GoKawiilIn this photo illustration a 13-year-old teenage boy looks at an iPhone screen displaying various social media apps on January 12, 2026 in Bath, England.
The U.K. government is trialing a social media ban for hundreds of teens, after the country's lawmakers rejected a blanket ban on under-16s using the platforms.
The U.K.'s Department for Science, Innovation & Technology said Wednesday that it will run a six-week pilot with various bans ranging from curfews to time caps on certain apps on 300 teenagers across the country.
The pilot is part of its broader digital wellbeing consultation launched this year, which has already received 30,000 responses from parents and children on the effect of social media on children's wellbeing, and closes on 26 May.
It includes four types of interventions, with one set of parents instructed to use parental controls to remove or disable select apps; a second group to impose a one-hour cap per day for teens on the most popular apps, including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat; a third set will impose a curfew between 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., and a final group will continue will not restrict social media access at all.
This comes after U.K. lawmakers voted against a proposal to include a social media ban for under-16s in an existing piece of legislation, the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill, earlier this month.