AS Technology Secretary Peter Kyle announces we will not be following Australia in banning children from social media, there is now extensive evidence that smartphones are changing childhood for the worse.
We are facing a mental health crisis among teenagers that correlates directly to the age children first started getting smartphones and using social media.
Our kids are exposed to the kind of content we would never dream of showing them in real life — accessed via mini super-computers in their pockets 24/7.
Extreme content is being pushed on them by algorithms designed to keep them hooked.
Sexual imagery, violent scenes and extreme viewpoints have become totally normalised for kids.
And once children see these things, they cannot un-see them.
And many kids are spending between five and eight hours a day on smartphones . . . displacing the hobbies, socialising and real-world interactions that are so vital for healthy childhood development.
These stats are shocking but they are not surprising because the business model of social media platforms is all about maximising engagement — getting kids to spend as much time on them as possible.
In just a few years, smartphones and social media use have become a major problem for millions of families.
We set up the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign in February after an Instagram post shared by my wife — about not wanting our eight-year- old daughter to get a smartphone — went viral.
Within days there were thousands of Smartphone Free Childhood WhatsApp groups all over the country, filled with parents who were struggling with this unwelcome new frontier of parenting.
Since then we’ve made it our mission to provide support to parents because we are left alone to manage it — often fighting losing battles against the most powerful companies on the planet.
The response has been extraordinary.
More than 200,000 parents have joined our online communities in less than 12 months, and 85,000 have now signed our Parent Pact to delay getting their kids smartphones until the end of Year Nine.
Countless parents contact us to say that giving their child a phone is their biggest regret or that nothing good has come from them having constant access to one.
A recent global study of 10,000 parents found 70 per cent of mums and dads said smartphones are harmful to family life.
And one third of parents have been brought to tears over the problem — that’s an extraordinary number.
An astonishing 95 per cent of parents feel social media and other tech firms should do more to protect children.
Eight out of ten parents think the age limits on social media are too low.
Young people themselves would also like things to be different.
Surveys show a majority of youngsters wish they spent less time alone on their phones on social media and more time in the real world with friends.
Half of teenagers admit they are addicted to social media, while one in five says social media has made their lives not worth living.
Teachers see the issues in classrooms and playgrounds too.
We are disappointed that senior ministers seem to be listening to Big Tech lobbyists rather than the calls from parents for radical change
Joe
In fact, the only people who want the status quo to continue are Mark Zuckerberg and Co.
The fact is, a few ultra-powerful global corporations are making vast fortunes from marketing intentionally addictive and knowingly unsafe products to children.
This would be unthinkable in any other industry. It should be unthinkable in this one too.
As a society we must do something about it, and we don’t have time to waste.
So we are disappointed that senior ministers seem to be listening to Big Tech lobbyists rather than the calls from parents for radical change.
Until the social media platforms can demonstrate their products are safe for children, raising the minimum age limit for access should remain on the table.
Because without the ultimate threat of removing access to our children, the Government is letting these companies off the hook.
Governments need to be bold and stand up for children — not Big Tech’s bottom line.
Crucially, the onus should be on tech firms, not parents, to sort this out.
And if they are not willing to invest in making their platforms safe, non-addictive and age-appropriate, then they should not be able to profit from our children.
It’s not like they cannot afford to invest in it.
Let’s not forget, they have built the most complex communications systems ever invented.
They can predict our behaviour with astonishing accuracy, so changing the algorithms to make sure kids only see age-appropriate content — and finding a way to figure out how old someone is before they can log on to their platforms — should be a piece of cake.
We believe the ultimate solution to this problem will be a collaboration between parents, young people, governments and tech companies
But while we wait for regulation to catch up with the tech, as parents we have to take matters into our own hands.
The simplest way to do that is by joining together to agree not to give our kids smartphones and social media access for a few more years, reducing the peer pressure that makes it so hard to say no.
Parents, teachers and young people themselves are all rising up to demand change because childhoods are too short to be wasted on smartphones.
