Social media compared to smoking as UK report warns of 'wave of radicalised children'

Tuesday, 26 May 2026

Mums Laura Massey and Emma Belcher speak to Stuff about how they're keeping their children away from social media.

The Academy of Medical Royal Colleges has compared social media harm to smoking, reporting severe physical and psychological impacts on children.

Following Australia's ban on social media for under-16s, the UK is expected to decide on a similar ban by mid-June.

A New Zealand mother shared how algorithms exposed her 13-year-old son to violent, pornographic, and suicidal content, leading to sleep deprivation, severe withdrawal, and a diagnosis of major depressive disorder.

A new report is ranking social media alongside smoking for harm as the UK looks at banning it for children under 16.

Using smartphones and social media 'ranks alongside smoking“ and not wearing seatbelts in cars ”as a unifying force for the medical profession', a submission by the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges to lawmakers said.

Stuff, last week, reported in-depth on the need to regulate social media platforms who are not doing enough. You can read Editor-in-Chief Keith Lynch's oped here.

Academy chairperson Jeanette Dickson stated that alarm bells were ringing across the frontline of care, with not a single medical specialty immune to the issue.

Christopher Luxon gave responsibility for policy work around a possible social media ban for under-16-year-olds to Education Minister Erica Stanford.

Daily health harms were being reported by paediatricians, psychiatrists, optometrists, obstetricians, and gynaecologists.

The report said a 'wave of radicalised children“ was being seen by medical staff, 'presenting after years of social isolation and online influence, who pose a real, and potentially catastrophic, risk to society'.

It said mental health services 'are inundated with referrals for children with anxiety, low mood, inattention, sleep disorders, challenging behaviours, violence, and toxic ideology as a direct result of time spent online.'

Frontline medical reports include children presenting with text-addiction bedsores, severe facial and hand burns from mimicking hazardous social media trends, self-harm driven by online coercion, and virtual suicide pacts across schools.

Among cases dealt with by medical staff was a child threatening to kill family members with a weapon having watched torture videos on readily-accessible social media sites, the report said.

Australia was the first country to ban social media for under-16s last year, and in January, the UK government announced it was looking at whether to enact a similar ban. Public feedback would end this week, with a decision reportedly expected by mid-June.

In New Zealand, the government could soon follow.

A select committee inquiry into the harm young people encounter online made a raft of recommendations ranging from a complete review of the legislation underpinning social media to the removal of “safe harbour” provisions which protect platforms from liability for harmful content that others post.

It recommended a ban on advertising alcohol, tobacco and gambling online, a ban on ‘ nudify’ apps that enable the creation of deepfake sexual imagery of real people, the establishment of an online safety regulator, along with education and research campaigns and the ban on social media for children.

The inquiry was launched following National’s indication last year it wanted to ban social media for under 16s.

Coalition divisions threatened to stall a ban however, with both ACT and NZ First refusing to pledge their support.

Auckland mum Camila Dixon initially felt her teenage son's declining mental health could be a normal adolescent struggle. She increasingly suspects it was the result of a social media addiction.

In this country, a mother has spoken out about her son's struggle with social media.

Camila Dixon, the dam broke when her eldest son was 13 years old.

The mother of two, from Flat Bush in Auckland, had imposed a strict ban on social media in her household. But her son’s complaints about being left out of his social circle eventually led her to cave in and give him a smartphone.

Dixon used Instagram herself and felt it was relatively harmless. She also allowed her son to use Snapchat, a platform on which images and messages automatically disappear.

Gradually, her son retreated from the world, she told Stuff. His interest in sports and socialising waned. He went on his phone immediately after getting home from school and his parents struggled to get him to put it down.

A world-leading expert on social media harm also warned the time to act is now.

Ravi Iyer is a social psychologist and the Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute, a project of the University of Southern California’s Neely Centre. He has unique insight into how social media platforms operate, having worked at Facebook from 2018 to 2022.

“I worked on newsfeed ranking, bullying and harassment, and comment ranking,” Iyer told Stuff. “What I learned was that you can't actually design a platform badly and then try to fix it through moderation. You actually have to design a platform better in the first place.”