‘Alarming’ study shows scale of social media use among nursery-aged children
Hundreds of thousands of preschoolers are being exposed to social media content and algorithms designed to “deceive adults”, a former education secretary has warned.
New analysis from the Center for Social Justice (CSJ) has found that more than 800,000 UK children aged three to five are already engaging with social media platforms.
Lord Nash described the news as “extremely worrying”.
CSJ’s analysis applied the latest population data to previous research from internet and communications watchdog Ofcom.
Ofcom found almost four in 10 parents of children aged three to five reported that their child used at least one social media app or site.
CSJ suggests that there are approximately 2.2 million children in this age group by 2024, representing 814,000 social media users between the ages of three and five.
Lord Nash said: “This research is extremely worrying. With hundreds of thousands of under-fives now on these platforms, it should concern us all that children who have not yet learned to read are being fed content and algorithms designed to attract adults.”
“We need a major public health campaign for parents to better understand the harm being done, and legislation to raise the age limit for social media to 16 while holding tech giants to account when they fail to keep children off their platforms.”
Peer had previously pressed for action to block under-16s from accessing social media as part of the Child Welfare and Schools Bill.
His call comes as the world-first law comes into force in Australia on December 10.
From that date, social media platforms will be required to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from having social media accounts in Australia.
In the UK, calls are growing from campaigners, including the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey, for stronger policies to stop phone use in schools.
But the government argues schools already have the power to ban the phones and supports headteachers taking the necessary steps to prevent disruption.
The CSJ advocates banning smartphones from all schools “to break the 24-hour cycle of phone use” and says a public health campaign is needed “to highlight the harms of social media”.
Last week, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he was concerned that we were “abandoning young people to the Wild West of the online world”, while describing concerns about the “mind-numbing effect of social media doomscrolling on young minds and our neurological development”.
