As Children’s Minister, I heard time and again how parents’ number one worry was how to handle their children’s access to digital devices. The evidence is clear that smartphone and social media use is devastating for children’s mental health.
I am therefore delighted to be a co-sponsor to Josh MacAlister MP’s Safer Phones Bill to make it harder for companies to push addictive content using children’s data, to strengthen Ofcom’s powers to fine companies that fail to fulfil their duty of care, and to produce health advice on the impacts of smartphone addiction. I would like to go further and see a ban on either smartphones or social media for under 16s, but this is a decent start.
Today I co-chaired a Bill hearing where we heard that a quarter of three-year-olds now have their own smartphone, with 12 year olds spending 21 hours a week online outside of school.