Raffy Zamora backs social media ban: Save kids鈥� mental health, childhood
Watch Raffy Zamora’s full episode on PGMN’s Youtube channel
“It is about giving them back their childhood.” This was the message parenting advocate and LegenDaddy founder Raffy Zamora hammered on in his latest episode on Peanut Gallery Media Network’s YouTube channel, where he strongly endorsed recent bans on social media for children under 16 in Australia and several U.S. states. Zamora argued that social media is damaging young minds, fueling a mental health crisis, and depriving children of real-world experiences.
“The question now is not whether social media is hurting them—we already know it is,” Zamora stated.
Citing social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Zamora highlighted how the widespread use of smartphones and social media from 2010 to 2012 coincided with a sharp rise in anxiety, depression, and self-harm among teenagers, particularly girls. “Mental health issues started climbing—anxiety, depression, and even self-harm—especially for teenage girls,” he said, explaining that Haidt blames not the kids, but the platforms themselves for exploiting insecurities and reinforcing social comparison.
“Instead of building confidence, it makes them feel smaller,” Zamora warned. “Instead of connecting them to friends, it traps them in comparison—scrolling through impossible beauty standards, airbrushed lives, and influencers who always seem to have it together.” Haidt’s research presents a disturbing trend: social comparison has risen by 75 percent, dopamine dependency by 80 percent, and mental health issues by 60 percent. According to Zamora, social media is deliberately designed to keep users addicted. “Teenage brains just aren’t ready for this stuff,” he said. “It’s not just messing with their mental health; it’s actually rewiring how their brains work. That’s a big deal.”
Beyond mental health concerns, Zamora also pointed to the dangers of ‘social contagion’, a term used by author Abigail Shrier to describe how harmful online trends rapidly influence vulnerable teens, particularly girls. “Shrier calls this ‘social contagion’—when ideas spread like wildfire in online communities. The most vulnerable kids get swept up in these trends, and social media amplifies it all,” he said. Statistics show that influencer-driven trends affect 75 percent of teenage girls, real-world experiences have declined by 60 percent, and social contagion is influencing 85 percent of young female users.
Some argue that children should simply be taught responsible social media use, but Zamora dismissed this as wishful thinking. “Would we hand our 12-year-old a pack of cigarettes and trust them to ‘smoke responsibly’? Would we leave a bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter around our teenager and hope they make the right choice? Of course not. Their brains are not ready for that. Social media is no different. In fact, it is worse because the damage is harder to see—it is psychological, and it is sneaky.”
To counteract these risks, Zamora backed Haidt’s four-step plan to protect children: Delay smartphone access until high school, ban social media for kids under 16, implement phone-free schools, and create screen-free zones at home. For teenage girls, Shrier recommends additional measures such as encouraging offline hobbies, fostering mentorship from trusted adults, and implementing family-wide social media breaks.
Zamora stressed that these solutions are not about punishment but about protecting children’s well-being. “This law is not about punishing kids or taking something away from them. It is about giving them something back,” he said. “It is about giving them back their childhood. Their mental health. Their chance to figure out who they are in the real world, surrounded by real people.”
