# How Australia's social media minimum age law may reshape research recruitment for adolescents under 16

## TL;DR

Australia's new social media age law may make it harder to recruit teens under 16 for research, affecting study diversity and cost.

## Contribution

The paper introduces a framework to address recruitment challenges for adolescent research under new social media age laws.

## Key findings

- The law may reduce reach to adolescents aged 13–15, altering sample composition.
- Gatekeeper-mediated recruitment could compromise privacy and diversity.
- Research costs and timelines may increase due to new legal and ethical requirements.

## Abstract

Social media is a popular recruitment tool for adolescent research as it can enable rapid, low-cost, and targeted enrolment. Australia's Online Safety Amendment Bill, which introduced a mandatory minimum age of 16 from December 2025, is likely to disrupt some researchers' ability to recruit adolescents aged 13–15 who are commonly accessed through these platforms. This viewpoint examines the implications of the legislation for recruitment feasibility, sample representativeness, and research equity in Australia, with flow-on effects for international studies. We identify three areas of impact: shifts in sample composition due to reduced reach; increased reliance on gatekeeper-mediated recruitment, with potential risks to participation privacy, and sample diversity; and greater operational complexity, longer timelines, and higher costs. We highlight opportunities to strengthen youth-centred research infrastructure, including establishing a national youth research registry, supporting multi-modal recruitment through expanded funding and timelines, and advancing ethical, developmentally appropriate consent pathways that minimise gatekeeping.