UK ministers are consulting on whether to ban under-16s from social media after a similar move in Australia. Mr Givan said he introduced a policy last year discouraging the use of smartphones during the school day at post-primaries. Describing the “detrimental effect” of social media as a “distraction in school settings”, Mr Givan said he had been “leading in terms of those changes”. “The ban on social media up to the age of 16 would take that a step further, we would need to look through how do you enforce that,” he told the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme. “I’m a parent of teenage children, I understand, like many parents out there, the detrimental impact that social media is having.

Source: The Herald March 08, 2026 13:07 UTC