The Office of Communications revealed this month that there is an increasing number of young people in the UK using social media and owning smartphones. Almost a quarter of five-to-seven-year-olds in the UK have a smartphone, while 40% of this group are using WhatsApp. The idea of young children catching up on important correspondence with colleagues or forwarding the latest WhatsApp rumour feels a shade peculiar, but the numbers speak for themselves. Perhaps unsurprisingly, over half of children under 13 use social media, boldly defying the minimum age requirement for most social sites and apps.
The annual report reported that these numbers are an increase from the previous year. The percentage of children aged between five and seven who used messaging services rose from 59% in 2022 to 65% in 2023, while the number using social media increased from 30% to 38%. 34% of this age group was gaming online in 2022, while in 2023 this number hit over 40%.
Child safety online
These statistics highlight the pertinent problem of child safety and protection online, given the mass of easily accessible harmful content and the potential dangers lying in wait, especially as technology becomes more sophisticated. In February 2024, the children’s commissioner noted that half of 13-year-olds surveyed by her team had reported seeing “hardcore, misogynistic” pornographic material online. This comes alongside the recent landmark UK case that a sex offender convicted of making over 1,000 indecent images of children has been banned from using any “AI creating tools” for the next five years.
While just over three-quarters of the parents surveyed by Ofcom said that they did talk to their children about staying safe online, the company highlights the discrepancy between what a child sees and what they may report. Ofcom interviewed children aged 8-17, finding that just under a third reported that they’d seen worrying content online. This figure is at odds with that of their parents, of whom only 20% said they’d reported anything.
A potential smartphone ban
These numbers come a few months after over 4,000 parents joined a group committed to banning young children in the UK from having smartphones. The WhatsApp group Smartphone Free Childhood was created in response to concerns around child safety online, alongside the emerging norm of giving children the devices when they leave primary school; Ofcom research shows that 91% of children in the UK own a smartphone by the time they are 11. The creator of the group, Daisy Greenwell, meant only to create a small WhatsApp group among parents to share concerns. Yet once it hit over 1000 subscribers, people were invited to start groups in their areas, with around 50 being created across the country.
Greenwell noted the social influence on children having a smartphone, pointing out that if a whole class of parents agree not to get their children a phone, the problem is resolved because peer pressure is eliminated. This recalls the philosophical issue of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, in which two rational agents can cooperate for mutual benefit or betray their partner for individual reward. The solution may appear simple on paper, yet in practice it becomes much more complicated. A mass smartphone ban for young people is simply unrealistic but with an increasing number of dangers online, focus needs to be placed on how they can be used safely.
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Alongside this, the Director of the Digital Futures for Children Centre, Professor Sonia Livingstone, has expressed concerns with trying to protect children from online harms purely by restricting their access to technology. It feels akin to the Black Mirror episode ‘Arkangel’, in which parents use a technological implant to automatically censor distressing material for their children. The episode brought into question child privacy concerns, and child autonomy, and ends on a typically unnerving note.
Livingstone highlights the need not to ban children from smartphones or other forms of technology, which she views as great and exciting opportunities for the youngest generation. She instead upholds the need for better safety guidance. She draws comparisons with guidance for physical toys, which require no sharp edges or choking hazards, suggesting there should be equal guidance for digital developers designing for children.
The latest breakthrough in this vein has come to life in the form of artificial intelligence (AI). Ofcom now has plans for a consultation on how exactly AI could detect and remove illegal content online, to protect children from potentially harmful content. AI also has the potential to identify and report child sex abuse material. With this technology, Ofcom will ideally be able to instruct platforms on how and what they must assess, helping them to adopt more sophisticated tooling for protecting young users online.
It appears that Generation Alpha will inevitably be linked to the smartphone, despite attempts at widespread bans. While AI presents pertinent dangers for children online, it could equally be just the tool needed for upholding child safety standards across a plethora of platforms.
