The social media ban is an experiment – here’s how it will be studied
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- The Wellcome Trust is leading UK research via the IRL Trial in Bradford, which has recruited about 4,000 children aged 12-15 from 10 schools who installed an app tracking social media use; for half the children, the app also limits access, with first results expected mid-2027 — after the ban takes effect.
- Pete Etchells at Bath Spa University, who is advising the UK government and working with Australia, said 'We have no evidence either way' on whether the ban will help young people's well-being, calling it 'such new territory.'
- The Wellcome Trust has invited 14 research teams to submit plans, with proposed approaches including cohort follow-ups, momentary text-message surveys sent on the spur of the moment, and analysis of existing datasets such as hospital admissions and school absences.
- Holly Bear at the University of Oxford told the Science Media Centre that a blanket age ban is a 'blunt tool' — a stronger step than current evidence can support — but added the Wellcome research is an opportunity to learn whether such measures 'help, harm or neither.'
- The Molly Rose Foundation found that 61% of 12-to-15-year-olds in Australia who had accounts on restricted platforms before that country's December 2025 ban still have access to one or more of them, calling it a 'high-stakes gamble' for the UK to follow suit at this stage.
- UK legislation is expected to reach Parliament before Christmas, with the policy taking effect in early 2027; the source notes that once a national ban is in place, controlled studies become impossible and before/after results will be 'impossible to unpick from other social impacts.'
Why it matters: The UK is rolling out a sweeping policy that leading researchers say current evidence cannot justify, while early Australian data shows 61% of affected teens are still accessing restricted platforms. The Wellcome Trust's research could determine whether the policy is tightened, loosened, or abandoned — but the first substantive results won't arrive until after the ban is already in force.
