Ban social media for under-16s like Australia, Children's Commissioner urges

Speaking on LBC's Tonight with Andrew Marr, Dame Rachel said that she was currently evaluating the effect of the Online Safety Act on children's wellbeing.

She added that if the landmark legislation has little or no effect on protecting children, she would like to see a full ban brought in for under-16s.

The move would mirror the laws in Australia, where a similar ban will come into effect this week.

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Dame Rachel told Andrew: "If we look at this country, I've done nationally representative surveys to show that a quarter of eight-year-olds have seen deeply degrading pornography, have seen terrible violence, beheadings, suicides online.

"I call the tech companies in and social media companies in regularly and ask them what they're doing to stop this. They give me worthy words, but no action.

"Now we have the new... Online Safety [Act]. It's six months in. I will be doing a piece of work at the end of the first year to see if it's made any difference at all.

The calls for an Australian-style ban was also made by the chief of Ofsted.

Sir Martyn Oliver claims the platforms are causing a surge in poor behaviour and school exclusions.

Sir Martyn's report also revealed that the number of children missing from education increased by a fifth last year, which he described as "a scandal."

The organisation's annual report published on Tuesday identified social media and smartphones as a key factor leading to disruptive behaviour.

Sir Martyn's report also revealed that the number of children missing from education increased by a fifth last year, which he described as "a scandal."

He described social media as "chipping away" at children’s attention spans, as well as "eroding the necessary patience for learning and promoting disrespectful attitudes and behaviour," the Times reported.

"And my answer to you is if it hasn't then we absolutely should ban social media for the under 16s."

Earlier this week, a bombshell report warned that more than 800,000 of children aged between three and five-years-old were engaging with social media.

In response, Dr Charlotte Armitage told LBC that she is seeing an alarming rate of porn addiction in that age group.

Dr Armitage, author of Generation Zombie, told LBC's James Hanson: "I've got families whose children are addicted to porn and they're in primary school, children who are up till 4am in the morning and won't go to sleep.

"Kids who are coming into school and falling asleep during exams, during the SATs exam. It's really damaging for the child."