As a parent, I completely agree. We need to protect children from the dangers of the completely uncontrolled "jungle" of social media. But above all, we need to give children back the right to experience a true, real childhood, made up of true friends, fresh air, friendships, and real relationships!
What's stopping you from doing this so far? Handing a child a smartphone is a decision parents can make, withholding access to a smartphone is also a decision parents can make.
BTW, it's worth noting that, in the UK, parents are legally allowed to give their children alcohol, at home, from the age of 5.
Please correct me if any of the above is a misunderstanding.
If the above are representative, then what I believe you've overlooked here is a the much more difficult issue:
Parents have power over children, at least up to a point, and many platforms provide help with exercising that power. Apple and Google provide some means to restrict social media access which place control in the hands of parents.
Parents do not, normally, have power over other people's children. Parents can influence in-person social circles, somewhat, but without withdrawing children from all situations where they interact with other children, including school, social media's influence upon a parent's children is still very strong via the indirect route.
When a child goes to school, attends a group activity outside of school, or socialises in real life with friends outside of school, there are always children in the groups they meet who either use social media themselves or have older siblings, friends or parents who use social media themselves and who influence those children themselves.
To be clear, I'm not giving any opinion about what's proposed here by the UK government. I wanted only to object to what looks like an oversimplification that makes a false assumption that parents have a level of control and influence that they really don't.
But that doesn't stop them seeing things on social media - when they are at the park, there are always peers there that have a phone and showing TikTok videos or Facebook reels etc, so even though I, as a parent, have blocked it at home, and chosen to not give them a smart phone, they are still exposed to it outside of that.
(And to be be fair, the same happens to me in a way. I don't have any social media logins, but I still get sent links for Instagram/FB/TikTok from friends, or my wife will show me something she's seen there, so it seems there really isn't much escape from it!)
I understand parents' concerns, though I think the price in terms of civic liberties we pay for these social media bans is too high.
This is a worthy tradeoff if you genuinely believe social media to be as damaging for your child as you say it is.
Kids have less freedom than ever.
I say it was a mistake because for the generation grown with BBS and 14.4k modems the dangers of an open network were evident and real from the start, even if at the time they were minuscule in comparison to now. Those born with an always on, always connected device already in their hands lacked this awareness from the start.
On one hand, i agree fully.
On the other hand I'm worried about how controlling and orwellian/totalitarian the UK is becoming under Starmer.
https://wtop.com/lifestyle/2025/08/what-kids-say-it-would-ta...
Banks keeps sending me warnings about some new ‘Nigerian prince’ level scams. They wouldn’t be doing it if grownups weren’t falling for them.
General population doesn’t want to setup piholes.
Reminds me of the prohibition era.