Pupils: Mobile Phones

(asked on 5th March 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, pursuant to the Answer of 5 February 2025 to Question 29183 on Smartphones, what research she refers to.


Answered by
Stephen Morgan Portrait
Stephen Morgan
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Education)
This question was answered on 17th April 2025

Mobile phone and smartphone development and social media use has increased (Ofcom, 2024) alongside increasing mental health problems in children and young people (NHS England, 2023), which has raised concerns amongst academics that the two are linked. The cited publications can be found here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/siteassets/resources/documents/research-and-data/media-literacy-research/children/children-media-use-and-attitudes-2024/childrens-media-literacy-report-2024.pdf?v=368229; https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/mental-health-of-children-and-young-people-in-england/2023-wave-4-follow-up.

Several recent reviews have explored the negative correlations between mobile phones and children’s wellbeing:

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