Children should not have to fight the algorithm

We tell children to put down their phones. To stop scrolling. To spend less time online. We tell parents to set limits and schools to teach responsible use.

At the same time, we give them apps designed to make it as difficult as possible to stop using them.

Infinite scrolling removes a natural point at which we might pause. Autoplay starts the next video before you have decided whether you want to watch it. Notifications keep calling you back. Recommendation systems learn what holds your attention the longest and serve you more of it.

These are not accidental features. They are part of a business model built on keeping users on the platform for as long as possible. In fact, 97% of the most popular apps used by EU consumers employ at least one so-called ‘dark pattern’, a design element that can steer or influence the choices we make online. 

Adults struggle with this. We should hardly be surprised when children do too.

More than 80% of young Europeans use social media every day. More than one in ten adolescents shows signs of problematic social media use. A recent study by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre found that more than a third of 15-year-olds spend over three hours a day on social media. The data also show an association between more intensive use and more frequent reports of anxiety and depressive symptoms.

That does not prove social media is inherently bad for children. It gives young people access to information, education and creativity. The question, therefore, is not whether children should grow up with technology. They already do. The real question is what kind of digital environment we are prepared to allow children to grow up in.

During the September plenary, the European Parliament backed a report on the impact of social media and the online environment on young people. The EPP Group supported it because responsibility for children's safety online cannot be shifted exclusively onto children and their parents.

Parents have an important role. Schools have a role too. Children need to learn how to recognise manipulation, misinformation and harmful content. They need to understand how algorithms shape what they see, how to protect their personal data, and how their behaviour online affects others.

But a parent cannot redesign an algorithm. Nor can a parent switch off features built into the platform itself or monitor every piece of content to which a child is exposed. Platforms must also take responsibility.

The EPP Group therefore wants safety to be built into the services children use. Children’s safety must be built into digital services from the outset, rather than offered as an additional setting that parents must find and activate.

For children's accounts, autoplay should be off by default. Infinite scrolling should be limited. Notifications should be restricted. Children should be prompted to take breaks and given simple ways to reset their feeds. Their accounts should have the highest privacy settings by default, and their personal data should not be used to profile them for targeted advertising. 

None of this would prevent young people from enjoying social media. It would simply stop treating maximum engagement as the default.

There is another part of this debate we cannot ignore. Around one in six children in Europe has experienced cyberbullying. Online conflicts follow children into classrooms, homes and friendships, just as problems beginning at school can continue on a phone long after the school day ends. 

For the child, there is then no safe place and no moment at which the bullying stops.

When this happens, children and parents need to know where they can turn for help. Helplines within the Safer Internet Centres provide confidential and professional support, which is why their long-term and sustainable funding must be secured.

Support after harm occurs is essential, but so is prevention. That is why the EPP Group also wants stronger digital and media education. Children should understand why people sometimes behave differently behind a screen and why empathy matters online just as much as face-to-face. Parents and teachers also need practical help understanding the platforms children use and knowing what to do when something goes wrong. 

Europe is not starting from zero. We already have rules covering data protection, online platforms, advertising and artificial intelligence. But enforcement remains uneven, and gaps remain. 

The EPP Group's approach is not to regulate for the sake of regulating. Existing rules must first be properly enforced. Where genuine gaps remain, particularly around addictive and manipulative design, they should be closed without duplicating legislation that is already there. 

Passing another law is not, by itself, a measure of success. What matters is whether a child opening an app encounters a safer environment.

For too long, much of the conversation has effectively been: use your phone less, scroll less, be careful what you click. Those are useful lessons. But there is something unreasonable about asking children to develop enough self-control to resist products deliberately designed to hold their attention.

Children have responsibilities online. So do parents and schools. 

Responsibility must be proportionate to power. And the greatest power to shape the digital environment lies with the companies that create it.