What talking to 7-year-olds taught me about growing up online, writes Natasha Devon

I delivered 22 workshops to 7,000 young people aged 7-18, across 4 days.

Doing talks in secondary schools about social media has been part of my job for several years now. I’ve done it on TV (see series 2 of At Home with Katherine Ryan) and even written a book about it for teenagers. But I’d never delivered to primary-aged children before and the experience was illuminating.

I should state here that I’m not trying to hinder debates around a ban for under-16s or the work of campaign groups like Smartphone Free Childhood. I strongly believe more should be done to prevent children from accessing social media and inappropriate content, at least before the age of 13.

My only concern is helping young people who, because no law is in place (other than the often-ignored rule on the apps themselves, which means they theoretically should not consume social media before they’re 13), are currently experiencing online harm.

When the CYPES (Children and Young People Education and Skills Department) team in Jersey said they wanted to help me shape my sessions for an audience of Year 4-6 pupils (7-10 years old) I was sceptical. I (naively, I now realise in retrospect) didn’t think they would have a clue what it was all about.

Not only did about a quarter of 7 and 8-year-olds already have smartphones, close to 100% told me they were using YouTube and playing games where they could interact with other people online. A small but statistically significant proportion of 8- to 11-year-olds reported already having Snapchat and/or TikTok.

Around 80% of 7-11-year-olds raised their hands when I asked if they had seen something online that had scared them, freaked them out, or they thought they were too young to have seen. Many then disclosed that this was via YouTube Kids, which theoretically has filters embedded to prevent this kind of user experience.

I also noticed that there was no real consistency to what young people knew and at what age. I met a group of sixth formers who claimed they had never heard the words ‘Attention Economy’ before. Conversely, one 10-year-old asked me what impact I thought AI would have on copyright legislation.

I recently interviewed a representative from the polling group More in Common. He told me that they’re having lots of discussions with young people about online harm and the general consensus is that they would not give their hypothetical future children smartphones as early as they received their own. I find this fascinating.

During my focus groups in schools, I often ask teenagers if they think their lives would be better without social media and they invariably say ‘no’ and get very cross about how much it is demonised by the adults around them. But I have not been asking them about any harm they can see in their rearview mirrors. I’ll be doing that in future, because it adds a completely different perspective.

Looking at the 7- and 8-year-olds I met last week who already had smartphones, it made me wonder what their future 14-year-old selves will have to say on the matter.

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