As the UK’s Online Safety Act (OSA) approaches its first birthday, dad and mom and academics insist extra should be finished to defend younger individuals and youngsters from the assorted dangers they’re going through online.
In explicit, they cite the necessity for tighter measures round smartphone and social media use in colleges, which led two dad and mom to create the Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) group in February 2024.
Since then, the group – which characterises itself as “a grassroots motion on a mission to problem Big Tech’s colonisation of childhood” – has expanded massively, with 150,000 mother or father members throughout the UK on the time of publication.
Their issues cowl a variety of areas, together with the rising charges of despair, anxiousness and suicide amongst kids since smartphones have been launched, the pervasive results of cyber bullying, the chance of kids being uncovered to dangerous content material through algorithms and messaging apps, and the “deliberately” addictive design selections of tech firms which might be meant to harvest ever-increasing quantities of information for revenue.
While the UK is among the first nations to try to regulate world social media platforms corresponding to Meta, X, TikTok and YouTube – which from the beginning of 2025 will be prosecuted by online harms regulator Ofcom for failing to address unlawful content material, which incorporates the opportunity of million-pound fines and felony sanctions towards high-ranking social media platform staff – dad and mom and academics say there’s mounting proof that, regardless of any good intentions, the online world continues to have a variety of dangerous results on younger individuals.
An worldwide research throughout 44 nations printed final month, for instance, revealed a rising price of problematic internet use in children, revealing the dire want for safer platforms for younger individuals. In the US, legal action against the biggest social media platforms is unfolding over their inaction on dangerous content material and failure to defend kids. In 2023, 42 attorney generals sued Meta, alleging addictive options that focus on kids.
Although the Online Safety Act is a crucial first step, it is going to solely partly address the harms presently being inflicted on kids by means of smartphones and social media Clare Fernyhough, Smartphone Free Childhood
“Although the Online Safety Act is a crucial first step, it is going to solely partly address the harms presently being inflicted on kids by means of smartphones and social media,” says Clare Fernyhough, co-founder of SFC. “It’s not clear the act will address the ‘addictive by design’ nature of each smartphones and social media platforms, that means tech firms will proceed to make billions from conserving our youngsters always online. With some kids spending as a lot as 9 hours a day on their telephones, the chance value these gadgets carry is gigantic.”
Given the continued issues over the unfold of online harms, and the position of smartphones particularly, the inception of SFC has prompted many colleges to try going smartphone-free.
In May 2024, for instance, 20 major colleges throughout St Albans introduced plans to ditch smartphones, and in September, Ormiston academies introduced the choice to go smartphone-free throughout its 44 state schools.
Schools go smartphone-free
“We had a ‘cellphone switched off and in your bag’ coverage for years. It was utterly ineffective,” says Damien McBeath, head instructor at John Wallis Academy, which launched its personal smartphone-free coverage in January, shortly earlier than the formation of SFC. “Since Covid, now we have seen an actual decline in socially acceptable behaviour – plenty of TikTok developments, pupils bundling into bathroom cubicles, incidents of online predators – sapping pupils’ consideration.”
In his 25 years as a head instructor, McBeath provides smartphones have been “a tidal wave of points and disruption”.
In October 2024, SFC additionally launched a proper Smartphone Free Schools marketing campaign, which has already impressed a lot of different colleges to try the coverage. SFC says the issues McBeath has are echoed by different academics, who’ve reached out to the group for steering and help.
“We have been inundated with tales from academics grappling with the results of smartphones, from distraction in classes to cyber bullying and sharing of inappropriate content material. This is an pressing scenario that wants quick authorities help,” says Fernyhough.
Will Orr-Ewing, colleges engagement lead for the Smartphone Free Schools marketing campaign, provides: “The common baby will get tons of of notifications on their cellphone all through the varsity day – a continuing name on their consideration, which leads them to test their cellphone every time they’re out of a instructor’s eyeline, particularly in bogs and breaktimes.
The common baby will get tons of of notifications on their cellphone all through the varsity day – a continuing name on their consideration Will Orr-Ewing, Smartphone Free Schools marketing campaign
“That is why we advocate that colleges devise methods to take the cellphone off the kid’s particular person for the complete seven hours of the varsity day – both by use of pouches or lockers, or by prohibiting kids from bringing in a smartphone in any respect, and recommending brick telephones for journey as an alternative.”
Since adopting the smartphone-free coverage, John Wallis Academy claims it has seen immense advantages each for pupils and employees, together with a 40% discount within the variety of detentions, an 80% discount within the price of in-school truancy, and a discount in employees turnover from 30% to 17%.
Campaigners and academics imagine broader help from the federal government could lead on to nationwide change. Currently, simply 11% of UK schools have effective smartphone restrictions in place. In an open letter to the Department for Education in October, head academics, governing our bodies and native councils urged the federal government to commit funding to help colleges that intention to go smartphone-free.
A brand new Online Safety Act wanted?
Aside from dad and mom and academics, the proposed implementation of the UK’s Online Safety Act has additionally been met with discontent from civil society teams, which have argued in the course of the act’s ongoing session that there’s a want for more durable legal guidelines round online security.
Digital security charity 5Rights, for instance, claims: “Ofcom’s proposals as presently drafted are light-touch and incomplete, and fail to meet the wants of kids and the expectations of parliamentarians, civil society, dad and mom and academics.”
Digital secretary Peter Kyle equally instructed the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg that he was going to “shut loopholes” within the Conservative government-led Online Safety Act, including that the tech sector is the “solely sector … that may launch merchandise into society with out proving they’re secure earlier than launch”.
Support for extra stringent laws can also be echoed by the general public. Recent polling from the Molly Rose Foundation, for instance, revealed overwhelming public and parental help for a brand new Online Safety Act, with 84% of parents and 80% of adults backing a new act to strengthen online security measures.
Labour MP Josh MacAlister has additionally just lately launched a Private Members Bill, which may probably lead to offering statutory steering on smartphone use in colleges, and rising the age of web maturity from 13 to 16. The MP – and former instructor – was vocal on the significance of this coverage for disadvantaged children particularly.
The invoice additionally goals to strengthen regulator Ofcom’s powers in order that it will possibly implement a code of conduct to deal with the addictive-by-design nature of social media platforms corresponding to Instagram and TikTok.
Concerns round addictive design fashions have been echoed in a joint agreement on online security from the UK and US governments, stating: “Both nations acknowledge that risk-based and security, privateness and inclusivity-by-design approaches all through design, improvement and deployment are basic to kids’s security and well-being online, alongside elevated transparency and accountability from online platforms.”
