A youth workers perspective on the social media ban

written by Matt Bakall - The views expressed in this blog post do not represent the views of Space Youth Services and are fully my own.

Monday the 15th of June 2026 will go down as a somewhat complicated day in British history.

The announcement of a social media ban for certain platforms was met with both elation from some parent groups and a feeling of complete exasperation from youth work professionals, and young people who had been directly involved in the consultation with the government and felt their voices had been sidelined.

As a practitioner I had to have awkward conversations with young people I work with that evening, which were a mix of disappointment and confusion. Themes such as ‘why do we ever even give our opinion if it gets ignored’ stung on a professional level, a professional who has made a career of advocating for young people who are the most vulnerable in society. We spend a lot of time building these trusted relationships between young people and trusted adults and it can be difficult to regain this.

These are young people who can both identify the absolute worst bits of social media but as digital natives have been able to forge their own worlds and thrive in these spaces, these are young people who through accessing digital youth work have been able access support in a world where there have been few opportunities. They have been able to make friends, they have been able to build confidence, and we have witnessed them be able to thrive. This in turn means a ban on certain platforms runs the risk of throwing those who live in rurally isolated areas into a position of disadvantage.

From the perspective of a practitioner I strongly acknowledge the inherent dangers that social media has, it is designed to be addictive, it is designed to demand attention, and the internet world is still somewhat of the wild west. Young people did not have a choice about being thrust into this world, however the inactivity and lack of accountability from adults is what has gotten us to where we are today. Historically there is evidence that prohibition does not work and as youth workers we know that there always needs to be education around critical social issues such as online safety. Therefore it strikes as an overly simplistic solution to just ban applications over standing up to tech giants and demanding change… as now they will have even less responsibility or skin in the game to want to protect both vulnerable young people and young adults… nothing will change essentially kicking the problem down the road over taking a mature and level headed approach to the issues. In essence this has been a set of 20th century solutions to 21st century problems and does not look to address the wider social issues surrounding this.

As youth workers we pride ourselves on being there for young people working where they are. I work online with young people because that is where they are. That is where they choose to be. Therefore pushing the middle class utopian narrative that young people can simply put down their screens and go and join a sports club is a well wishing fantasy, although I do genuinely believe if the conditions existed this would always be ideal. For some people, particularly those in protected characteristics, online is all they have and some may not fall into the postcode lottery of where there is provision.

A wider worry is that as some practitioners, including myself, have been screaming out, is that by removing safe routes to anything you only create unsafe ones, and in the digital age this runs the risk of creating a legion of young people who are tech savvy and will do things in secret. What will be even worse is they now will not feel confident to speak to grownups as know they will get into trouble. In the first conversations with young people on the very evening of the announcement they already openly discussed how they would be creatively looking for work arounds and how to peer support each other to use VPN's and technology, exactly what was highlighted in the evidence from the ban in Australia. And which was completely ignored as we always know better in Britain.

From a cynical perspective there should have been more enthesis on educating families about how to enforce boundaries and help navigate the online world with their children however that ship has now sailed, and as mentioned already without tech firms being challenged the mental health crisis doesn't go away, all that happens is young adults will lack the skills and resilience to understand and thrive under these circumstances.

The need for digital youth work has never been more vital, this is to help understand, educate, and advocate for the future generation of young people who deserve support more than ever. We will stand by the rights of young people and proactively welcome their views and stand points in the worlds that they live in as they are the experts of being young in a digital world and adults are woefully ill equipped for this.

Young people deserve better, and grownups have let them down.