The National Post reports in its Friday edition that Australia's social media ban for under-16s has had little impact on teenagers' scrolling habits, researchers said in one of the first evaluations of the world-leading measures. An Agence-France Presse dispatch to the Post reports that the study could become a talking point in Canada, which is in the process of introducing a similar ban. Australia in December banned under-16s from Facebook, Instagram and Tiktok in a crackdown designed to protect children from on-line bullying and "predatory algorithms." There is little evidence, however, to suggest teenagers have turned away from social media as a consequence, a team of Australia-based researchers found in a peer-reviewed study published by the British Medical Journal. Underage users have been dodging the restrictions by using accounts registered to older people, setting up fake accounts or by logging into private browsers. "We found insufficient evidence to conclude that exposure to the Act had any early substantial effects on social media use among adolescents aged under 16," the researchers wrote. There is significant global interest in whether Australia's laws could serve as a model for controlling tech giants.