Teenagers overwhelmingly likely to turn off optional social media curfews – poll

Christopher McKeon, Press Association Political Correspondent

Most teenagers intend to opt out of the Government’s planned social media curfews, polling has suggested.

Sir Keir Starmer unveiled plans for a voluntary curfew for 16 and 17-year-olds in his final weeks in office.

The curfew would prevent teenagers accessing social media sites between midnight and 6am by default, but could be turned off.

The poll by Censuswide found 84.6% of 16-18-year-olds said they would opt out of the proposed curfews.

The poll, conducted on behalf of the Online Responsibility Network, found 45.2% of teenagers said they would turn the curfew off to allow them to speak to friends or family, while another 37.2% would turn it off to watch online content.

Leanne Proctor, regulatory lead at the Online Responsibility Network, said the research suggests a curfew is “unlikely to be enough on its own to prevent online harms”.

She said: “There is no single solution to protecting children online.

“Rather than relying on broad service-level restrictions, greater focus should be placed on design feature-level protections and robust age assurance, helping to ensure young people have age-appropriate experiences without unnecessarily restricting access.”

Announcing the policy last month, ministers also proposed turning of addictive features such as auto-scrolling and algorithmic feeds for young people.

Then-education secretary Bridget Phillipson suggested the voluntary element to curfews could be changed if it was found many teenagers were switching off the default settings.

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