The technology secretary has revealed that she would not buy her son a smartphone at nine-years-old.
Michelle Donelan, who is a new mother, was speaking amid disquiet among parents about the impact of devices on children.
In an interview with The Times, Donelan said that nine was, for her, too young for a child to have a smartphone. Half of nine-year-olds have one, according to Ofcom.
“If my child was nine now and not nine months, I certainly wouldn’t be giving him a phone. That’s my choice and my decision and every family is different,” she said.
Asked whether she would also resist buying him one at secondary school, Donelan said she did not know. “Because of the peer pressure, everybody in the class has a phone. It’s very hard for parents to be able to resist. Phones also have a great utility. Being able to contact the child … from a safety point of view, it’s not all negative.”
Advertisement
Donelan will meet Esther Ghey this week, whose daughter Brianna was murdered by two teenagers who had watched violent videos.
Ghey has been pushing for age-specific phones for under-16s that do not have access to social media apps. She says that these devices should also be linked to parents’ phones through an app that would alert the adults if the child was searching for certain inappropriate or illegal terms.
• Brianna Ghey’s mother: ‘It made it easier when the killers showed no remorse’
Donelan said that the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is talking to tech companies about this.
She said: “That technology does already exist. It isn’t used on a wide basis. So that is something that I’ve already started to talk to tech companies about to better understand what are the limitations there.”
Advertisement
Donelan wants to empower parents to use existing tools to monitor their children’s online behaviour.
Under pressure over the impact of their services, many social media companies have introduced tools for parental monitoring. However by the end of 2022, fewer than ten per cent of teens on Instagram had enabled the parental supervision setting, according to the Washington Post.
Donelan said: “They have got some fantastic tools to enable parents to restrict, to supervise and have more oversight over the content and the type of activity that children are having. I think it is so important to question: why aren’t parents using that more? Are there ways that we could work with tech companies to promote those tools more?”
This month Daisy Greenwell, a journalist, and Clare Reynolds, a psychologist, launched a campaign called Parents United For a Smartphone Free Childhood.
Started by a single Instagram post, it has become a grassroots movement. Last week parents at a south London primary school pledged not to buy their children smartphones.
Advertisement
Many parents have grown frustrated at the slow pace of change being implemented under the Online Safety Act, which will place more responsibility on tech companies to protect children online. It is not due to be fully implemented until 2026.
Donelan urged patience, saying that critics overlook how comprehensive the legislation is. “If we take a minute to think about the fact that once that’s fully implemented, children will not be able to see any illegal content, they won’t be able to see any harmful content.”
The minister will be in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, where she will urge the Gulf states to engage with the UK’s AI Safety Institute. The UAE is investing heavily in AI computing and skills but there have been fears it could tilt more towards China in developing the technology.
