Protection of Children (Digital Safety and Data Protection) Bill

John Whitby Excerpts

Friday 7th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Whitby (Derbyshire Dales) (Lab)]

I am extremely pleased to be able to take part in today’s debate, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for bringing forward the Bill.

It is no exaggeration to say that we are facing a crisis. As has already been expertly outlined by Members across the House, there is a growing consensus that unregulated smartphone and social media use is harming our children’s health, learning and wellbeing. Many of the long-terms implications for those who have grown up with social media remain unknown, but we can already see the warning signs. The number of children aged eight to 16 facing a probable mental health disorder has already doubled since 2017. Some 445,000 people were in contact with children and young people’s mental health services in November 2023—up from 362,000 two years earlier.

I recently met parents in my constituency who are rightly concerned by the impact that social media and phone use is having on their children’s mental health, sleep and learning. The earlier that children have access to social media, the more pronounced the impacts are on their social development and wellbeing. Cyber-bullying, content designed to make young people feel insecure, and unwanted explicit content are just some of the issues that children now face. Children are losing out on socialising and time spent outside to activities that isolate them and keep them inside. One third of mental health problems in adulthood are directly connected to childhood experiences. Between 2010 and 2018, the number of young people attending A&E with a psychiatric condition more than tripled.

The covid period exacerbated the social and mental health impacts of smartphone and social media use, but the issues we now face have been in the making for more than a decade, and failure to hold the tech companies accountable and provide the necessary mental health support for our young people has created a perfect storm for the crisis we are now facing. We must not treat smartphones and social media addiction as a natural phenomenon; tech companies have created systems that are intended precisely to be addictive and to maximise the time that users spend on their phones. Currently, more than one in four young adults show signs of behavioural addiction to smartphones. The algorithms and user interface of social media sites are designed to be addictive, targeting dopamine circuits in the brain. Research shows that some social media apps can trigger brain responses similar to those triggered by slot machine gambling.

Right now, many parents are forced into an impossible position, with a choice between allowing their child to access potentially harmful and addictive content and feeling that their child is left out and isolated from his or her peers. The impacts on mental health and learning are especially pronounced among vulnerable young people who may already lack the support that they need at school and in the community. We cannot ignore the political impacts of unregulated social media either. It is incredibly concerning to see extremist content being pushed to young people who are increasingly isolated. Many of them spend less time with friends and in physical community spaces.

Last year we saw Australia’s Government move to take serious action on these issues, banning children under 16 from using social media and having the power to fine companies that fail to comply. It is clear that we have a very long way to go, but the Bill is a positive step and will help to build the national conversation that is needed to tackle the scale of these problems.

I want to end with a quotation from the parent of a child who took his own life. The parent, Chris, filed lawsuits against two tech giants. I found this quotation in an article in the magazine The New Yorker, published in September 2024. Chris said:

“I thought I was a good and responsible father. I checked around the house and locked the doors every night, making everything nice and safe. I didn’t understand that the lion was already inside the house.”