After kids are banned from social media, here’s who should be next to go

If the owners of these sites aren’t going to do more to ensure that blatant lies are scrubbed from their platforms, then perhaps your extremely gullible grandparents shouldn’t be spending 16 hours of every day scrolling through them

I don’t want to sound 1,000 years old, but isn’t the term “social media” a bit of a misnomer? Back when I was kid, if you wanted to stay in touch with somebody you had to physically go around to their house and see them. Sure, we could text each other and make phone calls, but that was more of a means to an end, it wasn’t the main part of our interaction the way it is with today’s youth. On an unrelated note, does anybody else’s back hurt?

Now, though, people can just fire a post off into the ether, their friend can click a little symbol with a love heart or a thumbs up, and boom: friendship achieved. Some of our dearest acquaintances have been reduced to little more than text on a screen that lives in our pocket. They could be replaced with an algorithm designed to post pictures of latte art and comment “u ok hun xoxo”, and we probably wouldn’t even notice the difference.

Well, that could all be about to change – for some of us, at least. UK technology secretary Peter Kyle has revealed that he is keeping a close eye on Australia, where the government has announced plans to ban social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram from being accessed by children. The country’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has suggested that children as old as 16 could be barred from the platforms.

“You know, there is considerable evidence that social media is harming vulnerable young people”, said Kyle. “It’s making some young people increasingly vulnerable … I’m looking very closely at the Australian experience, and I’m open-minded.”

I’m pretty liberal when it comes to media censorship, but when it comes to the idea of a social media ban I suddenly turn into Mary Whitehouse. Platforms like Instagram and TikTok are ruining our kids’ mental health, and sites like Twitter/X are so poorly regulated that they’ve become the perfect environments for the far right and other nefarious actors to groom the next generation of neo-Nazis and misfits.

I’m not sure I’d go so far as one academy chain, which has already moved to ban smartphones at its schools altogether – when used right, phones can be a lifeline for children and help prevent danger – but if done right, a ban would mean such extreme measures wouldn’t be needed anyway.

In fact, why stop there? After all, it isn’t just kids who are having their brain chemistries irrevocably altered by the radioactive glow of their iPhone screens. We recently saw riots up and down the country, thanks in part to a few well-placed nuggets of misinformation strewn about the same platforms your cousin uses to post her favourite Chappell Roan fan cams.

If the owners of these sites aren’t going to do more to ensure that blatant lies are scrubbed from their platforms, then perhaps your extremely gullible grandparents shouldn’t be spending 16 hours of every day scrolling through them.

In fact, Gen Z says it gets most of its news from social media despite trusting it less than more established sources like the BBC, and a study by Ofcom suggests the same could be true of as many as half of UK adults. I know that traditional news media has its share of issues, but I’m not sure that means we should be abandoning it in favour of TommyWasRightAboutEverything.net.

And hey, I’m not immune to the siren call of social media either. If I told you how many times I stopped writing this article to look at pictures of Moo-Deng, the viral pygmy hippo on my phone, I’d never work for a newspaper ever again. I’m one social media binge away from throwing my iPhone in the ocean and buying one of those retro Barbie flip phones that only makes calls and sends texts.

But if anything, that’s even more reason to shut the whole thing down. Sure, we’d lose touch with a few relatives we can’t be bothered picking up the phone and speaking to, and we wouldn’t be able to spy on our high school girlfriends and lament over what could have been, but also, I don’t know… maybe our kids would be safer? Maybe there would be fewer violent racists roaming our streets? Maybe we could have an election or two that isn’t tainted by the possibility of interference from @RealEnglishPatriot1488, who joined in August 2024 and appears to be based in Moscow?

If you ask me, that sort of trade-off is worth it, but I’m aware that it’s unrealistic. Maybe the best we can hope for is that kids who grow up not being able to access social media won’t want it when they finally reach the age that it becomes available to them.

I’m not hopeful, though. After all, I’m 1,000 years old. I grew up without any social media at all, and I’m about to spend the next hour glued to my phone, watching videos of this hippo.