The UK’s Conservative Party has announced plans to ban children from using social media. According to its leader, Kemi Badenoch, in a BBC interview on Sunday, the plans will be implemented once the party is in power.

“What we want to see is common sense, protection for children and freedom for adults,” stated Ms Badenoch. “We want to give parents some understanding that the government understands what they’re going through. So we want to bring in age limits.”

She noted that the party did not “think children should be on there, and we want the industry to see the direction of travel so that we can start working with them now in order to get the proper solutions in place”.

Ms Badenoch described the internet as “a wild west, social media in particular”. 

“Even from my own usage of social media, I can see how it’s designed to keep you on there again and again and again. And we’re also seeing a huge increase in depression and anxiety, mental health issues. 
Some of this correlates quite strongly with social media use,” added Ms Badenoch. “We’re having people come out of university, go straight on to benefits. We want to curb that. So all of this is linked with our wider strategy, banning phones in schools, getting people into work. All of these are bricks that are going to build up our policy wall.”

Recently, the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers, one of the UK’s largest teaching unions, called on the government to ban social media for under-16s over its negative impact on children’s mental health and concentration.