At a Westminster Hall debate last week, there was cross-party consensus that the Government must act to protect our children from online harm; hereโs one option available to them.
Caroline Voaden
Member of Parliament for South DevonIf you suspected something caused poor mental health rates to spike among young people, would you stop your child from accessing it? What if it increased the chances of obesity? Of eating disorders? Of ADHD?
Protecting children from things that harm them is a well-established rule in our society. We donโt let children smoke, nor do we allow them to drink โ or drive!
A damaged lung from smoking is obvious, as is a damaged liver from long-term alcohol abuse. But what about injuries that are harder to perceive? And what if there was one thing suspected of contributing to all the above conditions, from poor mental health to ADHD โ would you protect your children from that?
I suspect the answer is yes.
And itโs looking more and more as if the culprit of these rises is the smartphone, a piece of technology that has become so ingrained in our lives that itโs hard to imagine a time without it.
But such a time did exist โ just 25 years ago โ and if you compare the mental health statistics from then and now, youโll see just how shocking an impact smartphone usage is having on children.
According to available data, in 2000, around 9.7% of children aged 5-15-years-old in the UK suffered from a mental health disorder. Today, that statistic stands at 20% for 8-16-year-olds.
If you look at eating disorders, a similar pattern emerges. In 2000, there were 32.2 new cases of eating disorders per 100,000 aged between 10-49-years-old. Today, at least 1.25 million people are living with eating disorders in the UK.
Now thereโs limited evidence to suggest smartphones are solely responsible for these spiking rates. But there does appear to be a causal link โ and just scouring the news from the past six months, there is a growing number of studies on the damaging impact from smartphones on childrenโs speech and language abilities, anxiety, and depression.
My Experience on the Education Select Committee
This is something Iโve heard first hand on the Education Select Committee.
Back in November, the Childrenโs Commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, warned that our children are being exposed to the โwild west of social mediaโ through their smartphones, with children as young as 11 or 12 being exposed to content including violent porn and extreme violence, like beheadings.
This is having a significant impact on our NHS. Last week, I spoke with mental health leads in South Devon about childrenโs mental health. They talked about the difficulty in employing enough psychologists and psychiatrists to cope with demand.
Listening to them, a form of thinking solidified for me: given spiking rates of mental health conditions among children, the time has come to not just treat these conditions but take proactive steps to address the potential causes of it.
Why We Must Adopt a Precautionary Principle for Smartphones
At a Westminster Hall debate last week about introducing a minimum age for social media, I spoke about why we must now take a precautionary principle for smartphones.
That enables decision-makers to adopt precautionary measures when the scientific evidence about an environmental or human health hazard is uncertain, but the stakes are high โ and we know the stakes are high for our children.
Some may see this is an unscientific approach, but Iโd urge them to read the studies linked in this article and consider the risks posed by inaction. While I donโt believe a ban on smartphones is workable, I do consider it vital that we raise the minimum age for social media use, and Iโm proud to be a co-sponsor of the Safer Phones Bill.
Fortunately, I wasnโt alone in expressing this view. There is a broad cross-party consensus that action must be taken to shield children from online harms. The Government has indicated โnothing is off the tableโ when it comes to protecting our children and indicated that further legislation on this may be coming in the next two or three years.
Given the scale of the crisis, though, we canโt afford to wait this long. I hope to see the Safer Phones Bill move onto its next stage this coming Friday, and Iโll continue to push the Government to act quicker to protect our children from the dangers of the online world.
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