UK proposes midnight social media curfew for teens 16-17, though users can opt out

The British government has announced a plan to lock teenagers aged 16 and 17 out of social media between midnight and 6 a.m., though the restriction comes with an escape hatch: users can simply change their account settings to opt out entirely. The proposal would make Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube inaccessible during those hours by default, and would also disable features designed to keep people scrolling—auto-play, infinite scroll—on the theory that less screen time at night means better sleep, sharper focus at school, and more genuine family conversation.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall framed the move as a gift to young people: a way to help them sleep, concentrate, and build the foundations of healthy adult life. The government says it tested the idea in real homes across the UK, watching 300 teenagers navigate different restrictions over a month. The overnight curfew, according to the trial data, produced the most measurable benefits—better rest, more engaged family dinners, and a setup that parents found manageable to enforce. It was, the government concluded, the least burdensome option to actually implement.

But the announcement has drawn sharp criticism from multiple directions, and much of it hinges on a single word: opt-out. If a teenager can disable the curfew with a few taps, critics ask, what exactly is being restricted? Laura Trott, the Conservative shadow education secretary, called the plan a "dog's dinner," arguing that the government either believes 16 and 17-year-olds should be on social media or it doesn't—and a curfew that teenagers can switch off solves nothing. Child safety organizations have used softer language but made the same point: this is piecemeal, reactive, a missed opportunity for something comprehensive.

Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, said the government is announcing a social media ban for under-16s without a clear plan for how to enforce it, and now layering on a voluntary curfew for slightly older teens. He suggested that Prime Minister Keir Starmer will leave office having created a series of half-measures that his successor will inherit as problems, not solutions. Dame Rachel de Souza, England's children's commissioner, struck a more measured tone, saying young people themselves don't want a blanket ban but do want protection from addictive design—and that she intends to watch closely to see whether these policies actually work.

Some experts raised a different concern: that a midnight curfew, even a voluntary one, could harm the teenagers who need social media most. Professor Sonia Livingstone, a researcher in children's digital rights at the London School of Economics, distinguished between two kinds of curfew. A restriction on push notifications that wake someone at 3 a.m. makes sense, she said. But a blanket lockout that prevents a lonely or distressed teenager from reaching out to friends or support networks in the middle of the night could be genuinely harmful. The distinction matters, and it's one the government's proposal doesn't clearly address.

The announcement follows a June decision to ban under-16s from social media platforms entirely, a move that mirrors Australia's approach. But Australia's ban, which took effect in December, has already shown cracks: many teenagers report they can still access supposedly blocked sites, and questions linger about whether age verification systems can actually work. The UK government has commissioned research on whether teenagers use VPNs to circumvent age checks and says the data suggests they don't—at least not widely. Still, the Australian experience has raised doubts about whether any of these restrictions can be enforced in practice.

Pete Etchells, a professor of science communication at Bath Spa University, cautioned against reading too much into the government's trial results. Three hundred teenagers over one month is a small study, he noted, and it tells us only so much about how millions of young people and their families will actually navigate these restrictions in the real world. The government plans to present its formal proposals to Parliament by the end of 2026, with implementation alongside the under-16 ban in spring 2027. What happens between now and then—whether the government tightens the opt-out mechanism, whether it adds enforcement teeth, whether it listens to the experts warning that piecemeal measures won't work—remains to be seen.