Debate contribution: Online Harms: Impact on Young People

Debate contribution by Mrs Michelle Guy on 13 May 2025.

MLA

Mrs Michelle Guy

Party at the time

Alliance Party

Date

13 May 2025

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

Online Harms: Impact on Young People

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4948197

Read the official Assembly record

Text

I thank the signatories to the motion. The first iPhone was launched in 2007, while Facebook was founded in 2004 and TikTok in 2016. In less than 20 years, we are experiencing a new reality. Children's lives look completely different from what they were prior to that rapid change. New technologies and platforms are now so deeply embedded in our children's lives that it is hard to remember a time without them. That is evidenced by the fact that Ofcom has reported that 24% of five- to seven-year-olds now own a smartphone and that social media use among that age group continues to grow. Now is the time to be honest. While we may not know the full extent of what that transformation could mean for our young people's mental health, education and quality of life, the evidence that we have about how the current versions of the technologies — specifically social media — are being used and designed requires us to act now. I am careful to say "current" versions, because there are good things that can come from those technologies, and those can be built on. Knowledge is gained, friendships are found and learning is supported. A 2024 House of Commons Select Committee on Education report on the impacts of screen time noted:

"The overwhelming weight of evidence ... suggests that the harms of screen time and social media use significantly outweigh the benefits for young children"

and need to be significantly rebalanced for older children. Harms that I have been told about at recent meetings include evidence from an early years provider who spoke of children requiring physiotherapy because they had not developed basic physical movements owing to the number of hours spent on a device and from a post-primary school where staff had realised that, after mobile phones had been banned from their classrooms, none of the children could tell the time on a physical clock face. There are, however, more extreme harms, including exposure to violent content, pornography, grooming, sexual exploitation, online bullying and misinformation that impacts on children's development and more. The pace of change has come so quickly that it has caught us off guard as a society, so rebalancing things is required. Change is easier said than done, given how embedded the technologies are in our lives and the wealth and power of the companies behind social media platforms and smartphones. One thing that we know for sure is that the companies at the forefront of the technologies do not exist to build community or the confidence of our young people. They exist not to improve people's well-being or to facilitate genuine conversations but to make profit. They do that by keeping people on phones and platforms for as long as possible so that data is used and advertising sold. It is a business model.

Thank you to the Member. I agree with what he said, and I will address that in my remarks. Absolutely, those companies have been allowed to expand at a rapid pace, and it has negatively affected our kids. The Governments definitely need to do more in that regard. We should not be surprised that nearly 25% of children and young people use their smartphone in a way that is consistent with a behavioural addiction. We are content to support the motion and are content with the amendments in principle but reserve our concerns about the method adopted by the Minister's pilot, which feels like an excessive level of expenditure on a novel solution when other options can achieve the same results. However, the important message today is that we are together on the issue. Although the key matters of social media regulation and online safety are reserved, the Executive need to outline the evidence-based actions that they believe are best for our children and young people. I know, for example, that the Justice Department has engaged with the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and Ofcom on the implementation and regulation of the Online Safety Act 2023 to ensure that tech firms take more responsibility for managing their platform's content and protect children from illegal harm. We need to speak with one voice to the UK Government, who have so far been happy to water down legislation that could better protect our children and hold to account social media companies that are making billions. What direct actions can we take? This goes much further than an Education or Justice approach, even though they are key partners. We have an online safety strategy, which is led by the Department of Health and is due to end this year. We need to be clear and honest about what that five-year strategy has achieved and what will happen next. At the most basic level, we need to discuss the issue more, because it is one of the most important issues that legislators face. These technologies, like others that are widespread, may be here to stay, but that does not mean that companies do not have responsibilities to our children and young people that, if broken, should result in heavy fines. Nor does it not mean that those technologies do not need to be heavily mandated and limited when they are being used by children and young people. Just because we are in our current position does not mean that harm to children is inevitable and something that we simply have to live with. This is something that we need to proactively work to end.

914 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 12:36 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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