Australia’s new social media legislation: the world is watching

Join the Tech Impact and Policy Center on October 27th from 12PM–1PM Pacific for a seminar with Susan Sawyer

Stanford affiliates are invited to join us at 11:40 AM for lunch, prior to the seminar.  The Fall Seminar Series continues through December; see our Fall Seminar Series page for speakers and topics. Sign up for our newsletter for announcements. 

About the Seminar:

In December 2025, the Australian Government implemented novel legislation aimed at restricting under 16-year-olds from accessing social media. This presentation will 1) review the prevalence of poor mental health in Australian adolescents; 2) present longitudinal data on the causal links between frequent social media use and poor mental health; and 3) provide insights into what has (and what has not) changed as a result of Australia's social media legislation.

About the Speaker:

Professor Susan M Sawyer AM MBBS MD FRACP FAAHMS holds the Geoff and Helen Handbury Chair of Adolescent Health at The University of Melbourne and is director of the Centre for Adolescent Health, a WHO collaborating centre for adolescent health at the Royal Children’s Hospital and Murdoch Children’s Research Institute. Widely published (>450 peer review publications, >55 book chapters, >66,500 citations, H-index 106), her research, education and advocacy efforts have advanced the field of adolescent health in Australia, the Asia Pacific region, and globally. Susan’s leadership shaped two series on Adolescent Health for The Lancet (2007, 2012), as well as two Lancet Commissions on Adolescent Health and Wellbeing (2016, 2025) - she is currently co-leading a Lancet Commission on the health of China’s adolescents. She was president of the International Association for Adolescent Health (president, 2017-21) and chaired the International Pediatric Association’s Specialist Advisory Group for Adolescent Medicine (2021-23). She is a member of the Australian eSafety Commission’s Academic Evaluation Committee that is overseeing the evaluation of Australia’s novel social media legislation. She leads a longitudinal cohort known as CATS, the Child to Adult transition Study, that has annually collected information on 1200 nine-year-olds for the past 15 years, including data on social media and mental health.