Welsh MPs back call for social media ban for all under-16s

Five Welsh MPs have added their names to calls for a proposal to ban under-16s from using social media. A letter from a total of 60 MPs has been sent to the Prime Minister asking for "urgent action".

The letter says: "Across our constituencies, we hear the same message: children are anxious, unhappy, and unable to focus on learning. They are not building the social skills needed to thrive, nor having the experiences that will prepare them for adulthood.

"At home, the average 12-year-old now spends 29 hours a week on a smartphone, much of it on social media platforms rife with harmful content, designed to be addictive.

"The consequences of this are clear. More than 500 children a day are being referred for anxiety alone in England. For teenage boys, going from zero to five hours of daily social media use is associated with a doubling of depression rates. For girls, rates triple."

The five Welsh MPs are all from Labour – Tonia Antoniazzi (Gower), Ruth Jones (Newport West), Henry Tufnell (Mid and south Pembrokeshire), Andrew Ranger (Wrexham), and Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr).

Australia recently brought in a law requiring that the world's most popular social media sites – including Instagram and Facebook – stop Australian children aged under 16 from having accounts on their platforms.

About 550,000 accounts were blocked by Meta during the first days.

The letter sent to Keir Starmer in full reads:

Dear Prime Minister,

We are writing to request urgent action to raise the minimum age for access to social media platforms to 16 years old.

Across our constituencies, we hear the same message: children are anxious, unhappy, and unable to focus on learning. They are not building the social skills needed to thrive, nor having the experiences that will prepare them for adulthood.

At home, the average 12-year-old now spends 29 hours a week on a smartphone, much of it on social media platforms rife with harmful content, designed to be addictive.

The consequences of this are clear. More than 500 children a day are being referred for anxiety alone in England. For teenage boys, going from zero to five hours of daily social media use is associated with a doubling of depression rates. For girls, rates triple.

Around the world, Governments are recognising the severity of this crisis and taking action. Australia has banned tech companies from providing social media accounts to under 16s. Denmark, France, Norway, New Zealand and Greece are expected to follow suit. Britain risks being left behind.

We believe the onus must be placed on technology platforms, not parents, to prevent underage access. We would support a model similar to Australia's that requires companies to take meaningful steps to enforce age limits.

Public support for this approach is strong. Many of our constituents have recently got in touch sharing their concerns about the impact of social media on children and asking us to support a social media minimum age of 16. Most strikingly, young people themselves recognise the harm: 78% of Gen Z say they would try to delay their child using social media as long as possible.

We are all strong supporters of technology, and of this Labour Government's ambition to use tech to improve lives. But successive Governments have done far too little to protect young people from the consequences of unregulated, addictive social media platforms.

We urge the Government to show leadership on this issue by introducing a minimum age for social media access of 16 years old.

Yours sincerely,

House of Commons, London, SWIA 0AA