Social Media Use: Minimum Age

Mike Reader Excerpts

Monday 24th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Rebecca Paul (Reigate) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and to be here today to support the petition calling for social media companies to be banned from allowing children under the age of 16 to create social media accounts. I stand here today in complete agreement with the over 700 Reigate constituents who signed the petition urging us to take action on this important issue.

As a mother of three, I spend much time worrying about the impact of social media and screen time on my children and their peers. When I was growing up, in the school holidays I was out playing with my friends, climbing trees, building camps and learning the critical social skills that we all need in adulthood. Now, instead, we do not let our children out, and the only world we allow them to explore is a fantasy one that is rife with risk and does not equip them with the life skills that they need.

When children are online, they can interact with predatory individuals without realising, see unrealistic body images that batter their self-esteem and be convinced that black is white by false information. That is extremely damaging. Many adults fall for those things, so how on earth do we expect our children not to? It is no coincidence that we see a mental health crisis in our young people at the same time as mass adoption of smartphones and access to social media. Yes, increased mental health support is needed, but the best remedy is to remove the root cause.

I note that the previous Conservative Government took some welcome first steps in the fight to safeguard our children through the introduction of the Online Safety Act. Thanks to that Act, providers must be proactive in removing illegal content such as child sexual abuse material, and they must protect children and young people from content that is harmful. That could include harassment, abuse, bullying or content about suicide, self-harm and eating disorders. The Act also includes welcome measures to prevent children from accessing online pornography, something I particularly welcome in the light of the huge damage that material does to both our girls and our boys.

While the Online Safety Act is a welcome starting point, we must go further. That is overwhelmingly the view of Brits, 75% of whom now back raising the minimum age for creating a social media account from 13 to 16, as a recent More in Common survey shows. If, as I hope, we raise the minimum age to 16, more thought needs to be given to enforcement. While platforms may set a minimum age requirement, with 13 being the standard for most social media sites, those limits are easy to circumvent. If teenagers can evade the ban by using a simple virtual private network, we will not get the full benefit of raising the age limit. It will be of great value to hear more today about the best ways to overcome this challenge.

I also want to touch quickly on smartphones, as this is another route to better safeguarding and protecting our children. The hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) made some really powerful points on this. I strongly support a ban on smartphones in schools for children under 16. When asked, 42% of older teenagers say that on a typical day their smartphone distracts them from schoolwork, and nearly half say social media has distracted them enough to affect their grades. Currently, only 11% of schools are genuinely smartphone free, and children at these schools get GCSE results one to two grades higher, so there is clearly a big upside to banning smartphones in schools.

The Conservatives recently tabled an amendment to Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to do exactly that. Unfortunately it was voted down, but I urge the Labour Government to seriously consider implementing this much needed restriction in some form. To be honest, I am perplexed as to why they rejected the amendment, when this one measure would be a game changer in terms of protecting children and improving educational outcomes, which is the whole purpose of the Bill. I hope that they will reconsider the amendment at a later stage.

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

I am very grateful that one of my constituents who has campaigned hard for a smartphone ban is here today. Does the hon. Lady recognise that although we can ban phones in schools, as the majority of schools have, it will not prevent kids from bringing phones to school and playing with them when they get outside the school gates? It is a much bigger challenge than just banning phones within the school boundary.

[Rebecca Paul]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point. It is a tricky and difficult thing to achieve, but a ban it makes it a little easier for schools. We have implemented guidance, but it has not cut through as much as we wanted. We now need to accept that we need to go further and introduce a ban, because it is much easier for schools to take action when it is on a statutory footing.

I thank the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) for his great work on safer phones for our children. I hope to be able to support his private Member’s Bill on 7 March. These are exactly the type of initiatives that we should be working on together on a cross-party basis, because we all agree that we want to protect our children.

I encourage Ministers and the Government as a whole to engage fully with the excellent points made in this debate, and act swiftly to protect our children from an increasingly insidious online realm that they are simply not equipped to navigate. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to raising the minimum age for social media use to 16 and banning smartphones in schools. The value from these two changes alone would be huge for our society, and we would all thank the Government for it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mike Reader (Northampton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the campaigners who brought this petition forward, and particularly my constituent, who I mentioned earlier, for her tenacious campaigning on this issue at regular surgery appointments and for sharing some fascinating research with me.

While I understand the concerns driving this debate, I do not believe that a blanket restriction set at an arbitrary age is necessarily the most effective way of protecting young people online. While I believe that we need to protect young people, and adults, from the harms of social media, I will set out why I do not believe that an age restriction change is necessarily the best course of action.

A huge proportion of our young people use social media daily for research, to connect with friends and to explore the world. We know that around 40% of kids under the age of 13 are already using social media platforms, which suggests to me that age restrictions alone have limitations in practice. It is worth noting that parental awareness of those age restrictions and requirements is mixed; while nine out of 10 parents of young kids have said that they are aware of the requirements, recent studies show that less than half can actually pinpoint that 13 is the age restriction for most sites. More concerning is that a third of parents with children below the current age restriction said that they would still allow their kids to use social media. That shows that a blanket restriction will not work, and that we need to bring parents and young people along with us if we are to make online spaces safer.

The figures are concerning because when we look at the impact of social media on young people, we see a complex picture. On the one hand, research suggests that over half of 12 to 15-year-olds have negative experiences online, and a magnitude of studies, as referenced by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan), have shown a link between heavy social media use and mental health concerns. Seven out of 10 young people admit that they have experienced cyber-bullying, with over a third reporting that it happens on a frequent basis. Some have described social media as much more addictive than cigarettes and alcohol, so clearly there are concerns.

On the other hand, 90% of young people said that using social media makes them feel happier and closer to their friends. During the pandemic, these platforms provided a crucial connection when face-to-face interaction was simply not possible. Social media has prompted a revolution in peer-to-peer interaction and sharing; we, as a Government, should not do anything to stifle that growth, and the grasp of creativity that our young people are showing. Social media offers our young people an opportunity to read, watch and understand the experiences of others around the world like they never have before.

The real question is not simply whether young people under the age of 16 should be able to use social media. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) recognised, social media is not just about TikTok and Snapchat; it is about all the different ways in which young people connect online—and even me, when I get time to jump on the PlayStation.

The real question is this: young people are using social media and are unlikely to stop using it even if we bring in a ban, so what can we do to make it safer? Social media companies, schools and parents all have a role to play in creating safer online environments for our young people. I believe that social media can do a lot more to moderate content and provide safer spaces for our young people. Harmful content that promotes self-harm, disordered eating, bullying and body image issues should not be making it to online platforms. There has to be more accountability for the big tech giants.

Parents have to play a more active role in supervising and guiding their children’s online activities. Research shows that only six in 10 parents are aware of the technical tools and social media controls available to them, and less than a third admit to actually using them to fully control how their kids use systems online.

[Monica Harding (Esher and Walton) (LD)]

As a parent of four teenagers, I do battle on screen time every single day—so much so that my children actually thought I was coming into Parliament to give screen time to the nation. I think it is grossly unfair to blame parents or attribute responsibility to them when most parents are having this battle every single day. With the addictive algorithms on social media platforms, it is impossible for children to resist. I have a child who was 16 last week and is sitting his GCSEs. He is finding it very difficult to look away from his phone and concentrate on his studies because of these algorithms.

[Mike Reader]

I thank the hon. Member for her intervention. I am not saying that responsibility sits solely with parents, but parents definitely have a clear role to play. We cannot look solely to the state to help to raise our kids.

Teachers also have a big role to play. My mum, as a teacher, could tell us how important digital literacy is in this day and age. Children need the skills to navigate online spaces safely. Rather than focusing solely on age restrictions, we should consider how we make social media platforms safe for kids and improve their literacy so that they can connect with the world and explore the opportunities in front of them. Children should be aware of the risks that they face and should know how to report harmful content and navigate platforms safely. As the Government look at curriculum reform and at how we support our schools, teachers and parents, I hope that digital literacy will have an important place.

Social media is now fully embedded in young people’s lives. It offers the opportunity to connect and provides for creative expression and learning. Our challenge is to maximise those benefits while minimising the risks, not to remove the opportunity altogether.