Starmer's social media ban will set children free
As a teacher, I never looked at a pupil spending four or five hours a day locked in on social media and thought, 'What a wonderful expression of childhood freedom,' writes education expert Avnee Morjaria
I spent years teaching in secondary schools, and one thing became impossible to ignore: the children sitting in front of me were growing up differently from the generations before them.
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This is not because they were less resilient, less capable or less ambitious, but because childhood itself had changed.
When people debate social media, they often focus on harmful content. That matters. But as a teacher, that wasn’t what worried me most. What worried me was seeing more and more of childhood being lived through a screen.
I saw friendship fallouts follow pupils from the classroom to the playground, from the bus home to their bedroom. I saw children’s self-esteem rise and fall with likes, followers and Snapchat streaks. And I saw disagreements that once might have blown over by the next morning become permanent because every message, photo and comment could be screenshotted, shared and revisited.
For previous generations, childhood offered some protection from constant judgement. You could make a fool of yourself, get things wrong, experiment with who you wanted to be, and then move on. Today’s children are growing up in an environment where every mistake can be documented and every insecurity amplified.
That isn’t just a new technology. It’s a new developmental reality. We’ve normalised children spending hours each day on platforms designed by some of the world’s smartest people to capture and hold their attention. Somewhere along the way, we have mistaken access for freedom.
As a teacher, I never looked at a pupil spending four or five hours a day locked in on social media and thought, “What a wonderful expression of childhood freedom.” Childhood freedom is having somewhere to go, friends to meet, risks to take and adventures to have. It is not being trapped in an endless competition for attention and approval.
The children with the fewest alternatives often pay the highest price. Many young people don’t have access to safe parks, youth clubs, organised activities or affordable places to spend time with friends.
That's why I support a social media ban for under-16s.
Not because I believe technology is inherently bad, and not because I think it will solve every problem facing young people. I support it because this debate is about something much bigger than online safety. It is about whether we are willing to let childhood be shaped by algorithms. From where I stood at the front of a classroom, the answer has to be no.
The greatest loss of the smartphone age is not privacy. It's childhood itself.
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Avnee Morjaria is associate director at IPPR. She is a former teacher, school leader, Ofsted inspector, and an advisor at the Department for Education.
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