Science, Innovation and Technology Committee
11 March 2026
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Science, Innovation and Technology Committee House of Commons
00:04 - 01:58
Speaker 1
Order. Order. And welcome to today's meeting of the science innovation and technology select committee. Now the government has launched a consultation on measures to keep children safe online, including a potential ban on under sixteens having social media accounts. And this is this has a subject of a lot of debate in the media and around the country.
So today, we're gonna examine the actual evidence for introducing a ban and compare it to some of the alternatives. Across the country, parents and experts are debating the need for a ban, so and we will hear from both sides of the debate. And we'll also hear from Australia on the first few months of the restrictions that are in place there. So we've got three panels this morning, but before we come to our first, set of witnesses, I really do want to place on record our, the committee's thanks and gratitude gratitude to those who have taken the time to contact us and provide written evidence to assist our work, and we are especially grateful to bereaved families for contributing their views. Mhmm.
We will do our best to reflect all your views in our questions this morning. So we're gonna be speaking the first set of witnesses today about the evidence and arguments in favor of introducing a ban, and I'm going to ask each member of this panel to introduce themselves the when the first time they come to speak. So and my first question is just a basic question. What is the evidence for under sixteens being harmed by social media use? And what are the biggest causes of harm?
For example, attention grabbing design, increasing screen time, etcetera. And we'll start with with Frank Young.
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