WhatsApp criticised as minimum age cut to 13 – what you need to know

Social media giant Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – has lowered WhatsApp’s minimum age requirement from 16 to 13 in a move that has sparked concerns over children’s mental health and safety.

WhatsApp announced the update in a blog post, saying: “The minimum age to use WhatsApp in the European Region will be changed from 16 to 13,” adding the move is meant to “ensure a consistent minimum age requirement for WhatsApp globally.”

However, the news has been met with fierce criticism from advocates and campaigners for children’s social media rights.

Why do campaigners say about the update?

Smartphone Free Childhood, a grassroots parents’ movement, called on WhatsApp to reverse change amid concerns for children’s safety.

Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of the group told i that WhatsApp was “putting shareholder profits first and children’s safety second.”

“Reducing their age of use from 16 to 13 years old is completely tone deaf and ignores the increasingly loud alarm bells being rung by scientists, doctors, teachers, child safety experts, parents and mental health experts alike,” she said.

The change brings the minimum age from 16 to 13 in the EU and the UK, bringing it in line with most countries in the world.

However, “lowering age restrictions,” Ms Greenwell said, “sends a message to parents that WhatsApp is safe for those over the age of 12, and yet a growing body of research suggests otherwise.”

Dr Emma L Briant, Associate Professor of News and Political Communication at Melbourne’s Monash University in Australia, told i : “Kids already find ways to get around age restrictions but this sends a deeply unhealthy message that the app is okay for a younger and younger audience.”

Dr Briant, who was involved in exposing the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal concerning data misuse and disinformation, warned WhatsApp’s features like disappearing messages and end-to-end encryption create the sense of privacy and also encourage over-sharing of intimate photos.

“While Meta encourages parental controls and for parents to talk to and educate their kids, kids of that age experience extreme social pressures already, and even if your kid is emotionally mature enough not to do this, they may be added to groups with other who are not,” she said.

What does the research say about WhatsApp use?

According to a post by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), children face multiple risks on WhatsApp, including receiving unwanted messages or calls, feeling pressure to respond, revealing their location to people they don’t know, seeing or hearing harmful or upsetting content, cyberbullying and oversharing.

A 2020 study found that 56 per cent of students aged 8-18 reported that they had experienced cyberbullying in their class WhatsApp groups.

In a research paper, Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, Associate Professor of Digital Humanities at UCL, found harmful content is “gamified” and presented as entertainment through the algorithmic processes of social media platforms, meaning negative content is amplified to young people.

“As a result, ideologies, such as sexism and misogyny, are normalised amongst young people and seep into their everyday interactions,” Dr Regehr wrote.

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Following the release of her report, Dr Regehr said that private, or closed, groups can enable more extreme material being shared, which in turn can have implications for young people’s offline behaviour.

“Young people increasingly exist within digital echo-chambers, which can normalise harmful rhetoric,” she said.

As well as exposure to harmful content, oversharing and bullying, high amounts of screen time have also been associated with shorter sleep duration and more mid-sleep awakening, per a 2020 study.

In 99 per cent of households with access to the Internet, children by the age of eight typically spend two hours and 45 minutes a day online while those aged 11-12 spend over four hours a day online, according to research conducted by Ofcom in 2021.

What can parents do to protect their children?

Parents previously told i they are having to take measures, including banning mobile phone use after 6pm, tracking the location of their child’s phone and upholding a “no phones in the bedroom” rule in order to protect them from online content.

NSPCC, the UK’s leading children’s charity, recommends parents read WhatsApp’s privacy settings to prevent their children being added to groups by people they don’t know.

It also advises parents about showing children how to block and report other users or inappropriate content, talking about what is appropriate to share online as well as how to decide if they should share their location.

Nearly 80 per cent of 12-year-olds already had social media accounts before Meta’s decision to lower the minimum age requirement, according to a 2022 study by Ofcom.

In March, a nationwide poll found that 95 percent of parents said they wanted big tech companies to do more to protect their children, with 80 per cent believing that age limits on social media were too low.

What is the Government doing about it?

The Department for Education issued guidance for headteachers in February to ban the use of mobiles phones throughout the school day in English schools.

The guidelines are not legally binding and give schools flexibility in how they impose the ban.

For example, they can mandate that all phones be left at home, require students to turn them in at the school door or store them in locked lockers, or permit students to keep their phones as long as they are not used or heard.

Ministers are reportedly mulling a ban on the sale of mobile phones to minors under the age of 16 following surveys showing widespread public support for the measure.

Meta did not immediately respond to the i‘s request for comment but previously said users had “options to control who can add them to groups” and the ability to block and report unknown numbers.