‘Stare at a Wall’ – What will under-16s do with no social media and no local youth clubs?
Putting to bed the debate that has been ongoing for months, on the 15th of June, the government announced that social media will be banned for under-16s from the spring of 2027. Citing social media-sceptic parents and child protection as their rationale behind the decision, the government claims this move will ‘give kids their childhoods back’. Whilst probably not particularly surprising, the decision has gone down quite poorly with under-16s. A sense of the mood can be felt in this BBC clip.
Accumulating over 652 thousand likes on TikTok , this sarcastic one-liner does pose an important question: What will kids do?
The local context
From the age of 18 until its closure this summer, I have worked at Broxbourne Council’s Kidz club in Hoddesdon for ages 4-12.
The council-run service offers arts and crafts activities, sports, movies, roller-skating, and face-painting.
Particularly with those aged 10 to 12, I regularly faced a valiant resistance at 8:30 in the morning when asking the children to put their phones in the cupboard for safeguarding reasons.
But following an initial teething period, in my experience, the social media generation is no different to any that have gone before them. When put in an environment with adaptable activities, children their age and engaging adults, the loss of their phone becomes a distant memory as the day goes on.
From speaking to the children I worked with, their free days without Kidz club mainly consist of talking to their friends on Snapchat, scrolling through TikTok or watching YouTube.
Through this experience, I have seen firsthand that life without platforms such as these (all of which will be banned under government legislation) is manageable for under-16s, but with one crucial caveat: there needs to be replacements in place.
Rather poignantly, on the same day the social media ban for under-16s was announced, I received the news that the Hoddesdon-based kids club had been permanently shut down, a month before children were due to attend for the summer.
This decision itself has faced local backlash, with one parent stating, ‘I am absolutely furious that such an important childcare service has been withdrawn with little or no communication’.
Although this is an inherently local issue, it is a story that is not unfamiliar nationally, with a steady decline in youth services.
The bigger picture
The message of giving ‘children their childhood back’ is one that is powerful but needs further clarification. What childhood can you give back to children who have only ever known this version of childhood? Presumably, the government’s nostalgic tagline hopes to give children the childhoods on offer before the social media age. But to give them that childhood, the youth services must match the message. Spearheaded by the Conservatives’ managed decline of public services since 2010, councils’ funding for youth services in England and Wales suffered cuts of up to 70%, with 1,200 publicly run youth centres closed by 2023 ). The current Labour government have made some attempts to fill the void left for young people. Their Netherlands-style proposed youth hubs Their Netherlands-style proposed youth hubs (focused mainly on employment support), however, are targeted at young people aged 16-24. This leaves those under 16 facing one seemingly unanswered question: What will they do?
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