Young People, Social Media and Harmful Content

News headlines are increasingly dominated by concerns about the harms young people face online. In late 2025, Australia introduced a ban preventing under-16s from accessing a range of major social media platforms. Here in the UK, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch has publicly backed a similar approach, and at the time of recording there is widespread speculation that the UK government may be preparing to follow suit - perhaps even by the time you’re listening to this episode.

But how do young people themselves experience the online spaces they inhabit? Do they see digital content as harmful, empowering, or something more complex? And crucially, what do they think should be done to make the online world safer and more constructive?

In this episode, we explore these questions with Dr Emma Connolly, Research Fellow in the UCL Department of Political Science and a member of UCL’s Digital Speech Lab, where she leads research on digital civic education.

Mentioned in this episode:

• How does social media content go viral across platforms? Modelling the spread of Kamala is brat across X, TikTok, and Instagram, Journal of Information Technology & Politics