Caroline Voaden: the 'staggering statistics' about harms of social media

Since agreeing to co-sponsor the Safer Phones Bill, I have spoken to countless parents, teachers, medical professionals, and children about social media and phone usage. 

I have read staggering statistics on eating disorders and mental health issues and heard heartrending stories of children who’ve been subject to horrific online abuse. Most tragically, some parents have lost their children because of online harms.

Earlier this month, I put these stories on the record and spoke out on behalf of those I’ve talked with and the hundreds of constituents who’ve emailed in urging me to support the Safer Phones Bill.

The bill, when it was first introduced, sparked a national debate. Among its original provisions was a legal requirement for all schools to be mobile-free zones and raising the age online companies can receive data consent from children without permission from their parents from 13 to 16.

Neither of these provisions made it into the final version, and I can’t deny my disappointment at the watered-down Bill we debated last Friday.

While the new measures of updated guidance from the Chief Medical Officer about smartphone usage and increased funding for research are both welcome, they do not even touch the sides when it comes to dealing with this crisis.

Sitting on the Education Select Committee, I hear regularly about the terrible damage smartphones and particularly social media are doing to our children. Recently the Children’s Commissioner for England warned our children are being exposed to the “wild west” of social media, and looking at the statistics, it’s hard to disagree.

Over the last 10 years, a period in which smartphone usage has exploded, the number of mental health admissions to hospitals among teenagers has risen by 65%. Admissions for eating disorders among girls aged 11 to 15 have also gone up by a staggering 638 per cent.

Children's myopia is also up by 50 per cent, ADHD diagnoses by 56 per cent, and more and more children are struggling with speech and language challenges.

Now, we cannot say for certain that there is a direct causal link between the above statistics and smartphone or social media use. But we can see the trend lines in the graphs; it’s happening in all developed countries, and we know they started rising before COVID-19 was ever heard of.

But smartphones and social media are not only damaging our children’s mental health and learning. It is also wreaking havoc on their way of seeing the world, too. Misogynist Andrew Tate is one of the most popular creators among young people, and violent pornography, which glorifies rape, is now being accessed by children as young as 9.

Parents in South Devon are desperate to protect their children, but they are often overwhelmed by the digital world and the power it has over young people. They looked to legislators to support them so they could push back against the might of the tech giants.

I had hoped the Safer Phones Bill in its ambitious original form would have been the first step in achieving this. But by working so hard to water it down, the government has shown itself to once again be too timid on this issue. 

The tech world moves at lightning speed, so it’s incumbent on us to act fast. By kicking the can down the road, we’re just exposing more children to the well-established dangers of the online world.

That’s why the Liberal Democrats have tabled an amendment to the Data User and Access Bill, which would require online platforms to change how they deal with children’s data and create a more child-friendly online environment.

I would like to assure every one of my constituents who wrote to me about the Bill and who campaigned loudly on this topic, that their voices have been heard and that despite the disappointment of last Friday’s debate, the campaign to protect our children isn’t over. I’ll continue to do everything I can to tackle the issues raised in the Safer Phones Bill and help create an online world safe for our children.