Expert comment: Professor Andrew Oswald comments on social media ban for under 16s

Expert comment: Professor Andrew Oswald comments on social media ban for under 16s

The Prime Minister has announced plans to ban social media platforms from offering services to under-16s.

Professor Andrew Oswald, who has spent the last three decades studying human happiness and mental health, comments:

On the balance of the scientific evidence, the Prime Minister’s decision is defensible. It is a good choice in a complicated and emotive area of life.

Bans are, admittedly, coarse instruments. They fray at the edges. Some young people will be tenacious in finding their way through this particular block.

But I have spent the last two months reviewing the evidence in preparation for a keynote address to European wellbeing researchers on the topic later this week at a conference in Luxembourg. The literature now spans more than 5000 articles in scientific journals. It covers a range of evidence, including randomized controlled trials and statistical studies from multiple nations.

My assessment is that, overall, social media hurts the happiness and mental health of young females – mainly through constant and harmful ‘comparisons’. For males, I am not so convinced. Yet there is little evidence that, overall, social media makes youngish males happier.

I support Mr Starmer.

Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics and Behavioural Science, University of Warwick.