Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has made an assessment of the (a) mental and (b) physical health risks to young people of social media and technology.

The Department has made no formal assessment of the risks to mental or physical health presented to young people by social media and related technologies. However, the Department, working with Xenzone (a provider of online counselling services) has funded the development of an online risk module for health professionals, designed to give them an understanding of the digital world, so that they can learn to distinguish between ‘normal online behaviour’ and potentially dangerous activity.

The Department has commissioned the Health and Social Care Information Centre to carry out a survey of the mental health of children and young people. Public consultation on the content of that survey called for the inclusion of questions on the impact that social media may be having on the mental health of children and young people. A national report on the findings of the survey will be published in 2018, the first such survey since 2004.

The clearest physical health risk arises from the fact that children and young people who spend long periods online are not exercising during that time. The four Home Country Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) published United Kingdom-wide guidelines for the amount of physical activity required across the life-course (including children and young people) in July 2011. The CMOs also included advice to restrict sedentary behaviour (long periods of sitting) including use of computers, for all age groups.