Quarter of seven-year-olds have smartphone in social media surge

A QUARTER of children under seven have their own smartphone, new figures reveal, with some as young as three owning the devices.

Research from Ofcom, the technology regulator, found a sharp increase in ownership of the devices by young children and widespread use of apps designed for teenagers.

Ofcom’s annual study of technology use across Britain found that “infant school children are increasingly online and given more digital independence by parents”.

It comes as Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, considers a crackdown on the use of phones and social media by under-16s. Lord Bethell, the former health minister, said: “It’s time to introduce emergency legal measures to mandate the age restrictions in these apps, because tech companies do not care.”

A quarter of three to seven-year-olds now have their own smartphone, Ofcom’s survey found. This was an increase from about a fifth compared to last year’s data. The figure climbed to 59 per cent for eight to 11-year-olds, while 95 per cent of 12 to 15-year-olds own a smartphone. Data for children under seven was provided by their parents.

With about two million children between the ages of five and seven in England and Wales, according to ONS data, and 1.3 million between the ages of three and four, the figures suggest that hundreds of thousands of infantschool age children are regularly using smartphones.

Ofcom also found that children were routinely bypassing age checks to access apps. The data showed 51 per cent of children under the age of 13 used some form of social media.

Use is prevalent even among five to seven-year-olds, with 38 per cent using social media. The proportion of children in this age group using Whatsapp has increased from 29 per cent to 37per cent. For Tiktok, the increase was 25 per cent to 30 per cent and for Instagram it was 14 per cent to 22 per cent. A third of parents reported their children used these apps unsupervised.

Most apps have a minimum age of 13 to access them, aside from apps designed for children, such as Youtube Kids. Youtube Kids was not included under Ofcom’s definition of “social media”.

For the first time, Ofcom also asked children if they had ever lied about their age to access an app. 40 per cent of

children aged eight to 17 admitted doing so. Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner, said: “Underage use of social media and messaging platforms is widespread. Protections in the Online Safety Act must be implemented swiftly and robustly, with effective age assurances.”

Almost a third of parents of five-toseven year olds said they would allow their child to have a social media app profile before they hit the minimum recommended age. Mark Bunting, Ofcom’s director in Online Safety Strategy, said: “The biggest and riskiest services will have a duty to enforce their terms of service.

“We will be holding them to account for the ways they do that. If they don’t comply with the rules they could be subject to fines.”

The research comes months after the Online Safety Act was passed into law.

The legislation is designed to crack down on tech giants. No 10 is considering a further wave of measures to prevent under-16s being exposed to harmful posts on social media and has been holding talks with tech giants including Meta. Ofcom’s data showed that 32 per cent of children aged eight to 17 had experienced something “nasty or hurtful” online in the past year.

Officials are considering new rules that would require parental approval when children under the age of 16 sign

up for social media. Downing Street is also mulling a ban on under-16s buying smartphones, although these would not stop parents from giving a handset to their child.

Michelle Donelan, the Technology Secretary, said: “Children as young as five should not be accessing social media and these stark findings show why our Online Safety Act is essential. Protecting children online is our number one priority and we will not hesitate to build on the act to keep them safe.”

The crackdown comes after Whatsapp implemented a change that would allow children as young as 13 to access the encrypted messaging app, down from the current age limit of 16. The change has prompted a backlash

from parents. Richard Collard, a child safety executive at the NSPCC, said: “The number of very young children using social media points to a systemic failure by tech companies to enforce the age limits which they set.”

Daisy Greenwell, the founder of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, said technology companies “can and should remove under 13 users from their sites immediately, and that the government should now raise the age restrictions on these apps to 16”.

A Tiktok spokesman said the app removed 20 million underage accounts globally in the final three months of 2023. Meta, which owns Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram, was contacted for comment.