As a parent, I comprehend the appeal of the statement on Monday by the prime minister that would prevent kids under 16 from utilizing social media. Right now, you remain in continuous battle with the limitless scroll for your child’s attention, while their inspiration to explore the real world is suppressed by unlimited home entertainment constantly within reach. At finest, their quickly developing brains are decayed by a diet of the synthetic, sensationalist and shallow– humankind’s least impressive imaginative output catering to its lousiest impulses. At worst, they are being preyed upon by forces intent on manipulating, exploiting or hiring them. You browse and question where they are, even as they are best under your nose. You stress they will never experience the monotony that leads to imagination and moves us forward.Guardian front page, 15 June 2026. The desire to secure children from an often hostile environment makes sense, and the restriction sends a signal of what we consider appropriate, and maybe even opens up the possibility of a behavioural shift in how we use social media. However proof from Australia, where comparable legislation was enacted last December, is not encouraging. According to one study, two-thirds of young people kept their accounts, while 51% of those most impacted by the ban now see less news. The truth is that this market get most of its news from social networks feeds, consumed incidentally amid footage of battles, diet plan tips and dance trends and conveyed by influencers whose shtick is credibility not accuracy. But it is experienced nonetheless. If we eliminate access, we require to produce alternative routes to news and information.Given social networks platforms ‘abandonment in the last few years of trust and security protocols, efficient material moderation systems, support for third-party factcheckers and any genuine pretence at serving the general public interest, you might not see them as the best place to get details. Seventy-three percent of individuals in the UK would agree with you. However youths wish to understand the world, and there is real worth in helping them navigate the details environments we have as we build those we want, particularly when those communities play such an outsize role in real-world results. In addition, young people use social media as a location to link and reveal themselves. And why would not they, as other devoted spaces such as youth clubs, neighborhood organisations and extracurricular school arrangement shut down. Disconnection threatens too.Keir Starmer fulfills moms and dads involved in the consultation procedure before announcing a ban on young teenagers using social networks, 15 June 2026. Picture: Jaimi Joy/EPA At the Guardian Foundation, we provide media literacy programs in main and secondary schools in the UK. We upgrade our products routinely to show fast modifications in the manner in which people are accessing news and information,
but the journalistic procedure– validating information, seeking option viewpoints, challenging presumptions and providing context– stays a continuous. Children establish the skills to evaluate the dependability of details, however they also find out about algorithms and platform economics. They discuss who might gain from targeting them with misogynistic content, or why filter bubbles establish, or how outrage is incentivised and dopamine triggered– and how all this may make them, and those around them, feel.This is critical preparation for a world in which trust is deteriorating and reality is increasingly objected to, and particularly important in neighborhoods which have lost their regional reporters and do not see their issues shown in the national media. Teachers inform us that they are much better geared up to handle discussions they might otherwise avoid, and young people enjoy developing their own journalism, leading the way for an active function as customers and manufacturers of information.Media literacy will join the national curriculum in England in September 2028. If this cultivates greater strength to misinformation and disinformation and the capability to recognize high-quality sources as conversational chatbots embed themselves in every day life, that will be good for all of us. Research has actually shown how news consumption improves understanding of present affairs and increases political involvement, and our own research study shows a strong correlation in between media literacy and civic engagement. Alternatively, the damages wrought by misinformation and disinformation are so well rehearsed they don’t bear duplicating again.But it’s an important addition in other ways: as is painfully felt by young people coming to the end of examination season, today’s education system emphasises the acquisition and retention of understanding simply long enough to remember it for the marking schemes. While a strong proficiency of some truths is, naturally, essential, the ability to critically evaluate and make productive usage of the plentiful info you will be deluged by is surely more so. That’s why the social media restriction should be accompanied by other measures to assist youths thrive in a digital world, including properly funded news and media literacy education and alternative areas for safe connection and participation.Without this holistic technique, we can not want to win the fight to assist our children stay safe and make great choices, while engaging– as they must– with technology. The ban is simply a signal that there is far more to do. Rosie Parkyn is executive director of the Guardian Foundation Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a reaction of as much as 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.