We protect children from smoking and gambling – why not shield them from social media too?

WhatsApp is for old people. That is, people over 30. At least that’s what my first-year medical students tell me. WhatsApp has become the realm of government backchats about Covid-19 policy, or family groups sharing graduation photos and past-their-prime memes. Young people, especially teenagers, communicate through Snapchat, an app that reaches 90% of 13- to 24-year-olds and 75% of 13- to 34-year-olds across the UK. It has more than 21 million active users in Britain per month, which is almost one-third of the population, and each accesses the app on average more than 50 times a day.If we go back to the 1980s and 1990s, parenting was often about keeping children physically safe. A moody 14-year-old wanting to be alone in their room was a normal thing– in fact this was sufficient to protect them. Parents had clear oversight over who their kids were around at home, and the physical materials they were consuming.Fast-forward to 2023 and children are in their rooms at home, but while physically safe, they’re exposed to an entire virtual world with almost no regulation over the content they see, how much time they’re spending on devices or the boundary between necessary social communication with friends
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