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

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.