Hundreds of UK teenagers to pilot social media bans and restrictions

Hundreds of teenagers will be enlisted to trial social media bans in the coming months with overnight digital curfews and daily screen time limits also tested as part of Keir Starmer’s plan to crack down on the negative effects of smartphone use.The trials will be part of a three-month consultation launched this week that could lead to an outright ban on social media for under-16s similar to that introduced in Australia. Ministers have said they are ready to toughen laws just six months after the introduction of child protection measures in the Online Safety Act.“There is growing agreement that more needs to be done,” the government said in a statement announcing what it called “the world’s most ambitious consultation on social media”. It added: “The contributions to this consultation will determine how the government will decide what that looks like.”The consultation will consider whether there should be a minimum age to use social media, and if so, what that age should be; whether platforms should be required to switch off addictive features such as infinite scrolling and autoplay that keep children hooked late into the night; whether mandatory overnight curfews would help children sleep better and at what age they should apply; and how age verification enforcement should be strengthened.It will also consider the growing issue of whether children should be able to use AI chatbots without restriction and the effects of gaming platforms such as Roblox.The first trial will involve about 150 children aged 13 to 15 and will test their response to being denied social media altogether, being limited to one hour a day and overnight screen curfews. Their sleep, moods and physical activity will be assessed.Several child safety campaign groups have opposed a blanket ban. The NSPCC said last month that it would risk “driving teenagers into darker, unregulated corners of the internet”. The 5Rights Foundation also said social media companies must not be “let off the hook” by a ban which many children are likely to dodge.But Smartphone Free Childhood, a campaign which recently rallied 250,000 supporters to write to their MPs to demand a social media ban for under-16s, said: “Ordinary mums and dads are fed up with trying to out-parent algorithms built by trillion-dollar companies.”Joe Ryrie, the campaign co-founder, said: “This consultation must result in clear age boundaries to protect children from unsafe platforms and ensure that responsibility and accountability for child safety sit where they belong – with the companies that design and profit from these systems.”Meta, which runs Instagram, declined to comment on the consultation. TikTok and X did not respond to requests for comment.The Guardian revealed last month that access by technology companies and their lobbyists to government ministers dwarfed that of child safety campaigners. Tech representatives attended at least 639 meetings with ministers in the two years to October 2025, compared with 75 attended by campaigners for greater online child protection.The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, said: “We know parents everywhere are grappling with how much screen time their children should have, when they should give them a phone, what they are seeing online, and the impact all of this is having. This is why we’re asking children and parents to take part in this landmark consultation on how young people can thrive in an age of rapid technological change.”The government acknowledged that some children’s charities were opposed to a blanket ban. “That is why this consultation looks beyond a ban and covers a full range of options, from curfews, to the impact of chatbots and gaming,” it said.Andy Burrows, the chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, which was set up in response to 14-year-old Molly Russell taking her own life after exposure to harmful Instagram posts, said: “Parents are rightly demanding action, and they need the prime minister to get this right. That means following the evidence rather than implementing simplistic solutions that would quickly unravel and create a false sense of safety.“This must be a downpayment on making children’s safety and wellbeing the non-negotiable cost of doing business in the UK.” In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email pat@papyrus-uk.org, and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the US, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is at 988 or chat for support. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org