Blog: Friday 07 March 2025 - LLG Team

Have you watched the Netflix drama Adolescence? The series focuses on a family and their teenage son who is arrested for killing a female classmate. It covers the impact of online misogynist influencers, the overwhelming plight of teachers and the lack of awareness of parents in respect of the digital world.  

It is a difficult and uncomfortable watch, to say the least, and one that has caused quite a stir amongst parents, schools, and politicians. Even Keir Starmer in the Commons said he had been watching the drama with his teenage children.

In February last year, the Department for Education published the ‘Mobile phones in schools - Guidance for schools on prohibiting the use of mobile phones throughout the school day’. This guidance highlights that by aged 12 years old, 97% of children have a mobile phone and states that “schools should develop a mobile phone policy that prohibits the use of mobile phones and other smart technology with similar functionality to mobile phones (for example the ability to send and/or receive notifications or messages via mobile phone networks or the ability to record audio and/or video) throughout the school day, including during lessons, the time between lessons, breaktimes and lunchtime”.   

Now, Bridget Phillipson, the Secretary of State for Education, is to begin in-depth scrutiny of smartphone bans in schools in England (reported in the Guardian) due to pressure growing from MPs to act on the effect of social media on teenagers. The education department will also, for the first time, do an in-depth analysis of the national behaviour survey in schools to look at the most successful ways of policing the bans, and the challenges schools are facing. Of course, there is no indication that the government will move to legislate on this issue (which could be tricky and complicated to do, although no doubt of use to the schools which have to ‘police’ their policies),

It is worth noting that in May 2023 (the last reported survey interview date), when asked how often they felt safe at school, 39% of all pupils said that they had felt safe at school ‘every day’ in the past week. It's unclear what that figure would look like in 2025, but it's incredibly low and unacceptable. It’s a fundamental right for all children to feel safe at school, and on that point, a cross-departmental view is needed to address this. The Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, will need to work alongside the Education Secretary due to the mental health effects reported by the use of social media and online activity.

A World Health Organisation report in September 2024 found that more than 1 in 10 adolescents (11%) showed signs of problematic social media behaviour, struggling to control their use and experiencing negative consequences. Girls reported higher levels of problematic social media use than boys (13% vs 9%), with boys more likely than girls to show signs of problematic gaming (16% vs 7%). Then, there is the issue of exposure to adult content and self-harm.

Of course, the illegal content duties are now in effect (since 17th March) under the Online Safety Act 2023, setting out how it protects people from harmful content online. In-scope service providers must have now completed their assessments of the risk of illegal content appearing on their service (the deadline to do so was 16 March). In respect of the duties about content harmful to children, Ofcom published its guidance about the ‘use of age assurance’ to prevent children from accessing online adult content in January 2025. Platforms that publish their own adult content (known as Part 5 services) must take steps immediately to introduce robust age checks that meet Ofcom’s guidance. Ofcom has also published draft codes of practice and guidance about protecting children from harmful content such as promotion of self-harm or suicide.

The child safety regime will be fully in effect by Summer 2025.

LLG