00:00Here in Kent and across the country, young people will have gone into school this morning
00:03knowing that time is ticking, not just to their first lesson, but on how long they'll
00:08be able to use social media for. Sir Keir Starmer has announced that by next spring,
00:12children under the age of 16 will be banned from TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram,
00:17Facebook and X, excluding messaging-based platforms like WhatsApp or Signal. So here
00:22in Kent, what do people make of this sweeping ban?
00:24Yeah, well I agree with it. I think kids are exposed to far too much, way too young and
00:31social media companies are just like, they should be more responsible ethically and morally,
00:37they have an obligation but they don't seem interested, they're just driven by commercial
00:41profits.
00:42The ban, I imagine it's going to be incredibly difficult to enforce but I believe regulating
00:49that sort of content that young people are exposed to is super important.
00:54I think it's pretty good, to be fair, for like, when I was that age as well, I tried
00:58to stay off social media a bit as well, because there's positive aspects of it, like speaking
01:01to your friends, stuff like that, but also there's negative sides as well, which is where
01:05most kids fall into, like the negative sides of speaking to people they probably shouldn't
01:08be speaking to, seeing things they probably shouldn't be seeing.
01:11But they won't be the ones who have to deal with the ban, with some young people saying
01:15it should have more regulation for younger users, rather than a complete ban.
01:20I would say lower because there is a certain age group that can be like badly affected
01:24by social media, like say like 11, 12, 13, I don't think they should be able to have
01:29it, maybe 13 because when you become a teenager, but under that I don't think they should have
01:33it.
01:33You know, there's a new Apple update on your phone, where like younger people can be managed
01:37on the socials and like, they can put like smaller apps for their children to get used
01:41to them and introduce more apps to them, so I don't think it should be banned.
01:45I think they should be like, put more control on it, instead of like depriving all of us
01:49from all the entertainment and stuff.
01:51Here in Kent, some schools have even begun to implement stricter rules, with Radnor House
01:56in Sevenoaks choosing to ban smartphones altogether.
01:58I think there's a hugely addictive element to these algorithms, I think they are completely
02:05designed to try and lure children in, and actually all of us really, we find our willingness
02:10to engage in other tasks goes down as soon as we are trapped in one of these sort of doom
02:16scrolling loops that seems to be prevalent nowadays.
02:19And so certainly I think, whether we like it or not, the government has a role and needs
02:24to provide more support to parents, and probably all of us, in managing that sort of addictive
02:30nature.
02:31The ban isn't set to come into effect until spring 2027, but while it's being discussed
02:36in Parliament and Parents' Evenings alike, for those in the classroom, they worry it'll
02:40cut them off from the connectivity they're used to.
02:43Finn McDermid for CAME TV.
Comments