All language subtitles for Panorama - Can We Live Without Our Phones 1080p HEVC BigJ0554

We're about to spend a week with
two social media-obsessed teenagers.

I think I spend way too much time
on my phone.

I just scroll and scroll and scroll.

It's terrible!

What happens when they give up
their smartphones

and allow us to film the whole thing?

I did know that I was going
to struggle for, like,

the first bit, but I didn't know
I was going to struggle this hard!

Lots of kids say
they see stuff on their phones

they don't like,
and social media companies

stand accused of not doing enough
to protect them.

Kind of just stains your brain,

and it's all you think about
for the rest of the day.

We are asking a private company
to moderate themselves,

which is like asking
a tiger not to eat you.

Calls to restrict our kids' use
of smartphones are growing.

I personally would ban them

and I think we need government
directive to do that.

But is a ban really the answer?

I don't think we should expect kids
to use their phone less,

because we're not.

We're not. I'm not.

You're not.

I don't think anyone is.

On the outskirts of Birmingham,
14-year-old Josh

says he can spend up to ten hours
a day on his smartphone.

He messages his friends and scrolls
through hundreds of TikTok videos.

It's pretty much like
my best friend.

Like, I use it every single day.

I always have to have it next to me
because, like,

I won't get scared that I'm being
like, left out, or something.

During the week,

Josh's mum makes him leave his
smartphone downstairs at night.

But at the weekend
it's a different story.

I, like, watch my phone
throughout the night.

My phone would be, like,
constantly going off,

which will wake me up,
and then I'll have to check it,

just to see if I'm, like,
missing anything important.

Normally at four in the morning
it's not that important.

He's very tired the next day

because he's been up all night
and he's not had enough sleep.

Sometimes, even when he's asleep
you can go in

and he's still holding the phone

and it's still playing
a TikTok video, or something.

A few miles away, 13-year-old Keah
is also rarely off her phone.

When I'm not at school,
I probably use it, like, a LOT.

Like, most of the day.

She scrolls through
dozens of videos an hour

and chats to friends and family
around the country.

Sometimes I stay up all night,
maybe until about, like, 5am,

watching TikTok or playing games,

or watching Netflix,
or anything like that.

I just scroll and scroll and scroll.

It's terrible.

Sometimes I'll go to my sister's
and the family will meet there

and she'll just go upstairs
and be on her phone.

And that's the time

when I feel like I would like her
to just put the phone down

and have her family time.

Many of us are obsessed
with our smartphones,

but what's the impact on our kids?

From looking at Keah and Josh's
social media feeds,

they're not seeing anything
that's too bad.

But, as the BBC's disinformation
and social media correspondent,

I've seen countless harmful posts

that many teenagers
have been exposed to,

and I've investigated the part
they've played

in violence, suicide,
and even murder.

A third of 8- to 17-year-olds
in the UK

say they've seen something worrying
or nasty on social media

in the past year.

What are the things that
people are most worried about?

People are most worried about

violent content,

and what we hear
from children as well

is that it's often the case

that they see this violent content
as unavoidable.

Access to pornography
is also one concerning area

where children are accessing
pornographic content

younger and younger in age.

Tends to be a minority of them

that get exposed to
the most harmful content.

What we know, however, is that
once you are exposed to that

harmful content,
it becomes unavoidable.

Radical moves are being proposed
to protect kids around the world.

Florida's banned social media
for under-14s.

France is talking about
a smartphone ban for under-13s,

and in the UK,

calls to delay giving kids
smartphones are growing.

So, what would it look like
if we take kids' phones away?

I'm about to conduct
a not-very-scientific experiment

to help me find out.

In Birmingham, smartphone obsessives
Josh and Keah have agreed

to give up their phones, tablets
and personal laptops for a week.

I feel quite nervous about it

because then
it's just not going to...

It's going to be really weird
not being able to, like,

message everyone every day.

I think my main feeling will
definitely just be being bored

because when I'm feeling bored, I'm
just like, "I'll go on my phone."

So let's start with your phone.

In it goes. Oh!

We've got everything else.

Thank you very much.

Their mums will look after
all their devices.

I think she's going to go
stir crazy by the end of the week,

but we'll see.

I'm quite excited to see
what's going to happen,

I'm not going to lie.

We're giving both teenagers
brick phones

with no internet access,
in case there's an emergency.

So, this is your new phone.

What?!

A very old phone.

Do you like it? Yeah.

There's only numbers.

It's like being a kid
when I was a kid.

Do you know how to turn it on, Josh?

I have no clue!

It's like Christmas.

They've agreed to let us install
cameras in their homes

to see what happens.

LAUGHTER

Goodnight.

It's the first couple of days
of our experiment.

Josh used to be woken in
the night by friends' messages,

but now he's sleeping better

and starts the week with purpose.

My day was, like,
a lot more productive.

Like, I ended up
writing a to-do list,

and at the end, I was just
so impressed with myself.

I cleaned my room. Like, I got
the vacuum out and everything.

I even got the polish out.

I think it's actually immaculate
right now.

Across town, Keah is finding
the first couple of days

more difficult than Josh.

As soon as you left, I was just...

I felt like I was just like,
"I need my phone". Um...

Um, yeah, I was complaining a lot.

I'd just describe it as
bored and irritable.

Around two-thirds of
12- to 17-year-olds in the UK

say being online helps them
build or keep friendships.

Many of Keah's friends
don't live close by,

so without her phone she feels lost.

I'd usually just FaceTime my friends
and I was missing that the most.

I love FaceTime with my friends
and just playing games with them.

She's agitated in a way.

She's a little bit more snappy
as well.

It's not easy for Keah because her
mum's on her own phone all the time.

We all use them now to do everything
from paying bills to ordering food.

Tonight, dessert's on the menu.

I think right now I'm jealous of her
because I can't go on my phone.

I did know that I was going to
struggle for, like, the first bit,

but I didn't know
I was going to struggle this hard.

If we took phones away
from children,

I don't think we would
overnight have happier children.

Young people say
the phone is the solution

rather than the cause
of the problem,

so it's how they relax
when school is stressful,

or how they get in touch
with their friends

when they're feeling lonely
or worried about some things.

It's one thing to control how much
children use their phones at home,

but what about at school?

Guys, put your phones away, please.

Here at the Q3 Academy in Langley
just outside Birmingham,

headteacher Peter Lee
oversees a strict policy.

Morning, guys! Good morning!

Are we Langley listeners today?

At the start of every day,
students' phones are locked

in a safe, and phones found after
this are confiscated for five days.

I can see the kind of criticism
at times -

"it's draconian" and so forth.

I think, however,
the benefits outweigh the negatives.

The benefits for me
are disruption-free learning.

You know, I've visited some schools
that allow children on iPads

or their own devices at lunchtime,
and they're just sat on a phone.

Studies suggest it's too early
to say whether taking away

smartphones completely
would improve performance at school.

But students here say
giving up their phones

during the school day
helps them focus.

Social media is VERY addictive.

You're just sat there scrolling,

and then the next thing you know,
you've gone like four hours.

I just watch recommended videos
and I'm sat there for ages.

I'm like, "just one more minute".

Yeah. One more minute
turns into another hour.

Many teachers are also worried

that kids are being bullied
on social media.

Here at Q3 Academy,

taking phones off students
during the day

doesn't stop arguments
kicking off at night.

I would say 50%
of our pastoral issues

that the team deal with

come from overnight,

or over the holiday especially,

that have happened on social media,

and then parents are saying, "This
child said this about my child,"

and it's all on kind of WhatsApp
or Snapchat and so forth.

Children are more likely
to be bullied in person

than they are online.

But if it happens on a phone,
it can feel relentless.

What we do have is evidence
that bullying is now more 24/7

because it's always there
on your phone,

and it's hard to escape.

When it happens to you,
it's more all-encompassing.

I think that's notably worse
than it used to be.

Josh!

In Birmingham, Josh has resorted
to desperate measures.

TUNELESSLY:

Keah is doing much better
than she was

and is using the time
to get out of the house more.

I love being outside, and I love,

like, going out for walks.

I love going out to eat.
I love going out shopping.

It's actually a really nice day.

Only a quarter of kids in England
today say

they play out on the street,
compared with

more than three-quarters
of 55- to 64-year-olds,

who say they did.

More cautious parenting
plays a part in that.

A lot of Keah's life
is on her phone,

simply because I don't let her hang
out on the streets with her friends.

Like, if she wants to go out
with her friends, no problem.

I'll go and grab your friend.
I'll take you to the cinema.

I'll pick you up afterwards.

It's been good to just go out for
a walk and spend time with my dog

and my mum, just relaxing.

Over the last...10, 20 years,

we have reduced free play time
at school.

We have reduced what many children
used to love,

which was the walk
to and from school

because we drive them about
everywhere.

Um... They don't know
where they can go

and casually meet their friends
in a way that, you know,

parents are going to let them do.

So they go on their phone.

The more time kids and adults
spend on smartphones,

the more money the social media
companies can make

through ad revenue.

They use computer systems
called algorithms

to recommend stuff
they think we might like,

based on the preferences
of other users like us,

and also what we show an interest in.

It's all to keep us coming back,

but some of the content that can
keep us gripped can also be harmful.

Kai is 18 and says he's had
violent and misogynistic content

recommended on various
social media apps since he was 15.

Some of the stuff is just like
really gratuitous violence. Mmm.

And they push it
like it's a good thing.

Kai's into boxing and martial arts,

but he doesn't want to see
the violent images

he says the algorithms are serving up
on Instagram and TikTok.

Think back to when you were
about 16, 15.

What kinds of stuff would you tend
to see on your social media feeds?

All sorts, to be honest.

It's like you just scroll. You know,
you get video after video.

It could be a dog, and then next
minute it's someone getting run over

or a car crash,
or something like that.

Just out of nowhere. Spontaneous.

Is it like you've searched something
and it's come up,

or is it, like, unexpected? No.

It's on your feed.
It escalates very quickly.

You could like it
or you could comment your opinion -

be like, "I don't agree with this",

but you'll still get even more
and more and more and more.

It kind of just stains your brain,

and that's all you think about
for the rest of the day.

Like, I've tried putting
the little "not interested" thing,

but then three videos later
you'll get another one.

There's nothing you can do and it
feels a bit... It's just weird,

and it ruins your mood.

It makes you a bit numb. Like,
it desensitises you to everything.

Kai's noticed how constantly
watching harmful content

can distort the views of young men
his age, including about women.

You watch it and you like it,

then you'll get another video on it
and another video on it,

and all of a sudden
it's your whole personality.

It's your whole opinion.
It's everything.

Kai says his feeds look
very different

from those of girls he knows
the same age.

Why is that?

Andrew Kaung worked at TikTok
in Dublin for 18 months

until 2022,

as part of a team
focused on protecting users.

He and a colleague decided to
check out

what users on the app
were seeing,

including some 16-year-olds.

If you're a female, a 16-year-old
who lives in London,

they're just usually
interested in the pop singers.

The songs.

Er, make-up.

Um, whereas, like, it's very
different for a teenage boy.

So stabbing, knifing
type of content.

Um, sometimes sexual content

and of course, mostly
with the misogynistic

sort of controversial hate content
as well.

Most content which is removed
from TikTok for breaking the rules

is done by artificial intelligence.

Tricky judgment calls,
though, require human moderators.

TikTok says it had specialist
moderators when Andrew worked there.

He says he proposed hiring more.

At the time, they were just like,

"Great idea.
Good job, but it's too costly.

"We're not going to implement it."

Um, so I was like, OK.

I kind of expected that
because if something involved...

an investment,
and quite a lot of investment

and a change, like,
it's very hard to persuade people.

TikTok says 40,000 safety staff work
alongside innovative technology,

and it expects to invest more
than $2 billion in safety this year.

It says it doesn't use gender
to recommend content,

has settings for teens to block
content that may not be suitable,

and set 60-minute limits,

and doesn't allow extreme violence
or misogyny.

Meta, which owns Instagram,

says it wants to give teens positive
and age-appropriate experiences.

It says it's introduced over
50 different tools and resources,

including for parental supervision,

limiting screen time

and reducing sensitive content.

Keah got her first smartphone
when she was seven,

and soon found herself thinking about
how she looked.

When I was younger,
I definitely used to feel insecure.

Like, when I was like nine.

I'd see these girls on TikTok
with, like, the really nice bodies

and they'd be, like, dancing.

I used to wear baggy clothes
because I thought that it was, like,

disgusting to be fat.

And I used to think I was, like, fat
when I wasn't.

But social media, and
they're like unrealistic things,

like, made me feel like that.

The time she was saying those things
was really upsetting.

Like, she was chatting to me,
she was chatting to my sister.

Having a strong family helped Keah
at that time massively.

It was...

It was hard, but we did it.

Those in favour of banning
smartphones for kids

say they're fuelling
a child mental health crisis.

Being a teenager is a really hard
period of everyone's life,

and it's kind of with the tsunami
of social media on top of children.

I think in maybe 20 years' time,
30 years' time,

we will look back on mobile devices
like we view cigarettes.

I personally would ban them

and I think we need government
directive to do that.

The evidence isn't clear.

In the last decade, kids' smartphone
ownership has rocketed.

Since 2017, there's been a rise

in suspected mental health issues
in children in England.

But that doesn't necessarily mean

smartphones cause
poorer mental health.

There's no convincing evidence
for a causal link.

We've been looking at this from
a research perspective for years,

if not decades,

and we've not found those clear
smoking gun causal effects.

When we do the surveys
of young people's wellbeing,

one of the top anxieties they report
is academic pressure,

which has definitely increased.

Competitive pressures.

Um, they talk about,
worry about how they look,

which we could link to the phone,

we could link to broader
consumer culture.

There are lots of pressures
on families and on children nowadays

of which, you know, the phone
is a small, if very visible, part.

Right. Shall we make some dinner?
What are we having?

Wraps.

Back in Birmingham, Josh is spending
more time with his mum, Carrie.

It's been nice. I've really enjoyed
spending time with Josh this week.

I thought we were besties.
We are besties.

I don't usually cook with my mum
because I'm always, like,

thinking I've got more important
things to do on my phone

when I actually don't.

The more important thing is, like,
getting to spend time with my mum.

But it's still a struggle.

Do you feel like you're missing out

because you've not got your phone
and, like, everyone else

is still talking to each other?

Yeah, I do.

Especially, like, this is
a generation where, like,

everyone speaks on their phone.

I think at the start of the week
it was a lot more easier.

But now I'm thinking
that it's like a lot more tricky.

Pretty much my whole life
is on my phone

because, like,
that's how I organise things,

like to go out with my mates
and to, like...

That's how I have conversations

that I might not be able to have
at school.

I've tried my hardest around Josh
not to really use my phone as much.

I do tend to get lost
in TikTok myself.

You think, "Oh, I'll just have
ten minutes of looking",

and then the next thing
it's an hour and a half later.

I've maybe burnt a pizza or two.

Keah is spending more time
with her mum too.

Vienna works at a go-karting track

and she's brought Keah along
to stop her feeling bored.

There are lots of things
parents could do,

some of which are
about providing alternatives,

about doing other things together,

about finding, just kind of ways
of keeping the phone in balance,

so that it's not all focused
on that bit of technology.

This was much better
compared to my phone!

It's so fun because
you're actually doing something,

other than just like sitting there
and being on the phone -

you're actually doing something.

It's really fun.

For years, social media companies
have largely been left

to police themselves.

Andrew Kaung, who's
worked at both TikTok and Meta,

says that approach hasn't worked.

We are asking a private company

whose interest is to promote
their product

to moderate themselves,

which is like asking a tiger
not to eat you.

Kids have to be 13
to get on most social media apps.

Now, a new UK law will force social
media firms to verify kids' ages

and stop them recommending porn
or other harmful content.

Media regulator Ofcom
is in charge of enforcing it.

Fixing algorithms is a very
important element of the solution.

So content that is pornographic,

promotes suicide, self-harm
or eating disorders -

we are suggesting
that all that content

should be out of the feed
of children and young people.

Then for other categories
like violent content

or hateful content,

we want the prevalence of that
content to be very much reduced

in the algorithm.

How feasible is it in reality?

I'm an optimist in terms
of the potential of technology.

And is it possible?

I think of course it is possible.

Ofcom says it can fine
social media companies,

or could even bring criminal
prosecutions if they don't do enough.

But measures won't come in
until 2025.

It's Saturday and...

Ahhh! I get my phone back today!

The week without smartphones
is over.

How do you feel?

Excited.

There you go.

HE SCREECHES

I get to hold my phone again!

Feel as though I'll cry!

On WhatsApp I've got 62 messages
from my drama group.

It's so overwhelming,
checking everyone's messages.

Makes me feel, um,

like, good again.

How does it feel having it back
and seeing all the messages?

It feels... Oh!

I love it. I'm very happy
that I finally got it back.

I'm a little bit worried
that we've already lost him

back to the world of the phone.

Like, I've realised that,

like, social media is just...

..not that great.

I feel better when I'm not
just scrolling and scrolling,

like, endlessly, for hours.

Our experiment has revealed
how hard it is for kids

and their parents
to live without smartphones.

I think the focus on bans is maybe
the wrong thing at the minute.

This thing that we've got
in our pocket is amazing.

Of course there are going to be
benefits to that,

but there are negatives
there as well.

And we need to consider
what the balance is

between benefits and risks.

What many teenagers want is to keep
the good bits on their phones

and get rid of the bad bits.

Ofcom says social media companies
need to give kids more power

to decide what
they don't want to see.

If I say I dislike it, I dislike
it. You can stop showing me now.

I feel like social media companies
don't respect your opinion.

Our phones are here to stay.

Now the pressure's on to make sure
kids can use them more safely.

I don't think they should take away
smartphones for kids.

I think they're... I think
they're great for learning.

I think they're great
for socialising,

for kids that can't go out.

I don't think there's any comeback

from how far we've gone
into the digital world.

Hopefully they'll just
find ways of making sure

that the younger kids
are more protected

than they have been in the past.

Goodnight.