Nebraska) and others allowed to operate during the case

Sources

What else is worth knowing?

Most platforms set a minimum age of thirteen. Researchers disagree about how much social media harms teens, and several countries are raising the legal age. What your child's friends do will affect how hard any rule is to hold.

Questions to ask each other

  • What age feels right for social media, and why?
  • How will we handle it if all our child's friends are on it?
  • What conditions would we set?

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First published 2026-10-03. Last updated 2026-10-05. General information, not medical advice.