Social media is not a poison
Published: 17 June 2026
17 June 2026: Following the UK Government's announcement of a social media ban for under 16's, UofG expert Professor David Lundie writes that while drawing on justified fears for safety, a total ban can create barriers to educators being able to have honest conversations with young people about harms and support them to reflect and form judgements about the complex digital world they already inhabit.
17 June 2026: Following the UK Government's announcement of a social media ban for under 16's, UofG expert Professor David Lundie writes that while drawing on justified fears for safety, a total ban can create barriers to educators being able to have honest conversations with young people about harms and support them to reflect and form judgements about the complex digital world they already inhabit.
Blog by Professor David Lundie
The recent announcement by the UK government that it will seek to introduce a ban on social media for under-16s draws on justified fears that children are being exploited by algorithms that have been judged to be deliberately addictive, with the intent of marketing advertising to maximise platforms’ revenues.
The results of our recent study, Teaching for Digital Citizenship: Data Justice in the Classroom and Beyond, working with secondary age young people across the UK, however, suggest that young people are already aware of the risks, and have many successful strategies to mitigate them. Additionally, research from Scotland's children's commissioner's office found that the available evidence does not currently show a blanket ban would make children safer online.
An approach to social media regulation for young people needs to acknowledge, first of all, that many young people already circumvent existing age restrictions, and that this can create barriers to educators being able to honestly address exposure harms in an age-appropriate way.
Analogies are sometimes made to the smoking ban for young people. Unlike the unmitigated harm of tobacco, however, many of the young people in our study identified that there are huge benefits to their online practices, for example, that gaming helped them acquire new skills, or that they could keep in touch with family and friends overseas. Unlike smoking, the function of social media, connecting people, can be separated from the harmful effects of addictive algorithms. A more effective analogy may be to Coca-Cola: when it was first introduced, it included coca leaf, the raw ingredient in cocaine, yet this has not been part of Coca-Cola since 1922, and it remains an enjoyable and profitable product without the addition of the addictive substance, a successful example of regulating the product, not the consumer. A rights-respecting approach to regulating social media should similarly balance addressing the risk of harm while providing space for young people to develop as autonomous, active citizens.
In some ways more concerning are the practices of large technology corporations in capturing the agenda for digital education within schools, such as branded ‘beacon’ schools and curricula. These practices, much like the proposed ID checks, are often driven by a concern with safety and safeguarding, and yet, ironically, result in the collection and aggregation of large quantities of sensitive data about children, which then become an attractive target for hackers, or for the sale of sensitive and granular data about children’s learning preferences. Together with teachers from across the UK, our team have developed a Digital Citizenship Enhancement Tool which helps schools to develop cross-curricular approaches consistent with their values, approaches which prioritise young people’s right to information literacy, to understand that the information ecosystem we inhabit is not inevitable, it is the result of choices which have been made – by technologists, by legislation, and by individuals – and an understanding that these are contingent, and can be changed for the better.
Today, educators accept that young people, along with the rest of us, will spend their lives entangled in a complex digital world. The task of education should therefore primarily be to act as a productive space in which students can critically reflect upon, and form judgments about that world. We continue to work with schools, governments, NGOs, and through professional education opportunities, to support values-based approaches to education for active citizens in the digital space.
Author
David Lundie is Professor of Education in the University of Glasgow’s School of Social & Environmental Sustainability. His expertise includes religion and education, values education, and digital citizenship education. He is a Centre for Public Policy Affiliated Researcher.
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First published: 17 June 2026