Banning Social Media Alone Will Not Give Children Their Childhood Back

The government's recent proposal to ban social media for under-16s has prompted an important debate about children's wellbeing. There are legitimate concerns about the impact of social media on young people's mental health, sleep, body image and sense of self. Yet as I listened to the discussion unfold, I found myself wondering whether we might also use this moment to ask a deeper question: why are so many children spending so much of their lives online in the first place?

To explore that question, I want to begin somewhere that may seem unrelated at first—a woodland clearing and a group of children building a shelter.

A few days ago I watched a group of children playing in a woodland clearing.

They had gathered fallen branches and were attempting to build a shelter. The roof collapsed several times. There were disagreements about where the doorway should go. One child insisted the structure needed a lookout tower, while another was determined it should have a secret entrance.

For more than an hour they argued, negotiated, adapted and rebuilt. The shelter itself was nothing remarkable. By the end of the afternoon it leaned slightly to one side and looked unlikely to survive the next strong wind.

Yet that was never really the point.

As I watched from a distance, it occurred to me that something far more important was being built beneath the trees. Friendships were being strengthened. Confidence was growing. Problems were being solved. Ideas were being tested. The children were learning how to collaborate, disagree, persevere and belong.

No adult had organised the activity. There were no learning objectives, no assessments and no carefully planned outcomes.

They were simply playing.

Watching them, I found myself wondering how often children are afforded such opportunities today. The question stayed with me when I later read about the government's proposed ban on social media for under-16s. The announcement has prompted a familiar debate. Many people welcome the move as a necessary step towards protecting children from the harms associated with online life. Others question whether a ban is practical, enforceable or likely to achieve the desired outcomes.

It is a debate worth having.

There is growing concern about the relationship between social media and children's wellbeing. Research has linked excessive use to poor sleep, increased social comparison, body image concerns, cyberbullying and heightened levels of anxiety in some young people (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2024). Parents and teachers are right to be concerned. Social media companies have created platforms that often prioritise attention and engagement over wellbeing, and children deserve better protection from systems designed to keep them scrolling.

Yet as I listened to the debate unfold, I found myself returning to those children in the woodland. Not because the issue of social media is unimportant, but because I could not shake the feeling that we may be focusing on the symptom rather than the cause.

The conversation seems to focus on how we get children off social media.

But perhaps we should also be asking why so many children are there in the first place.

If childhood is already being steadily eroded, then banning social media may only be a sticking plaster.

The more important question is what kind of world we are inviting children back into.

The Places Childhood Used to Live

Peter Gray has spent much of his career documenting the decline of children's free play and independence. His work suggests that the rise in anxiety, depression and poor mental health among young people has occurred alongside a long-term reduction in opportunities for self-directed play, exploration and autonomy (Gray, 2011).

For generations, children found freedom in places that required very little adult involvement. Streets, woodlands, village greens, streams, parks and patches of waste ground became the settings for adventure, imagination and discovery. Children spent countless hours in the company of other children, making up games, solving problems, assessing risks and gradually finding their place in the world.

These spaces were not perfect. They involved uncertainty, challenge and occasional failure. Yet it was through these experiences that children developed resilience, confidence and social competence. They learned how to negotiate disagreements, recover from setbacks and navigate relationships without constant adult intervention.

Many of those places have quietly disappeared.

Some have been built upon. Others have become dominated by traffic. Concerns about safety, though often well intentioned, have narrowed children's opportunities for independent exploration. Increasingly, childhood takes place within environments that are organised, supervised and structured by adults. A child's day is often carefully mapped out, moving between school, organised activities and home, with comparatively little space left for the spontaneous adventures that once characterised childhood.

This is not necessarily the result of bad intentions. Most adults are motivated by care and concern. Yet the cumulative effect has been a gradual shrinking of the spaces where children can simply be children.

Perhaps this helps explain why online spaces have become so attractive.

When Peter Gray describes digital environments as one of the last places where children experience a degree of uninterrupted play and autonomy, he is not celebrating social media. He is drawing attention to something deeper. Human beings have an innate need for connection, exploration, belonging and play. If these needs are not adequately met in the physical world, they will be sought elsewhere.

The problem is not that children have somewhere to go online.

The more troubling possibility is that we have allowed so many of the places worth being offline to disappear.

Belonging in a Fragmented World

Perhaps the deeper question is not why children are spending so much time online, but why so many are struggling to find what they need offline.

Human beings are profoundly social creatures. From our earliest years we seek connection, belonging and participation. We long to feel recognised by others and to know that we have a place within the communities we inhabit.

Historically, these needs were woven into everyday life. Children knew their neighbours. They encountered people of different ages throughout the day. They played with older and younger children, listened to stories from elders and gradually became participants in the life of their community.

Today, many of those opportunities have diminished.

This is not to suggest that community has disappeared altogether, but its shape has changed. Many families live further apart. Neighbourhood relationships are often weaker. Public spaces where children once gathered informally have become rarer. At the same time, young people increasingly find themselves moving between institutions designed specifically for their age group, with fewer opportunities to interact with the wider social fabric around them.

Against this backdrop, it is perhaps less surprising that social media has become so appealing.

Of course, these digital communities come with significant risks. They are commercial spaces designed to capture attention. They can amplify comparison, anxiety and conflict. Yet they also provide something many young people are searching for: friendship, shared interests, recognition and belonging.

The uncomfortable possibility is that social media has become successful not simply because technology is persuasive, but because it is filling a void.

Before we ask how to remove children from these spaces, perhaps we should ask why so many other spaces have become unavailable.

The Forgotten Role of Nature

As I reflected on these questions, I found myself thinking about another walk through my local woodland.

The world felt heavy that morning. News headlines spoke of conflict, environmental decline and political division. Like many people, I felt overwhelmed by the relentless stream of information and opinion.

Yet as I wandered beneath oak and birch trees, something shifted. Not because the problems disappeared. They didn't. But they found their proper scale.

My attention moved away from distant events and back towards immediate experience. A robin appeared briefly on a low branch. Sunlight filtered through fresh green leaves. Somewhere in the distance a wood pigeon called. The scent of damp earth rose from the woodland floor.

What changed was not the world around me but the quality of my attention.

I became less preoccupied with consuming information and more engaged in noticing. Less concerned with reacting and more able to simply observe.

It struck me that this may be one of nature's greatest gifts. In a culture that constantly competes for our attention, nature invites us into a different relationship with the world. One characterised by curiosity rather than consumption, wonder rather than distraction.

Professor Miles Richardson and colleagues have spent years researching these experiences. Their work on nature connectedness demonstrates that wellbeing is influenced not simply by time spent outdoors but by the quality of our relationship with the natural world (Richardson et al., 2021).

Nature connectedness grows through experiences of beauty, emotion, meaning, compassion and sensory engagement (Lumber, Richardson & Sheffield, 2017). These experiences help us feel part of the world rather than separate from it.

What strikes me is how closely these pathways mirror the conditions children need for healthy development.

Curiosity. Wonder. Meaning. Belonging.

These qualities are rarely measured and seldom appear on a curriculum map, yet they sit at the heart of what it means to flourish.

Recent research suggests that this may be especially important during adolescence, the very life stage at the centre of the current social media debate. A Canadian study found that adolescents with stronger connections to nature reported significantly lower levels of internalised mental health symptoms, with nature connectedness associated with around a 25% reduction in high mental health symptoms. Researchers concluded that engagement with nature appeared to be protective of young people's psychological wellbeing (Piccininni et al., 2018).

At the same time, studies exploring body image have found that regular exposure to nature is associated with greater body appreciation and self-acceptance, helping to counter some of the appearance-based comparisons that have become commonplace within social media culture (Swami et al., 2020).

This feels particularly relevant given the reasons often cited for restricting social media use. Concerns about anxiety, poor wellbeing and negative body image sit at the heart of the current debate. Yet far less attention is given to the growing evidence that nature connection actively supports these same areas of development.

Nature has always been one of the great providers of such experiences. It invites children to explore, imagine, create, observe and care. It offers challenge without judgement, beauty without expectation and meaning without instruction.

In a world increasingly shaped by screens, these experiences feel more important than ever.

A Bigger Conversation

The social media ban may prove beneficial. Stronger regulation of social media companies is long overdue, and children should be protected from harmful content, addictive design features and exploitative algorithms.

Yet if the conversation begins and ends with social media, we risk overlooking a much larger challenge.

The decline in children's wellbeing cannot be understood through technology alone. It must also be understood through the gradual erosion of opportunities for play, the weakening of community life, the loss of children's independence and the growing distance between young people and the natural world.

These trends do not exist in isolation. They are strands of the same story.

A child who feels known by their neighbours, trusted by adults, connected to nature and valued within their community may still enjoy social media. But it is unlikely to become their primary source of belonging.

A child who lacks these experiences may find themselves turning increasingly towards digital spaces to meet needs that once would have been met elsewhere.

This is why the current debate feels so important.

Not because it is a conversation about social media.

But because it has the potential to become a conversation about childhood itself.

Rebuilding Childhood

As I think back to those children building their shelter in the woodland, what stays with me is not the structure they created. It is the fact that they had the freedom to create it at all. They had space to experiment, fail, negotiate, imagine and belong. For an afternoon, they inhabited a world that was shaped not by algorithms, timetables or adult expectations, but by their own curiosity and creativity.

In many ways, that is what childhood has always offered at its best.

The challenge before us is not simply how to remove children from social media. It is how to ensure that more children have access to experiences like these. Imagine communities where children are welcomed rather than tolerated. Where they are trusted to explore their surroundings, contribute to community life and develop relationships with people of different ages and backgrounds. Imagine neighbourhoods where green spaces are woven into daily life and where children grow up with a strong sense of place and belonging.

Imagine schools that place nature connection alongside literacy and numeracy as a foundation of a healthy education. Schools that recognise children's need for wonder, curiosity and meaning. Schools that support teachers to become Nature Connected Practitioners and adopt a whole-school approach to nurturing children's relationship with the natural world.

Such ideas may sound ambitious. Yet they speak to something profoundly ordinary.

The needs of childhood have not changed.

Children still need places to play, relationships that sustain them, opportunities to contribute and experiences that help them make sense of the world around them. They still need to feel that they belong. And they still need a living relationship with the natural world.

If we want children to spend less time online, then we need to create communities worth logging off for.

Schools have an important role to play in this transformation, but they cannot do it alone.

The challenge before us belongs to parents, educators, policymakers, community leaders and neighbours alike.

Because the real question raised by the social media ban is not whether children should spend less time online. It is whether we are willing to create a world that offers them something better.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to join the conversation in the comments below—your questions, stories, and perspectives are always welcome. Whether we agree or not, every discussion adds depth to these conversations, and respectful dialogue is what makes this space truly valuable.

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References

Gray, P. (2011). The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents. American Journal of Play, 3(4), 443–463.

Gray, P., Lancy, D. F., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2023). Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children's Mental Well-being: Summary of the Evidence. Journal of Pediatrics.

Lumber, R., Richardson, M., & Sheffield, D. (2017). Beyond Knowing Nature: Contact, Emotion, Compassion, Meaning, and Beauty are Pathways to Nature Connection. PLOS ONE, 12(5).

National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. (2024). Social Media and Adolescent Health. National Academies Press.

Piccininni, C., Michaelson, V., Janssen, I., & Pickett, W. (2018). Outdoor play and nature connectedness as potential correlates of internalised mental health symptoms among Canadian adolescents.

Richardson, M., Passmore, H. A., Lumber, R., Thomas, R., & Hunt, A. (2021). Moments, Not Minutes: The Nature-Wellbeing Relationship. International Journal of Wellbeing.

Swami, V., Barron, D., Weis, L., & Furnham, A. (2020). Bodies in nature: Associations between exposure to nature and positive body image.

Raising the Nation Play Commission. (2025). Everything to Play For: A Plan to Ensure Every Child in England Can Play.

Sport England. (2025). Active Lives Children and Young People Survey 2024–25.