Today was the final chance for parents, teachers, families and carers to respond to the government’s consultation on social media restrictions for under-16s.
Now it’s up to the Prime Minister to decide whether Britain follows Australia’s lead and takes long-overdue action to protect future generations of children from the mindless dangers of social media.
Why any sort of consultation was ever necessary is a mystery to me: this is a no-brainer.
Surely even someone as politically risk-averse as Keir Starmer can see that. For years now, it’s been crystal clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence how social media is polluting society. The effect on children is just one aspect of it: we are all slaves to the algorithm in one way or another, information funnelled into our brains via a variety of online filters which most of us aren’t even aware of.
If nothing else, it would be one of the few genuinely popular measures by his spectacularly unpopular government: 75 per cent of the voting public are in favour of preventing under 16s from using social media platforms, according to widespread polling.
A rare gift for any Prime Minister: a policy that the public loves which also has a genuine moral and social purpose. And the evidence to support such a move is overwhelming, not just from teachers and other experts on child welfare, but also from the medical profession, which this week added its own weight to the consultation by declaring social media as harmful and as addictive as smoking.
Having access to a smartphone at a young age is like handing the keys of a Ferrari to a 17-year-old kid who’s just passed their driving test and telling them to respect the speed limit. It’s just not going to happen
It’s up to the Prime Minister to decide whether Britain follows Australia’s lead and takes long-overdue action to protect future generations of children from the mindless dangers of social media
According to the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, social media and smartphone use ‘ranks alongside smoking and wearing seatbelts in cars as a unifying force for the medical profession’. So come on, Sir Keir, what are you waiting for?
Of course, there will be the predictable histrionics from the usual suspects, who will accuse the government of nanny-statism and all the rest. But frankly, they can take a running jump. It’s thanks to them that successive governments have been unable to push through any kind of sensible restrictions on internet use, and its thanks to them that the online landscape remains the Wild West.
They are the reason we have an epidemic of violence and misogyny against women fuelled by online porn, that virtual hate mobs and extremists rule our political discourse, that scammers and perverts and all kinds of weirdos infiltrate the minds not only of our children, but of anyone vulnerable or gullible.
I’m all for free speech, but I draw the line at the point at which it becomes hateful or instigates violence – and there is ample evidence to show that the internet giants, from early platforms such as Google and Facebook, to later additions such as X and Tik Tok, have not done enough to stop such behaviour.
If anything, these platforms would appear to tacitly revel in it, since it drives clicks, and clicks mean cash.
Many perfectly sane adults struggle to navigate this online landscape; how can we possibly expect our children to do so without seriously harming their health and prospects?
In particular, their cowardly insistence that they are not ‘publishers’ (and therefore liable for the content they produce), but merely ‘platforms’ hosting individuals whose behaviour is not their responsibility, has allowed them to turn themselves into powerful media organisations without respecting any of the rules and regulations that (for good reason) apply to responsible publishers.
The only people who benefit are the tech companies and their bosses, who are well-aware of the dangers of using their own product. Just as a drug dealer never gets high on their own supply, this lot take steps to protect themselves and their loved ones from the harm they cause others.
For example, many years ago, when I first started writing about this topic, I spoke to a very senior executive at a certain popular search engine. She told me that the founders would not allow their own children online access under any circumstances. Wifi was banned in their homes, and all internet usage was strictly supervised.
That is why, if Starmer had any real guts, he would go one step further and propose a complete ban on smartphones for under-16s. Because the truth is social media is only one symptom of a much more serious sickness.
Stopping young children from using Apps like Tik Tok and Snapchat is all very well; but it’s a bit like prescribing an aspirin to someone with a broken leg. Society needs a complete re-set when it comes to this stuff – and the only way to do that is limit the use of the hardware itself.
I first proposed this move over a decade ago, back in 2015. At the time my own children were young teenagers, and I could see the insanely distracting effect these devices were having on them and their peers.
According to the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, social media and smartphone use ‘ranks alongside smoking and wearing seatbelts in cars as a unifying force for the medical profession’
A clear social hierarchy had already developed around the use and ownership of phones, with internet enabled devises such as iPhones being highly coveted over so-called ‘brick’ phones which only allowed for calls and text messages.
They very quickly became a form of teenage currency, like having the right trainers or backpack; they signified social status, and as any parent knows that is the principal preoccupation of most teenagers.
The comparison with smoking is spot-on: when I was a teenager, all the cool kids smoked behind the bike sheds; nowadays it’s all about having the latest phone.
But it’s not just the status that phones bring, and the way they inevitably highlight social and economic inequality between children; it’s also the fact that they are, in a very real sense, a gateway drug.
Having access to a smartphone at a young age is like handing the keys of a Ferrari to a 17-year-old kid who’s just passed their driving test and telling them to respect the speed limit. It’s just not going to happen. They are, inevitably, going to push the pedal to the metal.
You can lecture children all you like about online safety – but the second you put a smartphone in their hands you are giving them free and unfettered access to the entire panoply of the adult human experience. It’s the modern equivalent of offering them the Apple (iPhone) from the Tree of Knowledge.
For years now, it’s been crystal clear to anyone with a modicum of intelligence how social media is polluting society. The effect on children is just one aspect of it: we are all slaves to the algorithm in one way or another
Some of what they will discover, of course, is joyful and life-affirming. Some of it is helpful and informative. But an awful lot of it is not. An awful lot of it is nasty and mean, quite a decent chunk is perverse – and some is downright criminal.
Give a child a smartphone, and it is only a matter of time before they stumble across the worst aspects of human nature online. Hard-core porn, extreme violence, clips from horror movies. Add to that AI fakes, fraudsters, false propaganda and God knows what else and you are basically abandoning that child to a moral minefield where their only guide is an algorithm which really does not have their best interests at heart.
Many perfectly sane adults struggle to navigate this online landscape; how can we possibly expect our children to do so without seriously harming their health and prospects? Hours spent in total inertia scrolling; a cacophony of images, from the bizarre to the brutal, filling their brains. How can they possibly be expected to mature into functioning human beings when they are being indoctrinated in this way?
Is it any wonder we are seeing an epidemic of confusion, violence, inertia, despondency and extreme anxiety among young people? Society has failed them; we adults have failed them. We think that because they’re ‘safe’ in their bedrooms and not roaming the streets they are okay. They are not.
People will say, it’s too late, the genie is already out of the box. But that’s simply not true. It’s never too late to set healthy boundaries. If government were to restrict the use of smartphones for under-16s, they would have an army of worried parents, teachers, carers and medical professionals right behind them.
Technology is not only rewiring our society, it is rewiring our brains. The question is, are we going to have any say in this process, or are the bots and the tech bros just going to make the decisions for us?
