{"id":21541,"date":"2026-01-13T08:37:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T07:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/13\/social-media-is-corrupting-young-minds-but-a-ban-is-not-the-answer-zoe-williams\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T08:37:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T07:37:15","slug":"social-media-is-corrupting-young-minds-but-a-ban-is-not-the-answer-zoe-williams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/13\/social-media-is-corrupting-young-minds-but-a-ban-is-not-the-answer-zoe-williams\/","title":{"rendered":"Social media is corrupting young minds \u2013 but a ban is not the answer | Zoe Williams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kicking under-16s off the social platforms is tempting, but it ignores the root of the problem: the older generations who made them so toxic in the first place<\/p>\n

Kemi Badenoch is evolving into one of those politicians who, whatever she says, it\u2019s not just likely to be wrong, it\u2019s likely to be the opposite of what\u2019s right. She says Greenland is not a big deal (a \u201csecond-order issue<\/a>\u201d is how she described it to the BBC) \u2013 it is <\/em>a big deal. She says net zero is too expensive \u2013 the opposite is true: net-anything-but-zero is a cost we can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n

But her promise to ban under-16s from using social media, echoing Australia\u2019s recent move, is hard to write off completely; people across the spectrum, including Andy Burnham, agree with it. Nobody who has ever met a teenager, or read the news, will be completely at ease with the role of social media in young lives. There are horrific effects, which have been well documented and inadequately addressed ever since the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell<\/a>, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nKicking under-16s off the social platforms is tempting, but it ignores the root of the problem: the older generations who made them so toxic in the first place
\nKemi Badenoch is evolving into one of those politicians who, whatever she says, it\u2019s not just likely to be wrong, it\u2019s likely to be the opposite of what\u2019s right. She says Greenland is not a big deal (a \u201csecond-order issue\u201d is how she described it to the BBC) \u2013 it is a big deal. She says net zero is too expensive \u2013 the opposite is true: net-anything-but-zero is a cost we can\u2019t afford.
\nBut her promise to ban under-16s from using social media, echoing Australia\u2019s recent move, is hard to write off completely; people across the spectrum, including Andy Burnham, agree with it. Nobody who has ever met a teenager, or read the news, will be completely at ease with the role of social media in young lives. There are horrific effects, which have been well documented and inadequately addressed ever since the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell, who took her own life in 2017 after viewing suicide and self-harm content online. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kicking under-16s off the social platforms is tempting, but it ignores the root of the problem: the older generations who made them so toxic in the first place Kemi Badenoch is evolving into one of those politicians who, whatever she says, it\u2019s not just likely to be wrong, it\u2019s likely to be the opposite of …<\/p>\n

Social media is corrupting young minds \u2013 but a ban is not the answer | Zoe Williams<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21542,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21541"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}