Social media giants must release the grip on our children, says NHS chief

SOCIAL media giants such as Facebook should be forced to release their “insidious grip” on young people, the head of the NHS has said. Backing The Daily Telegraph’s “Duty of Care” campaign, Simon Stevens said such firms should face up to their responsibilities, because they were increasing the pressures on children.

Last month the chief executive of NHS England promised a “major ramp-up” of mental health services, in order to deal with the fallout of an explosion of social media. Today, he urged social media companies to get their house in order, by doing more to protect children from addictive habits and dangerous content.

Mr Stevens told The Telegraph: “Social media companies must face up to their responsibilities. There is emerging evidence of a link between semi-addictive and

manipulative online activities and mental health pressures on young people.

“Parents are only too aware of the insidious grip that some of these activities can have on young people’s lives.”

While the NHS was expanding mental health services in a bid to offer help earlier, he said society needed to go further to protect young people.

“We need to think about prevention as well as cure so that families and the NHS are not just left to pick up the pieces,” he said.

“Companies have a responsibility not just to put in place protections but to do their bit to increase our understanding.”

This year Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, asked Prof Dame Sally Davies, England’s chief medical officer, to undertake a review examining the impact of technology on children’s health and consider what constitutes a healthy amount of screen time.

It comes after The Daily Telegraph launched a duty of care campaign calling for more stringent regulation of

sites like Facebook and Instagram, in order to protect children from harm.

The NHS chief is particularly concerned that children are becoming increasingly hooked on online habits, in a way that damages their growth.

Social media companies have repeatedly been asked by ministers to “become part of the solution”.

They have been asked to do more to tackle cyber bullying, prevent young children accessing age-restricted sites and alarms or pop-ups that discourage heavy use, or highlight concerning patterns of use.

But ministers have been dissatisfied by the responses from firms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Google.

Statistics published later this year are set to show that the level of undiagnosed mental health problems and distress among young people is much higher than has officially previously been recorded.

The last survey data on young people’s mental health dates from 2004 when it was found that around one in 10 young people between five and 16 had a clinically diagnosed mental disorder.