Big Tech experiments on our kids and calls it innovation

As part of Mumsnet’s Rage Against the Screen campaign, launched a couple of years ago, we used billboard and online adverts styled like cigarette packet health warnings.

- JUSTINE ROBERTS Justine Roberts is the founder and CEO of Mumsnet, the UK’s most popular online network and forum for parents

Some people thought that was provocative. It was meant to be.

Today, it feels like the experts are catching up with our thinking. A report released by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges says social media “ranks alongside smoking” as a threat to young people’s health. The report was submitted to the government’s consultation to explore an Australia-style social media ban for minors, and contained a survey of 454 doctors that revealed that half had treated at least one child per week whose mental distress or physical injury was directly linked to online content.

In his first public statement on the issue since stepping down from cabinet earlier this month, former health secretary Wes Streeting agreed that social media should be treated like tobacco.

When we launched our campaign, we weren’t trying to shock for the sake of it. We were simply reflecting what parents had been telling us, again and again, on Mumsnet: that social media feels addictive, that it is changing their children’s behaviour, and that family life is being bent out of shape by platforms designed to keep kids scrolling.

Parents do not need another report to tell them something is wrong. They see kids who cannot put phones down, who rage or panic when denied access, who sneak around at night looking for confiscated devices. One Mumsnet user described feeling as if she were letting “a child crack addict take crack in their room”.

Eighty-three per cent of parents say they have tried to limit or reduce social media use, but nearly three-quarters say those efforts did not work. Parents are worn down by the negotiations, workarounds, complaints and rows.