The United Kingdom seeks to regulate the use of mobile phones in children under 16 years of age to avoid addiction

A new ‘Safer Phones’ bill, presented this Tuesday in United Kingdomaims to regulate the use of ‘smartphones’ by users under 16 years of age and promote them as less addictive with guidelines such as forcing social media companies to exclude teenagers from recommended content algorithms.

There is more and more evidence about the risks to which underage users are exposed with the use of smartphones and social networks in their daily lives. For example, a study by the company BioMed Central (BMC) indicates that, on average, one in four children and young people uses their smartphone in a way equivalent to a “behavioral addiction.”

Faced with this, the Labor MP for the Whitehaven and Workington region in the United Kingdom, Josh MacAlister, has presented this Tuesday a new ‘Safer Telephones’ bill, with which he seeks to “protect children” from harm. which can be caused by excessive time in front of a smartphone screen, as well as the use of social networks and other applications, “many of them addictive by design.”

This is how the deputy explained it through a publication on access addictive content on platforms such as social networks.

Specifically, as detailed, one of the proposals is to increase the age of Internet access from 13 to 16 years, so that technology companies need to have parental permission for users under 16 years of age in order to be able to access the Internet. access your data.

In this way, companies that “disseminate addictive content”, as is the case of social network owners, will not be able to show this type of publications to children under 16 years of age, since they will not have their data to use in their algorithms. content recommendation

In addition, MacAlister has pointed out that this option offers more decision-making power to parents, who will be able to expressly know which companies or digital platforms have stored their children’s data.

Following this line, the bill also proposes giving more powers to the competition regulator for the United Kingdom’s communications industries, Ofcom, so that it can “protect children from applications designed to be addictive,” MacAlister said.

Specifically, the deputy has indicated that Ofcom would add capabilities such as, for example, verifying the age of users and, based on this, preventing those identified as minors from being exposed to applications and services “addictive by design.”

On the other hand, the bill also includes the option of prohibiting smartphones in educational centers. That is, it seeks to implement a legal requirement that establishes that “all schools must be mobile phone-free zones,” in order to promote a study space where minors can concentrate and avoid the use of these devices and their corresponding applications.

Finally, MacAlister proposes the possibility that, if necessary, the Government could carry out “greater regulation of the design, supply, marketing and use” of mobile phones by those under 16 years of age.

At the moment, this ‘Safer Phones’ bill has the support of personalities such as the former Conservative Education Secretary Kit Malthouse, as well as the chair of the education select committee, Helen Mayes, among other politicians.

Likewise, the Secretary of Health of the United Kingdom Government, Wes Streeting, has also shown his support for the bill through a publication in X, which he has referred to as a “really timely” debate, taking into account the impact of the use of smartphones on the mental health of children and young people and the concerns of parents, as stated.

Likewise, as reported by The Guardian, Deputy MacAlister will meet this week with the Secretary of Technology, Peter Kyle, to discuss the possible support of the United Kingdom Government to carry out the bill.

The aforementioned media has also reported that the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Keir Stamer, has indicated that he is against “simply prohibiting” smartphones for children under 16 years of age, but he has shared that it would be necessary to rethink what they should be entitled to. allow minors to do things with these devices.