{"id":604223,"date":"2026-05-26T05:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604223\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T05:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T05:37:11","slug":"social-media-as-bad-for-young-people-as-smoking-top-doctors-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/604223\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media as bad for young people as smoking, top doctors say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Banning social media for children, as has happened in Australia, is one of the options being considered. Kendall said a response to the consultation would come in the summer, with action taken by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

Campaigners are split on whether an outright ban on social apps for children is the best approach.<\/p>\n

Since March, the government has been asking parents and children if measures including app curfews and stronger age checks would improve online safety, and trialled these in some UK homes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“The question isn’t whether we’re going to act – we will,” Kendall told the BBC.<\/p>\n

She said the government’s scope was looking at a broad range of issues and features and how these impact children.<\/p>\n

This could see the UK look more closely at platforms not covered by Australia’s restrictions, such as Roblox and Discord.<\/p>\n

But Kendall said the government wanted to hear “all views” from the consultation, which closes at the end of Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got to get this right, and we’ve got to make it last,” she added.<\/p>\n

The consultation has seen 70,000 submissions from charities, campaign groups and members of the public, giving their views on a ban or other interventions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In its submission, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges cites as examples the physical and mental health problems caused by watching extreme violence online.<\/p>\n

The Academy says there should be guidance for doctors and other health staff on how to spot any inappropriate or unhealthy use of social media and online content.<\/p>\n

It recommends recording potential harms, helping fill a gap in data on the scale of the problem.<\/p>\n

Possible restrictions include night-time curfews or features such as auto-play and infinite scroll being disabled.<\/p>\n

People were also asked for opinions on children’s access to AI chatbots, and if enforcement of age checks should be strengthened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Banning social media for children, as has happened in Australia, is one of the options being considered. Kendall…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":604224,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-604223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=604223"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604223\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/604224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}