Last week the government confirmed the social media ban for under-16s. Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, X, the lot.

I'll be direct, I don't think social media is good for anyone, let alone young people. The evidence on harm isn't really up for debate any more. But what's been on my mind since Monday is that this is the generation that grew up inside these apps. For many of them it isn't an add-on to their social life, it is their social life. It’s the place where they feel connection, where they can talk openly. Take it away, with nothing designed to replace what it was actually doing for them, and you haven't solved the issue. You've just moved it somewhere else and claimed victory.

The Children's Society has already pointed out that young people are being shut out of spaces that support their sense of belonging, after a decade of decline in youth services and community spaces has left them with nowhere else to go. Groups including the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation have warned this ban risks leaving some young people, particularly those who are disabled or LGBTQIA+, more isolated and further cut off from support, not less.

I think about belonging a lot. So much of what we do at Contact is try to build that feeling of belonging for the next young person who turns up. Reading that the most isolated young people are the ones a blanket ban is most likely to isolate further does not sit well with me.

It also doesn't exist in a vacuum. A study out this month from Stirling, Glasgow and UCL found that deteriorating mental health is particularly high among young women under 25, with it rising steadily across the UK since the late 1990s. More specifically, researchers draw a direct line between young people's worsening mental health and youth unemployment. With poor mental health following alongside the rise in youth unemployment in older age groups. So, it's not just about screens. It's about whether young people have a genuine stake in the world around them.

I recently had a conversation with an academic about a piece of work they’d undertaken, talking to young people about the political world, and what they found was that young people are not interested, not involved, not aware and don’t see a connection to themselves. This might be unsurprising but it is extremely worrying, especially with the change in voting age. As a society we need to do better to engage young people, to give them a real seat at the table, to listen to them and to build their agency so that they’re ready to take part in the political system rather than being ambivalent to it.

Centre for Mental Health put it well a few weeks back: stop asking what's wrong with young people, start asking what's happened to them and the world we've built around them. Reading that next to the news of the ban made me a bit uncomfortable, because I think the arts sector has spent a long time answering the first question instead of the second. We're good at wellbeing workshops and a nice space to sit in for an afternoon. But none of that is built to absorb the very specific gap this ban is about to leave in a sixteen-year-old's week.

Our Agency Programme is the closest thing we've got to an answer. Young people across Greater Manchester get paid to design and lead their own social change projects in their own communities. This year, one of our Agents, just 17, wrote and published Diary of Freedom, a book for young girls that tackles antisocial behaviour through story and self-guided activity. It's not an app, but it's exactly the cohort the research says is struggling most, given a real platform, real support and money to do something about it. That's the kind of connection and contribution this ban is about to remove without putting anything back.

A job, a vote and a set of keys does more for a young person's mental health than any amount of screen time guidance. Come spring 2027, a lot of young people are going to be looking for somewhere else to go. We need more places ready for them.

Author: Jack Dale-Dowd