Many parents of digitally obsessed teenagers have probably wished their smartphones would go in the trash. As evidence mounts about the dangers of social media, public calls for better protection for children are growing, and now there are calls for it to be banned.
The debate in the UK has taken on new resonance in recent days after Esther Gee, the mother of murdered teenager Brianna, added her voice to the debate highlighting the dangers of smartphones.
“I would like to see legislation introduced so that there are mobile phones suitable for under-16s,” she told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg last Sunday. “So if you are over 16 you can have an adult cell phone, but if you are under 16 you can have a child cell phone. It doesn’t come with social media apps.”
In calling for tighter regulation of big tech, she joined other families who believe social media played a role in the loss of their children. They include Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life after viewing harmful content online.
Gee’s intervention comes as social media chiefs, including Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, have faced intense criticism in the US Senate over their companies’ roles in promoting child sexual exploitation and drug use. It was done a day later. He said to them, “I’m sorry for everything you’ve been through.”
Some U.S. lawmakers have already gone beyond blaming big tech companies. The conservative state of Florida is considering a bill that would ban anyone under 16 from using social media.
In the UK, pre-Christmas reports suggested Rishi Sunak was considering stricter restrictions on children’s use of social media, but the rules have been in place for years to protect children online. A new online safety law aimed at improving safety is still in the process of being implemented.
A government spokesperson said ministers were focused on the legislation, but added: “We will always consider ways to keep children and other internet users safe online.”
Conservative MP Miriam Cates, co-chair of the New Conservative Caucus, recently called on the UK to follow Florida’s lead in banning social media, saying: “Ordinary mothers and fathers should not be equipped to fight gangs.” “They are not equipped at all,” he warned. Meta, TikTok, Apple.”
The calls for a crackdown come as evidence mounts of the dangers of unfettered access to social media.
US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory statement last year, warning: “The ever-growing evidence “Social media use is associated with negative effects on young people’s mental health.”
He cited research showing that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media have “double the risk of experiencing poor mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety.”
Another American academic paper is We have mapped the staggered rollout A comparison of data on Facebook and student health across college campuses showed that the rise of the social network coincided with “deterioration in mental health, particularly an increase in symptoms of depression.”
Despite the perceived risks, few experts and campaigners interviewed by the Guardian believe that a complete ban on social media use by under-16s is viable or desirable. However, everyone agrees that tech companies need to do more.
Rani Govender, senior policy officer at the NSPCC, said: “What we really want to see is tech companies taking responsibility for keeping children safe online.”
“We completely understand why so many parents and families are concerned about this, but the question is how can we design these apps, games and sites to be safer for children? We think it will always come back.”
He points out that while minimum age limits for creating social media accounts are widely ignored, it is important for businesses to implement the requirements of the Online Safety Act to take a tougher approach.
Media regulator Ofcom is in the process of publishing a code of conduct detailing companies’ responsibilities on this and other issues.
Lady Bevan Kidron, an online children’s rights campaigner, said while the focus is understandably on removing harmful content from apps, policymakers need to look at the fundamental design of apps. He also says that the focus should be on
“What we have to focus on is why we allow companies to give addictive products to children. There is no way on God’s earth that they are designed to be addictive. There’s no reason it has to be. It’s a business choice,” she said, adding, “Basically, the product here is flawed. They need to fix it.” .
That means looking under the hood of popular apps and rewiring the algorithms that are said to be captivating and, in some cases, radicalizing teenagers.
Just this week, academic research Video-sharing app TikTok has suggested it will increasingly serve misogynistic content to boys who seek content about loneliness or ask questions about masculinity.
“Algorithmic processes on TikTok and other social media sites target people’s vulnerabilities, such as feelings of loneliness and loss of self-control, and gamify harmful content,” says a team from colleagues at the research institute. Dr. Caitlin Regel, lead author of the study, warned: University of Kent.
A TikTok spokesperson denied the findings, claiming: “Misogyny has long been prohibited on TikTok, and we actively detect 93% of the content we remove for violating our hate rules. It doesn’t reflect how people experience it.”
Andy Burrows is an advisor to the Molly Rose Foundation, which was set up to campaign for change in memory of Molly Russell. He warns against the temptation to cut off social media completely for children who need to learn to navigate the online world.
“While the idea of pulling up the drawbridge may seem like an appealing and easy solution on the surface, I think this comes with potential unintended consequences, especially as young people online They run the risk of slowing down or even intensifying the risks they face when connecting to the Internet,” he says.
Former New York State Prosecutor Deanna Puccio runs workshops in schools to help teens address issues such as sexual harassment and negative body image, including dealing with the onslaught of social media. It is being held.
She says the role of parents and schools is important. “This is an opportunity for all of us and social media companies to come together and certainly recognize the fact that our children are suffering from mental health issues such as anxiety, depression, body image, and self-esteem more than ever before. It’s about taking a multidisciplinary approach to ‘harm – for what they’re seeing. There’s no logoff time,” she says.
Mr Puccio, co-founder of The Wrap Project with broadcaster Alison Havey, praised the fact that more schools are now banning smartphones. But she added: “The problem is that for us to limit or ban it, all adults would have to be involved, and that’s not really the case. Children are getting this on their own. It’s what we, as a society, are giving our children.”
