Phone bans and the social media ban:a win, but not enough

Why I welcome it

For years, the responsibility has been placed on children, parents and teachers. So any move that puts the burden back on platforms is welcome.

Baroness Kidron made a point I agree with: she'd rather we talked about banning unfit companies from children, rather than banning children.

I especially welcome the proposals to switch off infinite scroll and autoplay for older teens. That targets the design itself, which is where the real problem lies.

Social media isn't just an app you can switch off

For most of us, phones are an extra limb, and that's what children see. Social media sits inside the architecture of modern life: communication, education, creativity, entertainment, identity and connection.

Young people don't go online to rot their brains. They go online to learn, to connect, to ask questions and to belong, as well as to distract themselves and escape.

And children will always find a way. In a government-commissioned survey of more than 2,000 children carried out just before the ban was announced, nearly two in five 11 to 17-year-olds said they had already got around an online age check at least once. Half of them learned how from friends.

A ban risks pushing social media underground, where it's harder for adults to guide and talk about.

The problem is the design, not just the access

Endless scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendation, streaks and nudges. These are what keep young people on their phones, and they sit beneath the question of who is allowed online.

The same survey found that most of the harmful content children see is encountered passively while scrolling, rather than searched for. The feed brings it to them.

These systems are hard enough for adults to navigate, let alone developing brains. Expecting an eleven, twelve, sixteen or forty-seven-year-old to out-regulate a trillion-dollar optimisation engine with willpower, and a good chat from a parent, or even a talk from me at school, is not going to be enough. Here's why it's so hard to stop scrolling.

Bans without understanding

Bans without understanding can breed secrecy and shame. They don't teach discernment or agency.

The government's own research backs this up. In pilots where families tried different social media restrictions, teenagers reported better sleep, mood and family time. But the researchers found lasting change was more likely when restrictions came with education and practical guidance, and felt like a shared norm rather than something imposed on one young person.

I see the same in schools. When I delivered The Attention Experiment at Sherborne School, staff told me one of their biggest challenges was that students used their school devices in exactly the same way as their personal phones. The same habits, the same distractions, on the device they were meant to be learning on. Taking one device away doesn't change the habit.

As I put it in my written evidence to Parliament: a child who understands why a chatbot feels like a friend, why an algorithm shows them what it shows them, and what is being collected when they engage, is better protected than one who is simply told not to use it.

The attachment economy is next

The attention economy was the first wave. The attachment economy is rolling in now, with AI.

Young people are forming relationships with AI chatbots, often starting with something as simple as help with homework. These systems are built by some of the same companies that have just been found negligent over the design of social media. A ban on social media apps doesn't address that.

More on AI companions and the attachment economy.

What I'm asking for

These are the changes I asked for in my evidence to Parliament.

1. 1

   Regulate addictive design, not just access. Endless scroll, autoplay, algorithmic recommendation and engagement-driven nudging should not be the default, especially for young people. This is a design issue, not a moral failing on the part of children or parents.

2. 2

   Make platforms accountable. Tech companies must be responsible for the impact of their products, with transparency, meaningful audits and real consequences.

3. 3

   Invest in digital wellbeing education, for children and adults. Understanding attention, emotion, persuasion and balance should be as fundamental as literacy. Not as a one-off assembly, but as core knowledge for growing up today.

What is attention literacy?

The work that happens at home and in school

Your own attention is what you model. The conversations at the kitchen table, about how Instagram felt tonight, or why that video is stuck in your child's head, are worth more than any government ban.

That doesn't mean blaming parents. Most of us were never taught how persuasive technology works. We are all learning inside a system that arrived faster than we could respond.

This is why I created The Attention Experiment: four simple words, Scroll, Loop, Notice, Choose, that help young people and the adults around them notice when they're caught in a loop, and choose what happens next. They used neuroscience to hook us. I want to use it to help unhook us. See how it works

The attention economy caught all of us. Kids need our help with this. We all need help with this.

Let's be the ones to try.

Questions people ask