Smartphones and Social Media: Children

Andrea Jenkyns Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2024 Westminster Hall

[Miriam Cates]

My hon. Friend is completely right, of course. Studying this topic has made me think more carefully about my phone use. Seeing some of the apps that try to disrupt my concentration as big companies trying to take my time is a helpful way to look at it. As with alcohol, drugs and all sorts of other things, we need to recognise that there is a difference between adults and children. Adults should have free choice about how they use their time; this is about protecting children.

Whatever the solutions, this cannot go on. The problems associated with heavy screen use are presenting younger and younger. A fifth of three and four-year-olds now have their own smartphones. A study last year published in the American Medical Association’s journal JAMA Pediatrics found that more screen time for children aged one is associated with developmental delays in communication at ages two and four. It is little wonder that more and more children are starting primary school unable to communicate, with behavioural and emotional difficulties. This year, a quarter of school starters were still in nappies.

The economic cost of this assault on childhood will be devastating. We have record numbers of young people signed off work with anxiety. Waiting times for child mental health services are measured in years. Our economy and welfare state simply cannot afford to support mass worklessness among the young. There are huge geopolitical risks, too. We spend billions of pounds a year on defence and yet, through the Chinese-owned TikTok, we allow our political enemies direct access to our children in their bedrooms.

In China, under-14s are limited to 40 minutes a day on TikTok, and endless doomscrolling is interrupted by five-second delays. Chinese children are shown only specially selected and inspiring scientific, educational and historical content, but in the US and UK, TikTok feeds our teens stupid dance videos, hyper-sexualised content and political propaganda. TikTok is now the most favoured single source of news among British teens. Our emerging generation is being educated through indoctrination by foreign-owned social media, and the education is often anti-democratic, anti-western and anti-truth. Our enemies are rubbing their hands in glee.

Many people in Britain look to the Online Safety Act to address these enormous issues, and when fully implemented the Act will bring some improvements. It should make it more difficult for children under 13 to gain access to social media, and make it less likely that children encounter the most harmful content. However, even if Ofcom can hold tech companies to account in making the protections highly effective, children will still have free access to social media platforms from the age of 13. Though welcome, the Online Safety Act will not rescue our children.

But the tide is turning. There is hope that the world is waking up to the enormous damage that smartphones and social media are doing to childhood. Governments across the world are taking action. In the US, Florida has banned social media for under-14s, New York has proposed legislation to ban addictive algorithms for children, and Congress is taking action against TikTok. New French Government guidance says that social media should not be accessible to under-18s, and President Macron has spoken eloquently about the need for an age of digital adulthood. In a speech just yesterday, our own Prime Minister raised concerns about children being exposed to bullying, sexualised content and even self-harm online.

Here in the UK, the parents of Molly Russell, Brianna Ghey and Mia Janin, who tragically lost their lives to social media, have bravely spoken about the need to act. Campaign groups such as Smartphone Free Childhood, Delay Smartphones and Safe Screens are organising despairing parents en masse, and calling for collective as well as Government action to preserve childhood. All of them are calling for children under 16 to be freed from a phone-based childhood.

The polling on the issue is decisive. Last week, The Sunday Times published polling by More in Common that showed that seven in 10 Brits think social media is having a negative impact on children, and seven in 10 support banning social media companies from allowing accounts for anyone under 18. Polling from Parentkind produced similar results: it found that 77% of primary school parents back a ban on smartphones for under-16s, and 74% of older teenagers themselves believe that social media is harmful.

Some in Westminster think that using regulation and legislation to protect children from smartphones and social media is an overreaction, or even an un-Conservative thing to do, yet in the country as a whole Conservative voters are the most likely to support strong action: 72% of Tory voters are in favour of a ban on the sale of smartphones to children, compared with 61% of Labour voters. Perhaps the only Conservatives who do not support such measures are those in SW1. The evidence is unequivocal: smartphones and social media are making our children sadder, sicker and more stupid. It is just not good enough to shrug our shoulders and fall back on tired clichés like “The horse has bolted” or “The genie is out of the bottle”. The demand for Government action is clear and growing.

What can be done? First, we must insist that tech companies use highly effective age-verification tools, so that no under-age children have access to social media or pornography. Secondly, we must raise the legal age to use social media accounts to 16. That could be done with a Bill amending the Online Safety Act. Thirdly, the Government should urgently fund phone pouches or lockers for all secondary schools, so that all our children can be free to make the most of their education.

Fourthly, we must tackle the scourge of internet pornography. If platforms such as Twitter, which is the platform on which children most commonly encounter porn, cannot keep porn off their sites, they must be forced to ban under-18s from their platforms, and we must update the law so that all sorts of content that are completely illegal in offline pornography—non-consensual sex; violent, degrading and dangerous acts; and the appearance of minors—are illegal online too. There is no excuse for the lack of parity between online and offline porn. Indeed, 56% of the British public would like to ban online porn entirely.

Fifthly, we need a public health campaign to explain to parents of small children that smartphones and internet devices are not safe for babies and toddlers, and that screen use can cause irreversible damage and developmental delays. Sixthly, just as we have incentivised the research and development of new technologies in other fields, such as energy and agriculture, we should incentivise the development of a new phone that is suitable for children—one that allows one-to-one messaging, phone calls, satellite maps and utility apps, such as online banking, but that has no internet browser or ability to install apps. Seventhly, we should ban TikTok from operating in the UK.

I am not for a moment saying that we should not teach children how to use the internet safely on a computer, or that there are not huge advantages to smartphone technology. I, for one, would be lost—literally—without Google Maps. Yet the internet should be a tool to enhance our lives, not a means through which children can become addicted and be exploited. We should therefore not make the mistake of believing that all new technologies represent progress.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the tech companies will fight all the reforms. Just like the tobacco industry before them, big tech’s business model relies on getting children hooked on their products to provide a lifelong revenue stream. However, it is not only the tech industry that will oppose banning social media for children. There are many well-meaning people, organisations and children’s charities that will argue that social media has benefits for children, particularly vulnerable children such as those who are neurodiverse, have mental health problems or are LGB or gender-questioning. That is a desperately naive position because the more vulnerable the child, the more at risk they are online. If hon. Members do not believe me, they should try creating a TikTok, Discord or Reddit account in the name of a teenager with one of those issues and they will find their feed filled with porn, predators or pro-anorexia content, all to draw the most vulnerable children into a world where they are utterly defenceless.

So many children’s testimonies speak of a stolen childhood. As one girl told Parentkind,

“The other day I was on Instagram. Some random guy started saying I looked like a fat pig and no one likes me. When I tried to get past that I saw a short where a girl looked really skinny and spoke of body goals. I felt so useless and ugly that I cried myself to sleep.”

[Dame Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)]

The mental health impacts are quite well known, but does my hon. Friend agree that we need to see academia, the NHS and health professionals looking more at the physical implications for the body? We know about the sleep disturbances, but what about the physical implications?

[Miriam Cates]

My hon. Friend is right that much more research is needed on the wider impacts. I believe a study was published just yesterday about the correlation between using a phone while eating and obesity, for example. There are a whole range of different issues that we could explore and I highly recommend Jonathan Haidt’s book, “The Anxious Generation”, for a thorough exploration of all the global trends in the area under focus.

Defending children from this wild west is not the action of a nanny state; it is a moral imperative for Governments across the world. In the past, Britain has had a strong record when it comes to child protection legislation. There have been a number of moments in our history when a new danger to children has emerged, public outcry has ensued and Parliament has been called upon to act. In 1838, the Huskar pit disaster in my constituency led to the passing of the Mines and Collieries Act 1842, prohibiting the employment of children in mines. In 1885, after public outcry over young girls being sold into prostitution, this House raised the age of sexual consent to 16. Again, following public outcry over the sale of alcohol to children, in 1901, Parliament restricted its sale to under-16s.

We are now at a similar moment in history. We will look back and ask why we allowed paedophiles, predators, greedy capitalists and foreign enemies unfettered access to our children online. The evidence of harm is irrefutable and the public outcry is growing. Now is the time to act. The Government have less than a year left in office, but if we could pass the Coronavirus Act 2020 in just one day, surely we can use these next few months to introduce effective legislation to protect children from a real and present danger. Indeed, is there any better reason to be in government than to have the opportunity and the power to rescue the next generation?

--- Later in debate ---

[Alyn Smith (Stirling) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in your place, Sir George. I congratulate the hon. Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) on a good introduction to a complex, pressing policy area. This is not an academic exercise: these issues have real-world consequences for real families.

In Dunblane in Stirling, recently we saw the terrible case of Murray Dowey. Murray was a bright, happy 16-year-old. He was football daft, and Stirling Albion was his team. He was well liked and popular. He took his own life after being a victim of sextortion via his Instagram account. Sextortion is a horrible word for a horrible thing, but we must make young people in particular more aware of it because the risks are real and clear. I am speaking today at the request of Murray’s parents, Ros and Mark Dowey, who have been through hell. They want action. They have remained incredibly dignified and brave throughout their ongoing ordeal, but they want to see action. There is a lot of unanimous thinking across the Chamber that we need to do more on this topic. We have not done nothing, but we need to do more than we have done.

[Dame Andrea Jenkyns]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Alyn Smith]

I will not. I need to make progress.

I have been contacted by hundreds of parents across Stirling who likewise want to see action. It is up to us to decide what that action needs to be, but being aware that we need to do more is a good place to start.

On the petition, I am less convinced that banning smartphone access for under-16s would be effective— I think it could encourage a backlash and it would be very difficult to enforce and regulate—but I am drawn to the idea of restricting smartphone access in schools as a sensible thing to do. I should declare an interest: my husband is a secondary school teacher, and he talks about the impact on youngsters in terms of distraction and mental health, particularly in a school environment day in, day out. I stress that I am pro-technology—children should have access to the incredible technological advancements under way—but it is not safe. Car manufacturers fit seatbelts and catalytic converters to make their products safer or less noxious, at our insistence. The tech companies need to do the same.

I am concerned about the lack of protections implemented by the tech companies and the lack of effective regulation. Our regulators do not seem to have many teeth, or at least did not until recently. I am also concerned that police and legal enforcement across jurisdictions are nowhere near as joined-up as the tech companies and their products, and I am unconvinced that tech companies co-operate to the extent that they need to when things go wrong.

The online environment is not as safe as it needs to be, and there are things we could do to make it safer. We have heard reference to putting the genie back in the bottle; we need to focus on making the online environment safer, rather than restricting access to smartphones. The Online Safety Act is a good place to start. I was glad to see that, in the last couple of weeks, Ofcom published its consultation proposing robust age checks, safer algorithms and the effective moderation of chat and content. That is a good start, and long overdue, frankly. More needs to be done, and I urge Ofcom on to greater efforts.

In Murray’s case in particular, we saw that law enforcement and judicial co-operation between the police and regulatory authorities across jurisdictions is nowhere near as joined-up as it needs to be. We urgently need to address that. Tech has always moved faster than the law—that is not unusual in and of itself—but the law needs to catch up, because this issue is having real-world consequences for real families in all our communities. I will work with anybody to those ends.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir George. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates)—one of Parliament’s finest at this moment in time. I hope we will see her in her place for a long time.

I will focus specifically on phones in schools. Having spent my entire professional career before entering this place as a secondary school teacher—in fact, as a head of year, which meant that I had to deal with young people’s behaviour and attendance—and having been a Minister for School Standards, albeit briefly, I will say loud and clear that it is appalling that, despite the Government having issued continued guidance since 2010 that smartphones are not to be used in schools, only 11% of schools have taken the brave and bold step of enforcing the rule that phones must be put away and not visible or reachable until the end of the school day. That is bizarre when we consider that most of those schools go on to achieve an outstanding rating. Michaela, one of the finest schools in the country, has very strict rules. I implore anyone to visit, as I have done on a number of occasions, to see that when phones are put away, the results are far better than most grammar and private schools in this country, because young people’s attention is on the knowledge-rich curriculum in front of them.

I am quite embarrassed, to be frank, of my former profession. Not enough headteachers have enough backbone to take the fight to parents who may want to push back or to pupils who may want to moan and groan, or simply to fight the aggressive educationalists who seem to think that the phone is somehow a tool for learning in the classroom. They think children should spend their time googling how to mind-map themselves on A3 or A2 bits of paper, without any proper guidance on understanding the processes involved in things, from those as simple as making chocolate to ideas about how democracy was formed. That should come from the expert in the classroom—the teacher—who stands at the front, delivers the knowledge and ensures that young people have the ability to critically respond to different ideas and do not just find information, copy and paste it off their phones and write it on a piece of paper without cognitively taking it in or critically analysing it in the way they should.

[Dame Andrea Jenkyns]

Look at Parliament: it has pushed for this paperless society, with the Select Committees wanting everything on our tablets. For decades, industry has pushed for it as well. Does my hon. Friend think that has had an impact, and that maybe we should return to using paper again? I myself am addicted—how can we tell our children off when we are addicted ourselves?

[Jonathan Gullis]

I will keep my comments brief, Sir George, to make sure that I do not impact on others’ time, but I will say that I totally agree with my hon. Friend. I am a dinosaur—I like paper and I like to scribble over things. When I was a teacher, I liked having physical paper to write comments on. I certainly did not want to try to use interesting gadgets to get ideas across. Although there is great technology, like Google Classroom, that can be used effectively, ultimately we should not move away from paper-based exercises, because they are still useful, particularly for handwriting skills, which are so important for young people. Fewer and fewer young people have the chance to practise handwriting, because we have all fallen into the trap of being able to type quickly on our phones.

To sum up, let me say loud and clear that I know the Minister gets this. He has been working tremendously hard on the Online Safety Act and on what can be done to make sure that we enforce the rules that have come through that legislation while also looking at the wider debate around this policy area, but he now needs to go back to the Department for Education and we need to end the era of guidance and make it enforceable and directional from the Government.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge pointed out, schools should have the funding for lockers or storage boxes, to make sure that phones are put away and children can enjoy a childhood in the school day without their phone. Believe me, when I was a head of year I was sick and tired of having to deal with parents coming into school to tell me that their child was receiving harmful online bullying content in the evening via social media communications. It was totally outside my jurisdiction as head of year and outside the jurisdiction of the school itself. That imposed a huge workload on teachers and led to major behavioural issues, which are the No. 1 and No. 3 issues in every single survey on why people are leaving the teaching profession. I therefore implore the Government to act on this. I hope that every school will now take action, look to those like the Michaela school and deliver a smartphone-free education.