William: Web is a threat to childhood

THE Duke of Cambridge has taken aim at the social media giants, warning that advances in technology are threatening the ‘very nature of childhood’.

He said technology had taken ‘root’ over the past two decades, and we had reached ‘a moment of reckoning’.

William did not name Google, Facebook or Snapchat directly but he told the Children’s Global Media Summit that digital companies were changing childhood in ways we did not yet comprehend.

‘I am no Luddite, I believe strongly in the positive power of technology, but I’m afraid I find the situation alarming,’ he said in Manchester.

‘It is the gradual nature of this change – the slow warming of the water in the pot, if you like – that I believe has led us to a moment of reckoning with the very nature of childhood in our society.’

In a personal speech, the Duke of Cambridge described how and his wife – who was present – had become acutely aware of the threat technology posed since having children on their own.

‘I believe we have grounds for concern’

‘Parents like Catherine and me are raising the first generation of digitally-immersed children – and this gives us many reasons to be optimistic about the impact of technology on childhood,’ he said.

‘What we cannot do, however, is pretend that the impact of digital technology is all positive or, indeed, even understood.

‘I am afraid to say that, as a parent, I believe we have grounds for concern.’

The Duke described the conversations that many parents had about how they can keep their young children off social media when all their friends were on it, and how best to ‘protect family time’.

Last month, an Ofcom report revealed that half of all 11 and 12-year- olds have social media accounts and half of three and four-year-olds watch videos on YouTube.

A fifth of three and four-year- olds even have a tablet of their own. However, the Duke warned that parents were handing children devices without knowing what kind of mental impact they may have. ‘So many parents feel they are having to make up the rules as they go along,’ he said. ‘We have put the most powerful information technology in human history into the hands of our children – yet we do not yet understand its impact on adults, let alone the very young.’

William has set up a Royal Foundation Taskforce on the Prevention of Cyberbullying to help tackle the problem, and has persuaded social media giants including Facebook and Google to sign up to a code of conduct.

However, he issued a thinly veiled attack on the companies yesterday, stressing how disappointed he was that they had not done more. He wanted the web giants to create a standardised reporting tool, which people could use if they were witnesses of cyberbullying or became victims themselves.