UK plans social media curfew for teenagers – The Latest

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0:30companies too much by coming in too hard with restrictions. From The Guardian's Today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Annie Kelly.

0:42So the government's already announced a ban for social media for under-16s. They've now announced this new social media curfew for slightly older kids, 16 and 17-year-olds. Jessica Murray, you're The Guardian's social affairs correspondent. How is this going to work and how is it different to the measures they've already announced? Yeah, so what this is, is a voluntary curfew on social media apps, which will mean from the hours of midnight to 6am, certain apps will be blocked for 16 and 17 year olds. It'll also include features like, for instance, the most kind of addictive elements of social media.

1:18So autoplay videos where the video just kind of automatically keeps scrolling to the next one. And also infinite scrolling will also be automatically blocked for that age group, 16 and 17 year olds. But the most important thing to note is that this is all voluntary. It's just, it will be a sort of default on the app, but it takes just a few clicks for a teenager to just go in their settings, switch all this off and essentially completely override it. Okay. And how does that kind of fit with that suite of measures that they've already announced, this ban on under 16s being able to access social media at all?

1:51Yeah, so the reason they're doing this is because they're concerned about, you know, teenagers hitting the age of 16 have never been allowed on social media in their lives and suddenly they get unlimited access and they're worried that you know teenagers will essentially be scrolling into the middle of the night which you know a lot of them already are so they're trying to kind of tailor it so that um teenagers get a more gradual introduction to social media but yeah there's a lot of critics who think it's unlikely to play out that way so let me get this straight this is not mandatory and you can go into your settings and disable this in a couple of clicks so basically the government are asking 16 and 17 year olds really nicely not to use their phones at night is that pretty much the extent of this yeah essentially yeah and I think the government's own research has showed that 10 % of children have used VPNs virtual private networks to get around age verification on certain websites and social media so if already 10 % of children are doing that I think it's highly likely that much more than 10 % will be able to easily get around these especially if It's just, you know, going into your settings and changing it.

2:53It's pretty horrifying, the idea that you've got, you know, a generation of kids on their phones all night anyway. You mentioned the fact that the government wanted to do this because they wanted to prevent this kind of cliff edge of social media use when kids are finally allowed on social media platforms at 16. Could you tell me a bit more about their reasons, their rationale behind this curfew? yeah so there has been a lot of research that shows that children's sleep can be really disrupted if they're on social media late at night and I think parents feel like they're fighting a losing battle essentially and trying to get their children to switch off they did some sort of trial runs of different types of social media restrictions with about 300 teenagers and they they say that this one worked particularly well it had a lot of benefits so yeah and I mean obviously you know children are accessing really harmful content online we know that and it's hard for parents to monitor that if their child is you know scrolling on their phone at one o 'clock in the morning in their bedroom so I think parents sort of would would broadly kind of welcome this but and you know and there is sort of genuine need for stuff like this but obviously there are you know a lot of limitations.

3:58Yeah why make it not mandatory like why not just enforce this legally that they can't be on social media you know throughout the night? There are arguments that 16 and 17 year olds who can you know make really major decisions about their lives. I suppose we'll be able to vote soon. They should be able to make these decisions themselves, some people would argue. So yeah, I think that's why they've kind of held back from that. And I think also, you know, there is some sort of hesitation about upsetting tech companies too much by coming in too hard with restrictions. But yeah, it's difficult to know.

4:29So they've just announced what we've discussed is a fairly pointless curfew if, you know, very tech savvy teenagers can opt out of it in a few clicks. it doesn't put as you said really any onus on the tech companies to change their products at all that we all now know are inherently really harmful to kids to all of us really why is it that the government seems unwilling or unable to actually take on the tech companies over this if they really are committed to reducing online harm yeah I think there's a sense that these tech companies are just so big, they're so powerful, so wealthy that, you know, they just won't do it essentially.

5:10I think also there's, you know, the government doesn't want to put off kind of investment, it wants to become, you know, a big tech superpower. So, you know, it doesn't want to kind of deter social media companies from doing that in the UK. But it's also worth remembering, you know, all of these big social media companies are based in either the US or China. We've seen how Donald Trump has reacted to some previous kind of comments on this. He sees these kind of restrictions as a censorship you know he's threatened kind of tariffs when on kind of on the digital services tax so I think you know it's it is quite a big thing to take on and I think there is just a bit of hesitation about it I think it's also worth thinking about the global picture obviously Australia have gone ahead with a ban but the UK is kind of a front runner in this we are you know going further than the vast majority of other countries so I think they're they're they're treading quite carefully because of that.

5:58Aside from the fact that that there are concerns this curfew that they've just announced just won't work. There are wider criticisms, aren't there, of this kind of idea of banning or prohibiting use of social media and all of that onus being on the end users, the kids, the teenagers. Could you just tell me what are some of those arguments that this kind of approach isn't going to work and what might be some of the unintended consequences of this approach? Yeah, I think one of the main concerns is that it will kind of push children into sort of the dark the dark web you know um unregulated um unmonitored parts of the of the internet i mean as i said we already know a lot of children know how to use these vpns to get around this kind of thing um so they're not kind of using the traditional social media apps that we're using you know where are they going to go instead that they're probably going to find ways around it um there's also concerns that it you know there are certain groups certain children who really rely on social media for example disabled children are much more likely to use social media to to make connections to find role models to find support if you take that away from them you're kind of pushing them further into isolation so I think there are a lot of unintended consequences that we kind of probably won't fully realize until this comes in.

7:10And I think as a mother of teenagers myself you know you see how much social media is integrated into every aspect of their lives and you can try as hard as you want to reduce the time that they spend on it but realistically with this particular age group the kids that already have these social media platforms is there really anything that we can do to to prevent those online harms and to reduce their usage or is the point more about like making it easier for parents of younger kids to say I'm sorry you can't have TikTok because it's illegal for you to have it till you're 16. Yeah I think to some extent these kind of restrictions are just delaying the inevitable I mean if you're a child and you're growing up around parents and adults who are constantly glued to their phones then you're always going to want to seek to have that access to you'll you'll find find ways around it or as soon as you hit 16 or whatever you will you will instantly kind of become addicted in this in the way that a lot of people are um i do think there is a strong case for um for limiting um access for younger children we've seen cases of children who've um taken their own lives or um had really other really adverse impacts from from viewing content online that as an as an older person you might be able to understand what it is you're viewing and and not kind of take on in the same way that a younger person would so I think restricting access at a younger age is really important and as you say it will help parents who feel like they're they're in a losing battle you know if if they're saying something but their child's best friend at school is allowed something else then you know how can they kind of fight against that um so doing something kind of collectively that sort of applies blanket across society I think I think is really helpful um and I guess it's it's probably you know it's the start of a conversation it's the start of regulation You would think, you know, I think these kind of restrictions, if you think five years ago, would have seemed completely improbable.

8:58We've never, ever sort of introduced bans. So we've come a long way. And I think in five years, 10 years in the future, we could have even more kind of restrictions or, you know, tech companies might have been forced to act in ways that, you know, we still haven't thought about right now. So, yeah, I think it's just even just having the conversation as a society about what should we be doing? You know, how can we be making social media better and safer? But I think that is a good start. And I think people are welcoming that. But as we've said, I think the restrictions that we're seeing right now are not going to be that effective.

9:27And you've done a lot of reporting on the way that social media can be harmful to children and young people. What do you think of this curfew? Do you think that there's any merit at all into signalling to older kids that they shouldn't be on their phones at three o 'clock in the morning? Yeah, I definitely think it will help parents make the case to their children that they shouldn't be on social media past a certain time. You know, as I said, a lot of parents feel like they're fighting a losing battle. How do they make their children listen to them? But I do think, you know, a lot of parents do think that it will be futile.

10:02You know, I was listening on the radio this morning to Ellen Room, whose 14 year old son, Jules, died after doing an online challenge that went wrong. Really, really awful case. And she was basically saying that, you know, she felt that this curfew is essentially like placing, you know, a bottle of alcohol in front of a teenager, but just sort of keeping it out of arm's reach, basically. And, you know, what teenager is going to be able to resist that? And I think that is a lot, you know, to ask a young 16-year-old, 17-year-old to not just go into their settings and change it. I think, you know, even I have restrictions on my Instagram that basically tell me after I've used the app for a certain amount of time a day to switch off.

10:41You should close the app now. How many times do I go back on the app after that? Yeah, I mean, you just click, you know, click ignore this. It's very easy to get around it. And so I think asking teenagers to kind of have that self-will to not get around these restrictions is a lot. And I don't think many will. Thank you so much for your time, Jessica. Thank you. And that's it for today. my huge thanks again to social affairs correspondent Jessica Murray and thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest. Today in Focus, we'll be back in your feeds tomorrow morning and The Latest will be back tomorrow night.

11:14This episode was produced by Angus Neill. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgovin. The executive producer was Zoe Hitch. And the presenter was me, Annie Kelly.

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