The UK Government has announced a consultation on children’s social media use and a ban on phones in schools in an effort to protect the wellbeing of young people and to create safer online experiences.
It will be consulting on restrictions on addictive features, a ban on social media access for children and better age checks.
Immediate action includes Ofsted inspectors being tasked with assessing whether mobile phone bans are being enforced properly in schools. The government will produce evidence-based screen time guidance for parents of children aged 5 to 16 in addition to guidance for parents of children under 5, published in April. Ministers will examine effective ways to ensure that children have healthy online experiences.
The social media consultation will seek views on a range of measures. These include determining the right minimum age for children to access social media, exploring ways to improve accuracy of age assurances, assessing whether the current digital age of consent is too low, removing or limiting functionalities which drive addictive or compulsive use of social media, such as ‘infinite scrolling’ and exploring further interventions to support parents.
Since the introduction of the duties to protect children under the Online Safety Act in July 2025, the rate of children encountering age checks has increased from 30% to 47% and Ofcom has opened investigations into over 80 pornography websites and issued fines to companies that have failed to protect young people.
At the Global AI in Education Summit, the government launched new safety standards for edtech. These aim to make sure that AI tools in education cannot use addictive or exploitative patterns, or any features which harm children’s social development and learning.
The government has also published a report about the impact of smartphones and social media on children and young people. It highlights the lack of high-quality causal evidence linking children’s mental health and wellbeing and their use of digital technologies, specifically, social media, smartphones and AI chatbots. It recommends prioritising policy-relevant research questions and methodologies that can create robust causal evidence, enhance cohort studies with data on digital usage and involve young people and communities in co-developing experimental interventions.
The government has said that it is prepared the amend the Children’s Wellbeing Bill at its next stage so that ministers could impose the ban using secondary legislation, which would significantly speed up the time needed to implement it.
We will update this article when the final consultation is published and we have the full details. The government has said that it will respond to the consultation in the summer.
