We must follow Australia’s lead and ban social media for under 16s – it is an addictive, dangerous and violent place

IT’S time to follow Australia’s lead and ban social media for kids.

Australia’s only gone and done it.

They’ve taken the controversial decision to become the first country to ban kids under 16 from using social media.

The only scandalous thing about it is that the UK didn’t do it first.

I was the first generation of guinea pig children to be subjected to social media.

MySpace launched when I was eight, followed by Facebook when I was 11, and then Instagram when I was 15.

Back then, these platforms were largely innocent places for sharing harmless ­pictures and chatting with friends about which boyband member you had a crush on.

Crucially, you had to wait until you got home to your brick computer before you could log on.

But what a different beast altogether they have become. Social media is now an addictive, nefarious and dangerous place.

Hell in a handset

Predatory tech giants lure kids into cycles of swiping and scrolling, bombarding them with unfiltered violence, explicit content and relentless bullying.

The algorithms have been deliberately designed by Chinese and American tech giants to suck kids into a cycle that is playing Russian Roulette with their minds.

It is quite literally hell in a handset.

This isn’t just doom-mongering. In 2021, leaked research conducted by Facebook-owned Instagram itself found that teenagers blamed Instagram for increased levels of anxiety and depression, with 13 per cent of UK teens surveyed attributing a desire to kill ­themselves to Instagram.

And we’ve already seen the worst play out in real life.

Remember Molly Russell? She was just 14 when she died from an act of self-harm after being bombarded with posts about self-harm and suicide on Instagram.

At the inquest into her death, the ­coroner concluded the schoolgirl died while suffering from the “negative effects of online content”.

And Molly isn’t the only one. For every Molly, there are thousands of kids being crushed by the pressure, comparisons and hate these platforms pile on their vulnerable, growing minds.

Any sane person looking at how ­prevalent the use of social media has become should be horrified.

A survey by media regulator Ofcom found that nearly two thirds of children aged eight to 11 report using social media platforms. This rises to a staggering 93 per cent for youngsters aged 12 to 15.

It’s time we accept that social media use among children has grown into a beast we can no longer tame.

Addictive algorithms

That’s why it’s time to take the nuclear option. British politicians must follow the Australian government’s lead and legislate to ban social media access for under-16s.

It’s what the public wants. A survey out this week shows that two thirds of adults in the UK support an Aussie-style age limit on social media apps.

And parents, more than anyone, know how much the likes of TikTok and ­Instagram are swallowing young people’s time and self-esteem.

While the tech tycoons line their pockets with trillions in profit, children are having their childhood stolen from them. Meanwhile, the Government has done little more to tackle this problem than ­tinker around the edges.

The Online Safety Act pledged to “make the UK the safest place in the world to be a child online” and to force tech giants to set appropriate age restrictions and ensure kids are shielded from harmful content.

But research from Ofcom itself, the body responsible for ensuring social media platforms abide by these rules, found that children as young as three are using social media apps.

Which raises a fundamental point in this debate. If we are going to crack down on this scourge, parents must also take responsibility.

I beg ­politicians to grow a spine and do the right thing

Mercy Muroki

It’s nothing short of reckless endangerment to let your child on to a social media app, not least a child barely out of nappies.

The fact politicians have not made any meaningful moves towards a ban is a scandal.

We already legislate for all ­manner of ridiculous things under the guise of keeping people safe.

This week, while shopping for superglue, I was told by the cashier he couldn’t sell it to me. Why? I didn’t have my ID on me at the time and he wasn’t willing to risk selling glue to someone who may not have been 18.

Glue is an age-restricted item that cannot be legally sold to under-18s because of its potential to cause harm, such as being used as a recreational drug.

But sign up for a social media account as a young child and voila! — instant access to explicit content, violence and addictive algorithms, and nobody will so much as bat an eyelid.

As part of the first generation of children to use social media, and as a parent to the first generation of children who will never know a world without it, I beg ­politicians to grow a spine and do the right thing.

It’s the only way to make childhood great again.