Vital to protect children from social media harm

When I was a kid, I would play Sonic the Hedgehog on a Mega Drive. I loved that little blue character and would spend more time than was probably good for me but it was just me and the controller. At its time, it was the height of technology. I didn’t have a mobile phone or access to the internet all the time – if I was lucky, I could get an hour after school.

Fast forward 25 years and the world is a very different place. Young people now have the world at their fingertips. Lives are lived as much online and in the digital community as it is outside and in the ‘real’ world. What is clear is that the pace of change is startling. Facebook was launched in 2002, YouTube was founded in 2005, Twitter came into being in 2006 and there were few alternatives.

But today, with Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and WhatsApp being seen by young people as an “older persons” platform, young people can be found on SnapChat and TikTok to both communicate with their friends and experience the wider world. The blur between social media and gaming has also changed. Fortnight and Roblox are a universe in themselves in which young people immerse their day-to-day lives.

The flip side is that children today are taught to use YouTube to help with their homework, use the internet to research the topics they are studying at school and apps like Vinted, Amazon and Shein have made their shopping almost entirely digital. It is a real challenge. Data from Ofcom, the regulator challenged with making the internet safer, estimates that:

■ 90% of children have a mobile phone by the age of 11;

■ 75% of children aged between eight and 13 who use social media have their own account and that is despite most social media platforms having a minimum age of 13;

■ Three quarters of teenagers have encountered one or more potential harms online;

■ 60% of high-school children have said that they have been contacted in a way which made them feel unsafe or uncomfortable.

So, the million-dollar question being asked in Westminster is how do we protect young people from excessive social media use? How do we protect our children from dangerous content that puts young people at risk of harm and can destroy their mental health, but also how do we balance the advancements of technology with the desire for young people not to be glued to their phones all day.

Schools are now becoming phone-free zones. The Government has empowered headteachers to put in place blanket bans in schools to stop the distractions. Others are locking out certain apps at certain times of the day. These technological solutions help reduce anxiety and cyber-bullying but don’t necessarily address the full set of harms that exist.

Some MPs and political parties are suggesting a full ban of all social media for all children under 16. I can see the attraction to that but, if we’re being honest, it feels like that time has passed. Others want much more restrictive age-verification processes, similar to those that exist in the Online Safety Act and apply to regulated content such as pornography or other age-restricted videos.

What I know is that I don’t know what the answer is. I am a parent of a teenager. I see the value she derives from her friends being on the end of a phone, but I worry about what might be a few clicks away from the cat videos and TikTok trends and how harmful that might be.

The Government is consulting on what to do next and I am launching my own consultation in Stoke-on-Trent Central to hear from parents, teachers, mental health experts and just as importantly, the young people themselves. The action we take next will decide whether social media is a tool that we use or whether social media dominates who we are. For the sake of our young people, we need to get it right.

To take part in the social media consultation, please go to: Social Media Consultation – garethsnell.org.uk