NUREMBERG - As European countries introduce and debate social media age restrictions, Handelsblatt - Germany's leading business and financial newspaper - spoke with PROMISE researchers Prof. Dr. Adrian Meier and Eva Ziegltrum from Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nuremberg (FAU), to examine a broader question: how can social media become safer and better for young people?
The article highlights PROMISE's commitment to engaging directly with young people. Early focus groups are already revealing important differences between age groups, while demonstrating young people's sophisticated understanding of the digital environments they navigate.
As Ziegltrum explains:
“The most important finding for me was that the children already know a great deal about the platforms. I was shocked, for example, by how aware they were on issues like their vulnerability to online predatory grooming.”
Participants also expressed interest in regulation and safer online spaces, while older young people raised concerns about features such as infinite scrolling and algorithmic content.
The article explores why PROMISE looks beyond simple notions of “social media addiction” towards understanding the complexities of habit-forming platform design and the mechanisms that may influence behavior and well-being.
For Meier, the emerging evidence suggests that age restrictions alone are unlikely to provide a complete solution. As he tells Handelsblatt, a purely age-based approach "will not be sufficient on its own or bring about a substantial improvement in mental health", in part because such restrictions can be difficult to enforce and easy to circumvent.
The research will ultimately examine what works, for whom, and under what circumstances, providing evidence to inform policy and platform design as Europe's regulatory landscape continues to evolve.
Read the full article in Handelsblatt (German): “So könnten Soziale Netzwerke sicherer für Kinder werden” (“How social networks could become safer for children”), published 4 August 2026.