Your thoughts on banning social media for under 16s

I have an 11 (y7) & 14yo. They had tablets for games in the junior school years with tight parental controls. They were given mobile phones Christmas y6 so they were accoustomed to them before y7. They were among the last of their peers. Many got them younger as the only way to socialise legally during lockdowns- a depressing reality of that specific age group.

Ds1 isn't socially motivated which makes life simpler. He likes factual documentary content on youtube. I have a decent idea of what the algorithms offer him because he mainly watches on a large compter monitor and I can see the content when I come in the room.

DS2 uses whatsapp to communicate with close friends. He had those two terms in the relative safety of primary school (at least there was a parents' Bat Signal if things were going awry) to learn that large chats are a waste of time. I do monitor it, and fortunately at this point in time he has sensible taste in friends. Again from watching youtube on the main TV, I have a decent idea of what the algorithms put his way.

I have aways talked to them and encouraged them to me if they see anything that makes them uncomfortable (especially if they did something daft)

I've talked to them about why apps like Tiktok and Snapchat are problematic and why I won't authorise them. They are happy with youtube and whatsapp with light monitoring.

It's not foolproof, but phones and social media are integral parts of society and aren't going to be put back in the bottle. Childhood is about gradually learning and building up the skills of adulthood. Keeping them in a bubble until a magical age (like 16) and hoping they've automatically matured past some pitfalls doesn't necessarily equip them with the skills that they need.

Phones are essential tools of independence. I can't pretend it's 1995 and that phone boxes are plentiful and a 30p bus fare will cover their needs. Society evolved. Access to google maps was invaluable for DS1 last year when the bus route was diverted through areas he doesn't know when trees were blocking roads during a storm.

DS1 is more technically minded and savvy than me. I'm better working with his good will than encouraging secrecy!

I'm glad younger parents are getting more switched on. Delaying and managing access as long as is viable is sensible, but I don't think abstract bans to absolve parents from parenting is the answer. Knee-jerk reactions often cause more problems than they solve.

I notice that Musk is starting to rewrite US laws to his liking. I can't really see him accepting limitations with Twitter.

Agree with the idea, not sure how it can be enforced unless social media companies are required to take certain measures to try to enforce it. The one I think has most possibilities is that unless social media companies take certain steps, they are deemed in law to be publishers.

https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/28/australia_children_social_media_ban

YANBU

@TreadSoftlyOnMyDreams that's a great approach.

Unfortunately what I see is the kids set up accounts on their friends unprotected devices. They really do have amazing problem solving skills.

I do have the Google family app and it is very helpful. I find the questions helpful that pop up when the children is coming up to a birthday. It gives parents an opportunity to think about it as opposed to being put on the spot.

I am lucky I work with a great IT team and they regularly give me a steer☺️

If only all parents were as switched on as you, then we wouldn’t need to be looking at banning it.
Unfortunately, they aren’t.
I will be doing the same as you once mine has a phone (which I will delay for as long as possible!)

The problem is the majority of accounts are set by the users stating they are over 16.

So it won't stop them setting it up with a fake age.

The only true way to control something like this is behavioural.

So I would use the smoking ban. That was 99% behavioural and the odd fine. It was the societal change of attitude that makes it possible.

How exactly would they do this???

There are lots of parent apps you can put on kids tech and Apple provide it for free, you just have to add the phone into a parent group and set it up before handing over the phone.

I can stop my kids [12 & 15] from downloading apps. In order to download something, DH or I have to initiate it with my apple account password. We had the same process with a subscription piece of software we used previously.
I can give them start and end times for phone use for every day of the week.
I can give them access to some apps all the time.
I can set up some contacts so they can always call us, GPs, Police etc.
I can restrict content against adult content
I can set daily limits for every app they have. In practice this means if they want to use an app that's timed out, they click on it, it sends me an alert and I can say yes, choose additional time option or No.
I can monitor their usage [older teen now has more relaxed controls with some apps like YouTube] and if it's getting out of hand, can restore limits.

I can even enable a setting that reminds them not to put their face too close to their phone. Drives them bonkers 😂

So we don't allow social media at all. Have discovered Pinterest has evolved into less of scrapbook craft site and more into vacuous films of pouting influencers so that's currently on a 15 mins limit per day 😀

So it's perfectly possible to control this stuff if you can be arsed in the first place. It feels like many parents just want to make it someone else's problem rather than being the tough guy.

Facial age recognition has been successfully and robustly tested in the UK on self service machines. Supermarkets are just waiting on government to pass legislation to allow digital ID and/or facial age recognition to be an accepted form of ID for buying alcohol.

I think it would be a good idea - if only 99.9% of the average 8 year olds wouldn't be able to get around it!

If the law banned SM,

Which is a hell of a stretch from "banning it for under 16s".

Are we talking about the same thing here ?

I agree with PP that the law doesn't have to work perfectly or be strictly enforced for it to work well enough. Just like the under-age drinking laws - nobody is going to be put in jail because their 15 year old had a cider at the family bbq or snuck out with friends and had a WKD, but having the law there means that most people are very strict re teen drinking and most under-16s drink very infrequently because there just aren't the opportunities and little pressure from friends, who are all in the same boat.

If the law banned SM, then hopefully schools would feel they had no choice but to ban smartphones, which would make parents' role much easier. All parents could then use the law as an excuse not to let them have it and there wouldn't be the social pressure of being left out if you don't have it.

So yes, of course some teens will borrow their parents'/older siblings phones to take a look, and some bad parents will turn a blind eye on a frequent basis, but they would be in the minority and for all the good parents who want to limit use and currently feel they are facing an uphill battle, they will have the support to be able to say - no you can't have it, it's against the law, school has banned it and none of your friends are allowed it either. Much easier to limit use, which can only be a good thing. Even adults can't moderate their use or the impact, let alone poor impressionable teens whose brains are still developing.

Removing devices most certainly won't be the answer

My dd has all homework on line and YouTube isn’t blocked on her school device because it has some educational content. So I can take her phone etc but it’s hard to take the school device when she says she has homework

Obviously it won't work. Regardless of how it's framed.

The only solution - which ain't gonna happen and so guaranteeing it won't work - is to make the platforms (by the way, how do folk define "social media" ?) criminally liable with the threat of jail time for the executives.

It would just be a statement of intent. Much like the drugs laws. A sort of "in an ideal world" piece of legislation.

I'd like to be proved wrong, but given you are never going to get Musk, Zuckerberg or any other non resident into a UK court, I think I'm pretty spot on.

Also how else would hostile state actors get a chance to mess with our society ? Which as we all know is vital to the interests of our own elite.

What a great idea! That'll definitely stop all teens using social media! Same as banning drinking, smoking, vapes and sex for under 16s has completely eradicated all those!

... Oh... Wait

It's a load of nonsense.
It should be down to parents to decide what is appropriate for their children.

A ban removes the expectation children have of having smart phones soon as they’re at secondary school.
Even schools expect them to carry them and set homework etc accordingly.

A ban would get rid of this and allow parents to shut down the conversation with “You can’t have a smart phone; it’s against the law”

There will always be crappy parents. There are parents who give their children alcohol and drugs, but most parents don’t. We just need most parents to not give their children smartphones and the battle is much easier. We need to shift the norm to being from children having them, to children not having them because at the moment, that balance is heavy skewed to the former which makes it a harder battle for the latter.

There was a TV programme about this last night. Two of the adults in the programme signed on to Tik Tok as 14 year olds. The amount of unsolicited content they were subjected to was frightening. Minecraft, self harm, suicide and a call from Police radio of a young woman in distress as her father was beating her mother.

Brilliant idea. Very hard to police. And also what about the 12-15 year olds already using it a how do we stop them?

My teens don't really use social media. They have no interest in it.

I think short form media content is bad for the brain and I seem to be in a constant battle with my 11 yo to get him off YouTube shorts. But the multiplicity of sources you can get it from, TV, playstation, tablets, phone means that it is only a hop from say, watching a movie or doing homework, and it's back on again.

I can only hope he follows in the footsteps of his siblings and acquires a casual distain for social media otherwise I feel under resourced for the challenge.

I think it's a great idea but in practice it's too late. Social media is such a huge part of young people's lives now and even if individual parents are able to enforce not allowing access, it will just leave their children feeling and being left out.

I speak from experience of not having access to MSN messenger as often as my friend when I was a teen! So many plans were made without me, so many things shared which I wasn't a part of.

So while I'd love to think my little girl wouldn't be involved with any of this until she's 16+, the reality is it all seems to enter their worlds so early now. I'd say my SD was talking about and away of tiktok etc from about 6/7😮

I am for a ban but I think it’s unworkable and it would be better to put more focus on the algorithms in place and the advertising