A practical briefing for schools, parents, youth organisations and policymakers
Introduction
The UK Government has announced plans to introduce new restrictions on children’s access to social media as part of wider efforts to improve online safety. These proposals reflect growing public concern about the impact of digital technologies on children’s wellbeing, mental health, relationships and development.
Many of these concerns are legitimate. Young people can encounter harmful content online, experience bullying and harassment, face pressures relating to body image and social comparison, and are exposed to misinformation, exploitation and other risks. At the same time, social media and digital technologies provide important opportunities for learning, social connection, creativity, self-expression, civic participation and access to support.
As debates about social media bans have intensified, there has often been a tendency to frame the issue as a simple choice between protection and freedom, or between action and inaction. However, the reality is more complex. Restrictive policies may address some concerns, but they are unlikely to address all of the issues that underlie them.
While the ban does not come into immediate effect, and many of the details are still unclear, this briefing outlines what social media restrictions may achieve, where their limitations lie, and what schools, families, practitioners and policymakers should consider as they seek to support young people in an increasingly digital world.
It is based on our ongoing work in this area, including a recent discussion group hosted with Reimagining RSE trailblazers. If you’d like to find out more about this discussion and the key issues that we identified, please check out this blog and see a fuller summary below.
What problems are policymakers trying to address?
Current proposals respond to a range of concerns, including:
- Exposure to harmful or distressing content.
- Grooming, exploitation and abuse.
- Bullying, harassment and image-based abuse.
- Body image pressures and comparison cultures.
- Excessive or compulsive patterns of use.
- Misinformation and harmful ideologies.
- Distraction and reduced concentration.
- Wider concerns about mental health and wellbeing.
These are serious issues. However, it is important to recognise that they are not all the same problem, nor do they necessarily share the same causes.
Many of these harms pre-date social media. Bullying, body image concerns, social exclusion, sexual harassment and misinformation existed long before smartphones and social networking platforms. Digital technologies may amplify or reshape these issues, but they do not create them in isolation.
It is important to recognise this because the effectiveness of any intervention depends on having a clear understanding of the problem it is intended to solve.
What might a ban achieve?
There are several reasons why restrictions on social media use may be attractive to policymakers, educators and parents.
Potential benefits include:
- Reduced exposure for some young people
Restrictions may reduce access to some forms of harmful content, particularly among younger children.
- Clearer boundaries
Parents and schools may find it easier to establish expectations and limits when supported by national policy.
- Visible action
Restrictions signal that concerns about children’s online experiences are being taken seriously, even if they do not offer a full solution and/or may increase risk or cause other harms in the process.
- Reduced opportunities for some harms
Some young people may experience fewer opportunities for online conflict, peer pressure or exposure to particular risks.
These benefits should not be dismissed. They may be meaningful for some children and families.
However, they represent only part of the picture.
What a Ban Cannot Do
Restrictions alone cannot resolve many of the concerns that have driven calls for action.
A ban cannot:
- Eliminate bullying, harassment or social exclusion.
- Remove body image pressures and unrealistic appearance standards.
- Address loneliness or social isolation.
- Resolve wider mental health challenges.
- Eliminate misogyny, racism or extremist ideologies.
- Improve critical thinking skills.
- Teach young people how algorithms shape information.
- Address harmful platform design.
- Remove commercial incentives that drive engagement-focused technologies.
- Make the social media environment a safer, more beneficial space for all users
- Improve or provide meaningful opportunities for social engagement and community building in real-life
If underlying social, cultural and commercial drivers remain unchanged, many harms may simply reappear in different forms or different spaces.
Potential unintended consequences
Alongside potential benefits, restrictions may create challenges that require careful monitoring.
- Harm may be displaced rather than prevented
Young people have historically found ways to circumvent restrictions online. Some may move to alternative, potentially less securely monitored, platforms, use shared accounts or access services through less visible routes.
Young people may be encouraged to become more secretive of their behaviours or attempt to conceal their access to platforms.
In such cases, harmful experiences may become less visible rather than less common.
- Reduced openness and disclosure
Young people are often reluctant to seek support from adults when they fear punishment, surveillance or loss of access.
If social media use becomes increasingly framed as prohibited behaviour, some young people may become less willing to discuss online experiences or seek help when things go wrong.
- Loss of access to support and community
Online spaces can provide vital support and community, particularly for young people who are marginalised, isolated or unable to access support elsewhere.
Young people often access information about health, wellbeing, relationships, identity and support services through online platforms.
Many organisations and content creators provide educational content on topics such as relationships, consent, social issues, politics and current affairs that may be absent from formal education. Restricting access to these spaces may sit uneasily alongside efforts to encourage young people’s civic engagement and democratic participation.
Online platforms enable young people to develop skills, pursue interests and access learning opportunities that may otherwise be unavailable.
Digital spaces can create pathways into creative, technical and entrepreneurial activities, from music and coding to video production and gaming.
False reassurance
One of the greatest risks is the belief that restrictions alone have solved the problem.
A ban may create a sense that action has been taken, while diverting attention from ongoing challenges relating to education, platform design, digital literacy and young people’s wellbeing.
What schools should consider
Schools will continue to play a central role in supporting young people, regardless of changes to social media access.
- Do not assume the issue has disappeared
Young people will continue to encounter digital technologies, online content and online cultures. Schools should avoid treating restrictions as a substitute for education.
- Continue investing in digital literacy
Young people need support to understand:
- How algorithms work.
- How content is curated and amplified.
- How to curate or ‘clean’ their own timelines.
- How misinformation spreads.
- How commercial platforms generate engagement.
- How to critically evaluate online information.
- How to protect their privacy online.
- How to manage or prepare for digital intimacies.
This education needs involve opportunities for young people to critical reflect on the uncertainties and complexities of contemporary digital life. Teachers do not need to be experts in all digital technologies and should create space for young people to learn to think for themselves rather than just be told what to do.
- Maintain high-quality RSHE
Many online harms involve relationships, consent, peer dynamics, gender norms and social pressures.
These issues cannot be addressed through technological restrictions alone. They require opportunities for discussion, reflection and critical engagement.
- Create spaces for dialogue
Young people are more likely to seek support when they feel able to discuss concerns openly without fear of judgement or punishment.
Schools should continue to prioritise trusted relationships and meaningful conversations about online experiences.
- Prepare young people for future engagement
Even if access is delayed, most young people will eventually engage with social media and digital technologies.
Education should therefore focus not only on protection but also on preparation.
What parents and carers should consider
Parents and carers often feel caught between competing messages about technology, safety and good parenting.
While boundaries are important, restrictions are rarely sufficient on their own.
- Prioritise conversation over surveillance
Monitoring technologies may have a role, particularly for younger children. However, trust and communication remain essential.
Young people are more likely to seek support when relationships are characterised by openness rather than control alone.
- Recognise both risks and benefits
Social media can be a source of harm, but it can also provide connection, information, entertainment and support.
Viewing digital technologies solely through a lens of risk can make meaningful conversations more difficult.
- Support gradual autonomy
Children’s needs change over time, as does their capacity for agency.
Approaches that may be appropriate for younger children may become less effective for older adolescents, who increasingly require opportunities to develop judgement, independence and self-regulation.
- Stay curious
Many parents feel pressure to become experts in rapidly changing technologies.
Rather than striving for certainty, it may be more productive to remain curious about how young people use digital technologies and what role those technologies play in their lives.
What policymakers should monitor
If restrictions are introduced, policymakers should evaluate not only whether access changes but whether harms are genuinely reduced.
Key questions include:
- Are harmful experiences decreasing or simply moving elsewhere?
- Are young people becoming more or less likely to seek support?
- Are some groups affected differently from others?
- What impact is the policy having on access to information and support?
- Are platforms improving their design and safety features?
- What unintended consequences are emerging?
Success should not be measured solely by compliance or reductions in access. It should be measured by improvements in young people’s wellbeing, safety and ability to participate meaningfully in digital life.
A Safe Uncertainty approach
At Reimagining RSE, we argue that discussions about social media and online safety benefit from a stance of safe uncertainty.
This means:
- taking concerns seriously without assuming that simple solutions exist.
- recognising that digital technologies can be both harmful and beneficial.
- acknowledging that protection and participation are both important.
- remaining open to the possibility that well-intentioned interventions may have unintended consequences that require ongoing reflection and adaptation.
Key messages
- Concerns about young people’s online experiences are real and should be taken seriously.
- Social media bans may address some risks, but they are unlikely to address all of the problems that motivate them.
- Restriction is not a substitute for education.
- Young people still need opportunities to develop critical thinking, digital literacy and relational skills.
- Trusting relationships and open dialogue remain essential.
- Platform design and corporate accountability should remain central to discussions about online safety.
- Young people should be involved in shaping responses to the challenges they face online.
- The introduction of a ban should not mark the end of the conversation. It should be the beginning of a broader discussion about how we support young people to navigate an increasingly digital world.
Further reading
For more on our take on young people’s digital lives at Reimagining RSE and how we can take a Safe Uncertainty approach to addressing the issues they face, check out our previous blogs on the topic. You can also find other blogs addressing different aspects of young people’s digital lives here.
Beyond bans: Rethinking phone-free childhoods and age verification through safe uncertainty
Parenting in the digital age: Beyond blame, bans and quick fixes
Age verification and the illusion of safety: Why restriction isn’t protection
I research the harm that can come to teenagers on social media. I don’t support a ban
UK social media ban: tech restrictions for teens can’t be the only approach