UK Doctors Urge Action over Excessive Screen Time

Social media ranks alongside smoking as a danger to children, senior British doctors warned on Tuesday, as they urged lawmakers to tackle the harm they say excessive screen time is causing to young people.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges detailed the impact of social media on children in a submission to the government’s consultation on protecting children online, which closed on Tuesday.

“There can be few issues which have united clinicians so resoundingly in recent years as the impact that unfettered exposure to tech and devices is currently having on children and young people's health”, said the body, which represents the UK and Ireland’s 23 royal medical colleges and faculties. “It ranks alongside smoking and wearing seatbelts in cars as a unifying force for the medical profession.”

More than half of the 132 doctors surveyed said they saw at least one case of health harm that could be related to technology and digital devices every week. More than a third saw evidence of harm several times a week.

Doctors cited physical and psychological harm, from injuries caused by copying acts of extreme pornography to trauma from seeing violence online.

Britain is considering restrictions on children’s access to social media, including a possible ban for under-16s, app time limits, curfews and curbs on what the government has described as addictive design features.

Australia last year became the first country to ban social media for children under 16, while European countries are considering similar measures.

“The question is not whether we are going to act; we will, whether that is a ban on social media for the under-16s or restrictions on key features and functions”, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall told BBC News.

(reuters, im)