It’s official, the government is going to ban social media for under-16s, and introduce usage curfews for those aged 17 and 18. As a parent of two, I’m largely in favour of the under-16 ban, as I’ve seen the harm it can do.
I don’t have to scroll too far back through the parents’ WhatsApp group to find an example of the bad use of social media. A parent posted a warning that their 14-year-old niece had gone off to meet a 19-year-old she’d met on Snapchat, and it required police intervention.
Then, there was the warning from the school about TikTok bullying, with pupils putting up videos of other kids and teachers.
And, there are frequent warnings about fights being organised via Facebook: an organised fight at Westfield Stratford was the latest, and ‘red vs blue school wars’ was the previous one.
I’ve spoken to parents whose kids have been robbed, with the perpetrators filming the event, trying to add wider humiliation to an already horrific event.
Kids can even be the source of their own humiliation, whether they’re ridiculed for a video they’ve shared or tricked into revealing information or photos they shouldn’t.
Everyday pain
They’re the more extreme events, but everyday social media can be problematic in other ways. There’s the endless doomscrolling, with an algorithm constantly pumping stuff at kids, and that can twist views of the world, or give young girls unrealistic expectations of what they should like, and the less said about the manosphere, the better.
It’s easy to see the addiction set in, and kids who would otherwise do other things can become obsessed with their phones, relying on them like a crutch.
Then, there’s the anxiety that it creates. People generally share things on social media when they’re doing something fun and exciting. To a child scrolling through their feed, they can form the view that their friends are all having a better time than they are, that they’re constantly at parties, or that they’re given more money to do more exciting things. None of this is true, but in the calculated, airbrushed world of social, that’s how it can look.
When faced with infinite content, it’s hard, as a parent, to step in and say that it’s time to stop, as there’s no end to what can be viewed. When I was a kid, entertainment had a natural break. If I wanted to watch what was live on TV until late at night, I could, but that would inevitably mean I’d need to watch the news, Panorama, and so on. Kid-friendly TV ending meant I had to go and do something else (or be bored).
If I wanted to speak to a friend, I could, but only one at a time. And, because it was a landline, there came a point where calling anyone would be unsociable and staying on the phone too long, too expensive. Plus, calling a friend meant calling their landline, which meant speaking to another adult first, as a gatekeeper.
I’m not saying it’s time to return to the ‘80s, looking back as though it were a golden age, but just to point out that there were natural breaks in things, rather than parents having to constantly be the ‘bad guys’ and add time constraints to everything.
A social media ban means kids can’t argue that it’s the parents’ fault, or use the age-old argument that ‘everybody else has it’. For a parent, that’s an invaluable difference.
Rebutting the arguments against the ban
For the reasons above, I’m happy with a social media ban for the under-16s. There are, of course, those less enthusiastic than I, but I don’t agree with most of the arguments against the ban. I’ve heard some stories about kids who’ve learned a lot about history from social media, or deepened their knowledge of music, or whatever hobby or interest they’re into.
Social media algorithms will indeed learn what someone’s into and then push more of the good stuff, but that’s not really an argument. Most kids aren’t using social media like this for their own betterment, so just because one person has a perfect child who causes no problems and can moderate their own behaviour doesn’t mean the internet should be open to every child.
Likewise, I’ve seen warnings that banning social media would lead kids to stray onto the dark web, seeking less-controlled sites and platforms as they hunt for an outlet for their needs.
I simply don’t buy this as an argument. Most kids wouldn’t be able to do this, and I’m sure there are plenty of kids out there already on terrible websites, and would continue to do so regardless of whether there’s a social media ban. Not taking action on one thing, because of a vague perceived threat, isn’t a good argument.
Besides, the UK government’s social media consultation shows that parents are in favour of a ban: “The results showed overwhelming public demand for action, with 9 in 10 parents backing a social media ban for under‑16s, and two-thirds of young people agreeing under-16s should not be allowed to use at least some social media platforms.”
When looking at why, you have to see how attitudes have changed, something I’ve witnessed. When my eldest was at primary school, pretty much everyone had a smartphone by the end of year five, and few had any restrictions or controls on them, and the vast majority had Snapchat.
With my youngest (three years younger), attitudes had changed a lot. Phone usage was monitored a lot more, and a recent poll on the WhatsApp group showed that 60% of the kids in that year group (currently year nine) didn’t have Snapchat, and some didn’t even have smartphones.
Other parents that I know who have let their kids have Snapchat regret doing so. I can see a point with younger kids that even more control will be placed on their phone time, which isn’t an argument for keeping social media, but a sign that there’s strong support for wider controls.
It’s too complicated to leave it to parents
There’s a slightly lazy argument that all phone use and social media should be controlled by the parents, but that’s a huge burden and many who would want to take more control either can’t or simply don’t have the knowledge or ability to do so.
I’m pretty good when it comes to controls, but trying to stop kids with the tools that are available is hard. Take Snapchat, which I hate: it has view-once messages that disappear, making it hard for parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing; people can be easily anonymous with fake profiles; it lets kids find other people by location; and its parental controls are incredibly basic.
Snapchat also easily lets teens sign in on other devices or even on the web, so even if you block the app on their phone, they can use it on other devices, such as poorly restricted school computers, or even another device in your home, such as a laptop.
One workaround is to set up two-factor authentication for a child’s account, but keep the code generator on the parents’ phone. That stops unauthorised logins elsewhere, but then Snapchat lets kids just create a new account, and free email accounts are easy to generate.
Then, there’s a range of devices around the house. In my house, I use Eero and have profiles and filters set up, so my kids’ devices are both limited in when they can be used, and the internet is filtered to an appropriate age level with certain services blocked.
Even then, you must be careful. Phones, for privacy, can rotate network MAC addresses. Since the MAC address identifies a device and puts it in the correct profile, changing it immediately makes an existing device look like a new one, bypassing controls you’ve set up.
Or, I’ve heard plenty of cases where kids managed to borrow an old unlocked phone from a friend to bypass any parental controls (quite why any parent gives a child an unlocked, spare phone is beyond me, but it happens more than you’d think).
Eero does let you get notifications when a new device joins your network, so you can spot and isolate rogue devices, but it’s yet another thing to do.
Then, beyond network control, there are individual phone parental controls. We use Apple Phones, so each one is set up with parental controls, but the Android family controls are also pretty good. However, as noted above, these systems need monitoring, so there’s even more parental burden. No wonder many parents simply don’t bother, whether that’s because of a lack of interest or just because it’s all too complicated.
Another argument against the ban is that kids will just bypass protections. You know what, some will. Some may get an unlocked phone, or get a complicit parent to help them. Again, not doing anything because some kids will bypass controls is not an argument.
In Australia, which already has a ban, there are incidents of kids getting around controls, but also 4.7m social media accounts were blocked.
Social media companies haven’t acted hard enough to keep kids safe. A lot of parental controls available are inadequate at best, and parents are often ill-prepared or trained to deal with everything.
A ban sets out a hard line, but with it, we must be careful about how it’s implemented. There’s talk of digital ID cards being required, and this shouldn’t be a back door to making them mandatory. There’ll be an unnecessary expense to this and a range of privacy threats to be considered.
And, if the ban means that adults need to provide credit card details or passport information to access social media, then that’s a whole other world of potential trouble. Any ban needs to avoid being rushed through and creating unintended consequences.
I see this as more of an opportunity. In an ideal world, children would be able to communicate with each other safely, and a social media ban could be the start of something more productive if it’s handled correctly.
16-year-olds are not children
My biggest issue with the plans is with the higher age groups, with the government looking at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds. At the age of 16, people can legally have children of their own, go to work, choose to leave home, and even vote in certain parts of the country. At 17, people can get in a car and drive. Yet, the government’s saying that these adults won’t be able to scroll through Instagram at midnight? That’s plain stupid. I’m not really sure what the point of these restrictions is, beyond making the UK seem tougher than Australia.
There are no easy solutions for any of this, but while an outright ban works in my eyes, implementation is everything, and we need to be careful that we don’t go too far and curtail the rights of adults, or restrict children so much that they’re fall behind in the use of technology.
