The UK will ban children under 16 from social media by early next year, replicating a policy that came into effect in Australia in 2025. The move is intended to put children’s well-being ahead of technology companies’ profits. But how will scientists study the effects of the measure and determine whether it is actually having a positive impact?

“We have no evidence either way,” says at Bath Spa University in the UK, who is working with the Australian government to analyse the effects of its own ban and is also advising the UK government. “It’s such new territory.”

Leading the way on research in the UK is the Wellcome Trust, which is already deep into the IRL Trial in Bradford. This has recruited about 4000 kids from 10 schools, aged 12 to 15, who installed an app on their phones to track their social media use. For half of those children, the app also limits access to social apps. The researchers expect to publish their first results in the middle of next year, after the newly announced ban has taken effect. However, at the Wellcome Trust says the findings should still help inform policy.

They will also improve upon existing research that tends to rely on self-reported measures, like asking children or their parents how much time they spend on social media, rather than using more objective metrics. What’s more, the few interventional studies that do exist . “If you’re talking about big changes here around mental health and those sorts of things, you’re not going to see changes in two weeks,” says Etchells.

Australia’s ban came into place in December, which is too recent to gauge its long-term effects. But once national bans like these are in place, it is impossible to do controlled studies, in which two groups of similar people are allocated access or not. What’s more, the results from larger studies on the wider population before and after the ban will be impossible to unpick from other social impacts.

For now, Sebastian is gearing up to run additional studies that hopefully generate at least some results soon after the ban. The UK government expects to bring legislation to Parliament before Christmas, with the policy coming into force in early 2027.

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The Wellcome Trust has invited 14 research teams to submit plans, some or all of which will be funded, into the effects of social media on young people’s well-being. These will take varying approaches to capture as much data as possible, with the goal of eventually synthesising the data into a conclusive result.

Some of these studies will follow existing cohorts and regularly interview them about their mental health and well-being over time, before and after the ban. Sebastian says these approaches can be insightful, but rigid. Other studies are proposing momentary assessments, where participants are sent text messages asking them to complete short surveys on the spur of the moment, capturing a different kind of data. Others may look to analyse data that is already being captured for some insight, such as the rate of hospital admissions or school absences.

With time against them, Sebastian hopes that some results could emerge relatively soon after the ban, but they are likely to be nuanced. For instance, a social media ban could have some positive impacts, but also disruptive ones in the short term, as online supportive networks are lost.

The effects of such bans are also likely to change over the years or decades, as today’s children and younger teenagers approach adulthood having never had access to social media. “It’s not that this is a done deal,” says Sebastian. “Policies could be continuing to change over the longer term, and it’s possible that the findings from our study and others will help to shape those policies iteratively.”

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For now, some are wary that the UK government is taking a reactive stance in the complex problem of poor youth mental health, without the appropriate data. at the University of Oxford told the Science Media Centre that a blanket age ban is a “blunt tool” and a stronger step than current evidence can support, but adds that the Wellcome research is an opportunity to learn whether these measures will “help, harm or neither”.

One thing that could hinder research – and undermine government policy – is the ability of users to skirt the bans. Early reports suggest that facial-recognition technology designed to verify ages online can be , and VPNs make it trivial to appear to websites as a user from another country where age checks aren’t mandated.

Surveys in Australia by the Molly Rose Foundation, a suicide-prevention charity, found that 61 per cent of 12-to-15-year-olds who had accounts on restricted platforms before the ban came into force . The organisation said that given the findings, it would be a “high-stakes gamble” for the UK to follow suit at this stage.

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (samaritans.org); US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (988lifeline.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines for services in other countries.

A shipping container holding three mobile flotation tanks is en route to Maui, Hawaii, to tackle a mental health crisis caused by one of the deadliest wildfires in US history. While mostly found in high-end spas, flotation tanks have shown promise as a treatment for anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If the roll-out is successful, fleets of the tanks could be sent to disaster zones all over the world.

In August 2023, a series of wildfires erupted on Maui, the worst of which killed 102 people and . In the years since, risks of depression and anxiety have been higher within wildfire burn zones, and there are fears of an unfolding epidemic of PTSD.

“Maui does not have an infrastructure to deal with a mental health crisis of this magnitude,” says , a clinical neuropsychologist who set up the non-profit . “People are self-medicating. There’s a lot of alcohol use; there’s a surge in suicide and PTSD.”

On 2 May, Feinstein announced at the in Los Angeles that the float units would be available for free sessions for first responders and survivors of the 2023 wildfires, while also being used to collect long-term data on flotation as a mental health treatment.

Flotation therapy, also known as Float-REST (reduced environmental stimulation therapy), involves lying in a shallow pool that contains enough dissolved Epsom salts to support the body without effort. The water in the pool and the air above it are kept at body temperature, and with ear plugs to reduce noise and the lights switched off, the brain is cut off from all external sources of sensory stimulation.

The tanks were invented in the 1950s by neuroscientists to answer the question of whether the brain would shut down without this stimulation. The answer was no – people remained conscious, but they did report a sense of deep relaxation.

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Feinstein has since spent more than a decade ’s mental and physical effects. This work has suggested that it significantly reduces anxiety in volunteers without any mental health conditions, and in people with anxiety disorder and other mental health conditions, such as depression and PTSD. It produces an effect that is roughly equivalent to taking benzodiazepines, a type of sedative, says Feinstein.

While the exact mechanisms are still unclear, flotation is thought to work by removing external sensory stimulation and reducing movement, allowing the body and brain to settle into a state of relaxation. Studies have shown that within minutes, and blood pressure falls, while and emotional processing towards a restorative, sleep-like state.

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Feinstein, who has lived in Maui since 2020, has worked with the UK-based company Floataway to design lower-cost modular float pods, which, unlike regular tanks, can be assembled anywhere in a matter of days. The will bring the tanks to the area and is set to start gathering data in the summer. If successful, the aim is to have a fleet of pop-up tanks that can be sent to disaster zones to potentially prevent PTSD.

at University College London, who has studied the bodily basis of PTSD, says that the focus on calming the body is a much-needed change in how we treat the condition. “A core feature of PTSD is hyperarousal, which is accompanied by increased reactivity of bodily responses,” she says. “Flotation is seemingly able to bring about a feeling of internal safety, which an important shift in the understanding and treatment of PTSD.  I’m really excited by this work.”

Need a listening ear? UK Samaritans: 116123 (samaritans.org); US Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: 988 (988lifeline.org). Visit bit.ly/SuicideHelplines for services in other countries.