Commenting on the launch of the government's consultation on children’s digital wellbeing, including social media age bans and the impact of AI chatbots and gaming, Daniel Kebede, General Secretary, of the National Education Union, said;
“Government efforts to address the harms caused to children by social media is long overdue. This consultation must lead to swift and decisive action. While ministers consider whether to raise the age of access to social media or bring in other measures, children will continue to be exposed to extreme and dangerous content. Our recently published Algorithm Experiment shows that, on average, 13‑year‑olds are served harmful content within just three minutes of scrolling.
"The clearest way to protect children now is for the government to raise the age of access to social media to 16. Proposals like overnight curfews completely miss the point. Children are not just being harmed because they are online too late at night – they are being harmed because algorithms are designed to push them towards the most shocking, violent and sexual content from the moment they log on.
"If the government is serious about protecting children, it should move quickly from consultation to action. Raising the age of access to social media to 16 would provide an immediate safeguard, rather than delaying as another generation of children is fed harmful content by Big Tech’s profit‑driven algorithms.”