Two thirds of 10-year-olds own phones as children tell of seeing ‘nasty’ things online

ALMOST two thirds of children own a smartphone by the age of 10, Ofcom has said, and more than a third have seen something “worrying or nasty” online.

The proportion of prepubescent smartphone owners was 61 per cent last year, compared with 24 per cent in 2015.

The Ofcom data show that by the age of three or four, 39 per cent of children are using phones to go online, rising to 50 per cent of five to seven-year-olds and 59 per cent of eight to 11-year-olds.

Although most social media sites enforce a minimum age of 13, a third of parents of five to seven-year-olds said their child had a profile on at least one such app or site.

About a third of children aged 8 to 15 who go online said they had seen something “worrying or nasty” online in the past 12 months. While 63 per cent of the children said they would tell someone if they saw something worrying or nasty, the data suggested a third would not.

The UK’S four chief medical officers have advised that mobile phones should be banned from the dinner table and bedtimes as part of a healthy approach to mobile devices.

They said children should also take a break from screen-based activities every two hours and urged the industry to do more to keep children safe.

The Government’s children’s code and online safety Bill place a duty of care on social media firms to prevent children from encountering content that is harmful or inappropriate for their age as well as requiring ID checks to prevent under-18s accessing sites containing porn.

Katharine Birbalsingh, who is the Government’s social mobility tsar, has urged parents to restrict children’s access to mobile phones, saying all problems start with them.

Many pupils at Michaela Community School in Wembley, where she is head, voluntarily hand in their devices when they come to school – with some handing them over for months at a time.