UK 16- and 17-year-olds to be encouraged to follow midnight social media curfew

Sixteen and 17-year-olds are to be encouraged to observe a midnight social media curfew, in the latest stage of Labour’s bid “to protect the next generation” from online harms, including poor sleep caused by night-time scrolling.From next spring, Britain’s oldest children will be urged to refrain from using certain apps with a midnight to 6am block being switched on by default. But the curfew will not be mandatory and can be overridden. The move is an extension of the under-16 social media ban announced last month, which included restrictions on platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.The government has also stopped short of restricting the use of virtual private networks, which allow children to avoid social media age gates by pretending they are in a country where there is no ban. The government’s own research found that only 7-10% of children reported using a VPN specifically to bypass age checks. It is also concerned that restrictions could damage free speech.The Molly Rose Foundation, an internet safety campaign group, said the latest measures were part of “yet another piecemeal set of announcements, not the comprehensive plan for children’s safety that’s required”.The specific apps covered by the default curfew have not been named in the announcement from the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, in one of the final acts of the Keir Starmer government. Kendall said features that can keep users scrolling for longer – such as videos that automatically play when another one ends and feeds that continually serve up personalised content – will also be switched off by default for older teenagers. However, they will also be able to override that restriction in a couple of clicks. The government is concerned to avoid a “cliff edge” of teenagers suddenly being exposed to social media’s most addictive features the moment they turn 16.Beeban Kidron, who founded the 5Rights Foundation, which campaigns for child rights online, said having a default that can be switched off was “for show and headlines, not for children”.“This is not the change that parents asked for, nor experts wanted – it has been cooked up in DSIT [the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology] for another news round.”Kendall said a public consultation had shown that even as young people gain greater independence at 16, parents and children still want protections from the most addictive online features that can harm their wellbeing.“These measures will be crucial in helping young people get the sleep they need, focus on school and college, and spend more quality time with family and friends,” she said.Campaigners are also calling for the government to increase protections for young people against AI chatbots, but Kendall only announced plans for “regular breaks for under-18s using chatbots, encouraging healthier online habits”.In May, the DSIT commissioned data and market research company Savanta to test three different social media restrictions: rationing to 15 minutes a day, a no-access curfew from 9pm to 7am and complete deletion of social media apps.Curfews were found to be the most manageable restrictions to enforce, and restricting access to Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, X and Reddit also gave the strongest and most consistent benefit to quality of sleep. YouTube, Teams, Google Classroom and messaging apps, such as WhatsApp and iMessage, were still allowed under the curfew, which in the test ran from 9pm to 7am.The upsides included young people saying they went to bed earlier, felt more rested, concentrated better in lessons and during revision, and felt less stress. Participants often described these effects as cumulative. Inside households, there was more in-person interaction and shared family time.Downsides included children feeling isolated and disconnected from friendships when cut off from platforms such as Snapchat, and experiencing irritability and mood fluctuations, with some parents likening the initial adjustment to withdrawal.