The likes of Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat and Instagram have been threatened by UK health secretary Jeremy Hunt with unspecified, but presumably heavy-handed, regulation if they fail to protect children and teenagers from the downsides of social media.
Hunt gave tech companies until the end of April to come up with answers. It is unclear what the response will be, although WhatsApp just announced it intends to raise its minimum user age from 13 to 16 in Europe. And Google says it will after criticism of inappropriate content.
As Hunt launched his broadside, however, the people who are designing the Facebooks, Snapchats and Twitters of the future were gathering in Montreal, Canada, for , an annual conference dedicated to how people use computer technology. It is sponsored by Facebook, as well as Skype owner Microsoft and YouTube owner Google, among others. Some of the research presented there shows how the issue that concerns Hunt is not straightforward.
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Two papers from the University of Florida in Orlando provide some insight into what happens when you restrict access to the internet for children and teens, in both cases via parental control apps for smart phones.
Privacy and trust
In study, researchers quizzed parents and teenagers (aged 13 to 17) about the use of such software, which is deployed by around one in six families in the US. This allows parents to control or check browsing habits, texting and installation of apps. They found that teenagers who were monitored this way, especially in an authoritarian manner, actually tended to experience more online victimisation. 鈥淧arental control apps do not equate to teen online safety,鈥� they concluded.
In , the Florida researchers analysed more than 700 reviews of parental control apps by youngsters aged 8 to 19. Overall, they felt restricted and that their privacy had been invaded, 鈥渘egatively impacting their relationships with their parents鈥�.
鈥淭hey were not upset that online safety apps prevent them from risk-seeking behaviours; they were mad that they prevented them from doing other useful tasks,鈥� the researchers said. These included doing homework.
So with the best of intentions, these control apps appear to have made young people more open to cyberbullying, broken trust with their parents and hampered legitimate use to boot. Proof that draconian intervention can backfire.
Unstoppable tech
Apart from more stringent checks on user age 鈥� and it seems sensible to toughen up the law regarding under-13s getting social media accounts 鈥� it is far from clear what technology firms can do without hobbling the features that make their products so compelling.
The nub of the problem is that internet businesses are doing their level best to connect all of us to everybody else 鈥� it is an unstoppable force. Hunt looks like he is playing the part of an immovable object.
Curtailing social media use by youngsters won鈥檛 be easy and impacts are not always predictable.
Read more: We should teach kids how to use social media, not scare them off
