Internet rivals obesity as risk to child health

FACEBOOK and Twitter could pose as great a threat to children’s health as obesity, Jeremy Hunt has said.

Speaking as the Government launched a £5million scheme to train primary school staff to spot mental health problems, the Health secretary accused technology giants of developing “seductive products aimed at ever-younger children”.

Ministers are examining ways to protect children from mental health problems, if social media sites fail to take action to police themselves. In November Mr Hunt met executives from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google and Microsoft, to ask them to become “part of the solution” to growing levels of mental distress.

He urged the companies to introduce pop-up messages and support for teenagers who spend too much time on social media or are using it at unsocial hours. Mr Hunt also asked them to identify cases of cyber bullying and “turn the tide” of damage caused by over exposure to the internet. Soon after that, Facebook launched a Messenger service aimed at under-13s.

Mr Hunt, who is now responsible for health and social care, called yesterday for “decisive and meaningful action” from tech firms, while ministers are said to be considering legislation to protect children.

He said: “My instinct, for some time, has been that this is every bit as big a threat to children’s mental health as things like smoking and obesity are for their physical health – and now the evidence suggests that high levels of social media use are indeed associated with high scores for mental ill health.”