Bryce Corbett

Well, Andrew, I think probably it's best described as having had a very mixed outcome so far.

It's probably the most diplomatic way I can put it.

A great big success in terms of focusing the nation's attention towards the scale of the problem, but perhaps limited success in terms of actually solving the problem.

which is to say there's been a noticeable uptick in the conversations that are happening in households around the country about what kids are seeing when they're online.

And I think that's probably universally recognised as being a good thing.

But in terms of how many fewer kids are on social media platforms today than there were before the ban was introduced in December, well, I think that's probably been negligible.

Yep, they're the ones.

And the other thing to remember, of course, is when it comes to figuring out how this ban is working is how it actually logistically works.

And the government here has asked the platforms themselves to ensure that no one under 16 is allowed on them.

Yeah, it is very much choose your own adventure.

That includes facial analysis.

The age verification technologies you've heard a lot about to work out whether or not a user is old enough.

And that often uses AI and other tech to try and nut out a user's age from their other behavior online or looking for confirmation of their age from friends or relatives or tracking their online habits to paint a picture of their age.

Yeah, now that's going to be very interesting to watch.

Of course, when the ban began, millions of accounts were removed from the apps and the government made a bit of a song and dance back in January about how many kids they had removed or how many accounts they had closed down.

But in the month since, we've had a clearer picture of exactly how many kids are still using social media.

A YouGov poll of 1,500 teens this week found that, get this, 85% have said that they're still on social media and 22% have said that they have actually increased their use of social media.

But there's some good news too coming out of this poll.

85% of parents are

apparently having conversations with their kids about social media.