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‘Alarming’ study shows scale of social media use among nursery-aged children

Children who haven’t yet learned to read are ‘being fed content and algorithms designed to hook adults’

Aine FoxMonday 01 December 2025 17:00 GMTComments

CloseRelated: Australia rolls out ‘for the good of our kids’ ad campaign ahead of teen social media ban

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Hundreds of thousands of nursery-age children are being exposed to social media content and algorithms designed to “hook adults”, a former education minister has warned.

New analysis from the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) has revealed that over 800,000 UK children aged between three and five are already engaging with social media platforms.

Lord Nash described the news as “deeply alarming”.

The CSJ’s analysis applied the latest population data to previous research by Ofcom, the internet and communications watchdog.

Ofcom found almost four in 10 parents of three to five-year-olds reported their child using at least one social media app or site.

With roughly 2.2 million children in this age group as of 2024, the CSJ suggests that this indicates 814,000 social media users between three and five years old.

About 40 per cent of parents with a child aged three to five reported their child using at least one social media app or site (Getty Images)

Lord Nash said: “This research is deeply alarming. With hundreds of thousands of under-fives now on these platforms, children who haven’t yet learned to read, being fed content and algorithms designed to hook adults, should concern us all.

“We need a major public health campaign so parents better understand the damage being done, and legislation that raises the age limit for social media to 16 whilst holding tech giants to account when they fail to keep children off their platforms.”

The peer has previously pressed for action to prevent under-16s accessing social media, as part of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.

His call comes as a world-first law is due to come into effect in Australia on 10 December.

From that date, social media platforms will have to take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s in Australia from having a social media account.

In the UK, there have been increasing calls from campaigners for stronger policies to stop phone use in schools, including from the mother of murdered teenager Brianna Ghey.

However, the government maintains that schools already have the power to ban phones, and that it supports headteachers to take the steps needed to prevent disruption.

The CSJ is advocating that smartphones are banned in all schools “to break the 24-hour cycle of phone use”, and said a public health campaign is needed “to highlight the harms of social media”.

Last week Health Secretary Wes Streeting said he worries “that we abandon young people to the Wild West of the online world”, as he told of his concerns “about the mind-numbing impact of doomscrolling on social media on young minds and our neurodevelopment”.