08/04/2026
Jon Shell, volunteer at Unplugged Canada, joined Canadian Justice last week to talk about Bill C-34 and its proposed social media age of 16 — and it's a must-watch.
A few points that stand out:
🔹The harm is real. Study after study points to genuine harm from social media use in kids, from addiction and attention loss to the most extreme outcomes, including self-harm and exploitation. This isn't a hypothetical risk we are legislating against.
🔹 Friction works, even when it's not perfect. Kids will always find workarounds: a borrowed account, a fudged birthdate, a VPN. But so do kids with alcohol, ci******es, and other restricted things, and we still restrict them because it works. Fewer kids end up using it, even if the restriction isn't airtight. That's the point of a societal norm: not perfect enforcement, but a strong, collective default that makes the healthier choice the easier one.
🔹 We have done this before. Seatbelts. Bike helmets. Indoor smoking bans. None of these were 100% enforceable on day one, and every one of them changed behaviour and saved lives.
🔹 Age verification can be done without sacrificing privacy. The details still need to be worked out, but early approaches, like Australia's largely non-ID-based model, show it's possible to verify age once, without handing over personal data to every platform, every time.
We need strong safeguards for kids online, and that includes real age limits that help set the norm, not just individual family rules swimming against the current. Every family that holds the line makes it easier for the next one to do the same. That is the whole idea behind the collective action that Unplugged Canada is about.
-> Want to help shape this conversation? Talk to your Member of Parliament.
-> Would you like to learn more about the Unplugged Canada movement, join our volunteer efforts, or ask any related questions? Please email us at [email protected]
