Children’s Social Media Accounts

Jessica Toale Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Twigg. I pay tribute to Ellen and all the families for their tireless campaigning and for this petition, which 119 people in my Bournemouth West constituency signed. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Tom Collins), I want to talk about some of the broader harms of social media and smartphone use that students and parents have raised with me. This is particularly salient in the context of announcements this week about the removal of independent fact-checking from Meta and other platforms.

Last week, I visited Bourne academy, a secondary school in my constituency that is taking part in the Dorset boys’ impact hub project. The project aims to champion the experiences of young boys who face inequalities, and provide a platform for their voices. The boys I met raised a range of issues, from knife crime to the desire for safe and legal spaces to practise graffiti art, but the thing I found most interesting was that we got into a long conversation about the impact of social media in their lives and its uses in their socialising. Frankly, I was shocked by some of the things they told me about the content they are pushed on these platforms.

The boys mentioned Reddit and Instagram as particularly vile examples of distressing content: as soon as they log on to those platforms things like videos of people being decapitated and other forms of serious violence are pushed. They said that Snapchat is a platform where group chats are regularly used to conduct cyber-bullying and to spread rumours, with very little accountability because all the messages disappear within 24 hours. Clearly, as it stands what we have is not working to protect young people. The boys also reported that age restrictions are incredibly easy to get around, whatever the age restriction.

[Sir Desmond Swayne in the Chair]

It is worth noting that Bourne academy has a no-phones policy. Kids are not even allowed to use them during breaks, which caused consternation among the young people. It is clear that smartphones and social media are changing how young people interact and socialise. This can expose them, with very little oversight, to high volumes of violent, inappropriate and harmful content, which many of us will not be used to in our lives. Social media is linked to wellbeing and self-esteem issues, which can have a direct impact on behaviours and the views young people hold, and in some cases is linked to significant increases in young people reporting anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation.

Will the Minister outline what further steps the Government are taking to protect young people from harmful content and to prevent young people from circumventing age restrictions? We have discussed potentially raising those restrictions, but that is also key.

I have been contacted by parents about this issue, and there is growing support for the Smartphone Free Childhood movement in Bournemouth and throughout the country. One parent of a five-year-old daughter got in touch with me. He shared some very misogynistic content that he came across and expressed worry about it being so easy for her to access that content. Other schools in my constituency have spoken specifically about the impact of misogynistic content on school behaviour, and the extra effort they have to make to try to address it without the toolkits that they need.

It is not just about content. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lowestoft (Jess Asato) mentioned, platforms produce compulsive and addictive behaviours. Another parent, a father of two who is an active member of the Smartphone Free Childhood movement, raised with me the addictive design features, from the pull to refresh to the gamification, photo scrolling and push notifications. He has a lot to say on that because he was somebody who designed such features for smartphones and social media. He has a real concern about how they affect both children and adults. Does the Minister’s assessment of online safety include an assessment of the impacts of addictive and compulsive features? What steps is the Department taking to address them?

Among the parents I have spoken to there is a variety of views about what the answer is. Some want a ban on smartphones for under-16s; some want an Australia-style under-16 ban on social media; and some would prefer a school-led approach. Many are simply worried about how to push back on the social pressure that they get from very young children to have smartphones and access to social media. Will the Minister outline what steps her Department is taking to engage young people, parents and schools about the best way to find an appropriate solution?

As we have heard from many Members, technological change often goes faster than we can deal with. We cannot keep up with it. We have the ability to regulate it, but it is a bit too slow. I commend the Ministers and the Government for their work on this issue, but encourage them to take heed of the things we have heard about today, support the efforts by parents and teachers to help young people to grapple with the challenges, and ensure that the measures we introduce reflect the need to protect and safeguard young people sufficiently.