For nearly nine decades, an eye-catching animated neon sign of a little girl skipping has been lighting up Melbourne evenings.
Little Audrey, as she is affectionately known, has now been temporarily plunged into darkness and replaced with a girl hunched and glued to a glowing screen.
The “scrolling girl” campaign from Team Kids and Dairy Farmers aims to highlight the consequences of replacing a childhood dominated by play with one filled with screens.
“This has resulted in much less physical activity outside of the home, with terrible consequences for children’s physical and psychological development,'' child and adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg said.
The “scrolling girl” campaign from the outside-school-hours care provider and dairy brand will involve a term-long skipping challenge in 270 schools.
Despite Australia’s world-leading under-16 social media ban, teenagers are spending close to three hours a day on small screens.
That’s three times longer than spent playing sport or other physical activity, as captured in the YouGov survey of more than 1,000 parents conducted to coincide with the active children campaign.
Nearly two-thirds of parents feared their children’s device usage was negatively impacting their sleep, physical activity, mood, and other markers of wellbeing.
No more than two hours of screen-time a day and at least one hour of physical activity are recommended by the federal government.
Upwards of 70 percent of kids were doing less exercise than suggested.
Australia’s social media ban on under-16s began in December 2025.
While there has been an overall decline in youth accounts, the eSafety Commissioner’s compliance report found about seven in 10 children still had an account on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or TikTok.
Roughly half still had an account on YouTube.
Several sites are under investigation for possible breaches of the laws.
While social media ban workarounds abound, more young people support the ban than oppose it, separate surveying by educational technology provider Year13 suggests.
