Until very recently, I was in favor of a ban on social media for teenagers because of the deleterious effects of these platforms on the developing brain. Now, however, I’m having second thoughts. The issue concerns, as usual these days, who guards the guardians. Who decides what is harmful and how that harm should be managed?

A new Government-backed trial, in which hundreds of British teenagers will take part in a six-week pilot restricting social media use, brings that question into focus. It will see 13- to 17-year-olds subjected to varying levels of control, from time limits to curfews to an outright ban, to measure the effects on their sleep, schoolwork, and family life.

The problem is that handing more control to governments that have demonstrated limited competence in managing complex problems risks using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Measures such as a ban for under-16s feel decisive, and that sense of action is reassuring: we like to feel that someone is in charge. But any reassurance here is illusory. Simple solutions rarely solve complex problems.

Of course, the instinct to ban social media for teenagers is understandable. Every day we hear reports of teenagers retreating into their bedrooms, constantly online and uninterested in anything beyond what their device offers. We see the mood swings, disrupted sleep and fragmented attention, yet few of us can resist the lure of the screen.

In some cases, the harms are far more serious. Social contagion in conditions such as anorexia and gender dysphoria is real, while extensive guidelines exist to mitigate the spread of suicidal ideation. There have also been cases where children have died after engaging in dangerous online trends. In one widely reported instance, a 14-year-old boy died after an online challenge went awry. His mother is now fighting to hold social media companies to account.

What was once dismissed as alarmist moral panic is now being taken seriously in the courts. A landmark case in the United States this week found that Meta and YouTube had deliberately designed addictive platforms that damaged a young woman’s mental health. She was awarded $6 million in damages, a ruling likely to influence hundreds of similar cases now moving through the courts.

Yet, although the proposed ban may be attractive, it is misguided. A six-week trial of time limits, curfews and outright bans for teenagers looks decisive on paper, but it targets the wrong place. The real problem is that tech companies have built systems designed to capture attention while denying parents meaningful control.

After 20 years working as a psychotherapist with parents and teenagers, it is clear that families are navigating a world increasingly built around the phone with far too little authority over the devices that dominate their homes. A more effective approach would be to require companies to give parents direct, enforceable control over their children’s devices. The priority should be to strengthen parental authority, not expand government control in the home.

The absence of parental authority in the digital space is a massive, largely unacknowledged issue. Adults who are not raising teenagers are often glib, insisting: “Just turn it off.” But anyone with experience knows it is far more complicated. Big Tech bosses could give parents proper controls at the flick of a switch. They don’t, because they profit from keeping teenagers online.

Technology is now embedded in schools in ways that limit parents’ ability to remove access. A parent might take a phone away for bad behavior, only for the school to require it again within hours for homework. Assignments rely on online portals, while messages about group work flow constantly between students. Parents are left managing a system they did not design and over which they have little power.

Children are increasingly treated as autonomous digital citizens, and parents who intervene are cast as intruders, even snoopers. If we are serious about helping teenagers, their devices must be understood as belonging to the parent, with parental authority restored rather than ceded to tech companies and the state. That is the question this Government trial avoids. It tests how far limits can be imposed, but not who should hold the authority to impose them.

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Stella O’Malley is a psychotherapist and bestselling author. She is Founder-Director of Genspect, an international organisation that advocates for a healthy approach to sex and gender.

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