15/06/2026
https://tinyurl.com/4d6h37hk Social media is dangerous, but government control of speech and parenting may prove more dangerous still...
This morning’s announcement by Sir Keir Starmer of a social media ban for under-16s will no doubt be welcomed by many parents. Certainly, it is difficult to deny that social media presents significant dangers for young people. Anxiety, depression, bullying, exposure to sexual content, addictive behaviours, and the endless comparison culture fostered by platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat have all been widely documented.
So, on one level, the Prime Minister’s proposal is well-intentioned. We should never mock sincere attempts to protect children. Yet I wonder whether social media is actually the main problem. The deeper issue is screen time.
A child can be banned from every social media platform in existence and still spend six hours a day staring at a screen. They can lose themselves in videos, endless gaming, streaming services, and a thousand other digital distractions. The smartphone has become the defining object of modern childhood. It is often present from the moment a child wakes until the moment they go to sleep.
Scripture repeatedly calls us to exercise self-control and wise stewardship of our time. The apostle Paul exhorts believers to be ‘making the best use of the time, because the days are evil’ (Ephesians 5:16). Time is one of God’s precious gifts, yet modern technology has become extraordinarily effective at consuming it.
Many studies have linked excessive screen use among children and teenagers with poorer sleep, reduced attention spans, diminished physical activity, increased anxiety, and weaker social development. We are raising a generation that is more digitally connected than any before it, yet often lonelier and more isolated.
In my own family, we have sought to impose strict limits on screen time. We have not always found it easy. One of my daughters is a teenager, and the other two are not far behind. They sometimes get cruelly teased by other kids who have smartphones, while they don’t. Nevertheless, we have never regretted it. The benefits have been obvious: more reading, more playtime, more conversation, more creativity, and more family life.
All children need to learn how to interact with real people in the real world. After all, God created us as embodied beings. The Lord Jesus Christ did not redeem humanity through virtual interaction. He came among us in the flesh. He ate with people, walked with people, spoke with people, touched lepers, embraced children, and gathered disciples around him. Human relationships were never intended to be mediated primarily through screens.
Indeed, one sometimes wonders whether adults need protection from social media as much as children. Speaking personally, there are days when I wish I could impose a social media ban on every church member! A fellow pastor recently told me that he had informed his congregation, ‘Many of you don’t have a pastor; you have hundreds. You’re supplementing everything I preach with big-name celebrity preachers on the internet.’ There is more truth in that observation than we might like to admit.
Many Christians spend far more time listening to distant internet personalities than to the shepherds God has actually placed over them. The result can be confusion, restlessness, endless comparison, and a constant search for novelty.
And then there are the smartphones themselves. As a preacher, I can hardly get through a sermon without some device pinging, buzzing, chiming, vibrating, or otherwise announcing itself to the entire congregation. One wonders what future historians will make of a civilisation unable to sit quietly for forty minutes without being alerted to a friend’s photograph of their lunch.
Yet humour aside, and returning to the social media ban for under-16s, there are serious issues at stake. While I understand the motivation behind the Prime Minister’s proposal, I remain deeply uneasy about the government stepping into areas that properly belong to parents.
The Bible places the primary responsibility for raising children upon mothers and fathers, not civil authorities. Parents are commanded to bring up their children ‘in the discipline and instruction of the Lord’ (Ephesians 6:4). Governments have a legitimate role in restraining evil and protecting the vulnerable, but parental responsibility should not lightly be displaced by state intervention.
Of course, we already accept legal restrictions on children driving vehicles, purchasing ci******es, or consuming alcohol. Such laws recognise that young people require protection from activities that carry obvious dangers. Social media may well belong in a similar category given the harms that can accompany its use.
Nevertheless, legislation cannot substitute for parental wisdom. The healthiest solution would be for parents themselves to recognise the dangers and exercise loving authority in their homes. Christians, in particular, should not need government officials to tell them that unlimited and unsupervised screen access is unwise.
There is also another concern. The Prime Minister says that these measures are intended to protect children from harmful content online. Those words should cause Christians to pause. We have heard it before. Only a few years ago there were serious proposals to regulate so-called ‘harmful but lawful’ content online. The obvious question is this: who gets to decide what is harmful?
Christians should be especially alert whenever governments seek greater authority over public speech. Today’s harmful content may be po*******hy, bullying, or criminal activity. Tomorrow it may be biblical teaching on sexuality, marriage, gender, or the exclusivity of Christ. Would every government official regard your online sermons as harmless? History suggests that state definitions of acceptable speech have a tendency to expand rather than contract.
Alongside this comes concern about increasing reliance upon digital identification systems and centralised online verification. After all, digital ID and facial recognition technology may be needed to police the under-16s ban. Such developments may be introduced with entirely benign intentions, but they also possess enormous potential for abuse. Personal liberty is easier to lose than to regain.
Imagine a society in which expressing an unpopular opinion, posting the wrong comment on X, supporting the wrong campaign, or making a politically unfashionable donation results in financial penalties or restrictions upon access to essential services.
Some may dismiss such concerns as alarmist. Yet the freezing of bank accounts associated with participants in the Canadian trucker protests during the Covid era demonstrates how financial and digital systems can be used to exert pressure upon citizens whose views are deemed unacceptable.
Christians have good reason to value freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and freedom of association. These liberties create space for the gospel to be proclaimed openly and without fear.
So yes, let us acknowledge the dangers of social media. Let us recognise the very real harms that many children experience online. Let us encourage wise safeguards and responsible parenting. But let us also remember that the fundamental issue is not merely social media. It is the broader domination of life by screens.
And while governments may have a limited role to play, the primary responsibility still rests where God has placed it: with parents, families, churches, and communities.
As Christians, we should seek not merely to protect children from digital harms, but to offer them something far better: real relationships, real fellowship, real worship, and real life in Christ. ‘All things are lawful for me,’ wrote the apostle Paul, ‘but I will not be dominated by anything’ (1 Corinthians 6:12). That is wisdom our screen-saturated age desperately needs.
