‘Social media should be treated like tobacco’: health experts say the internet is just as bad as smoking for under-16s as UK government edges closer to introducing ban
Health experts in the UK are advocating for social media to be treated similarly to tobacco due to its harmful effects on children. A report highlights the significant mental health risks associated with social media use among under-16s, prompting the government to consider a ban. Medical professionals are encouraged to assess children's screen time as part of their health evaluations.
- ▪The UK government is moving closer to a potential ban on social media for under-16s.
- ▪A report from the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges compares social media risks to those of smoking.
- ▪Half of surveyed medical professionals reported treating children with social media-related mental health issues weekly.
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Record
| Original publisher | TechRadar |
| Canonical URL | https://www.techradar.com/computing/social-media/social-media-should-be-treated-like-tobacco-health-experts-say-the-internet-is-just-as-bad-as-smoking-for-under-16s-as-uk-government-edges-closer-to-introducing-ban |
| Publication time | Tue, 26 May 2026 17:19:39 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-26T17:22:50.259Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-26T17:22:50.259Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | DsKT5sAFRzke |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
Rights status (four layers)
WeSearch handling by dimension
| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Computing Internet Social Media ‘Social media should be treated like tobacco’: health experts say the internet is just as bad as smoking for under-16s as UK government edges closer to introducing ban News By Rowan Davies published 26 May 2026 Official action will roll out before the end of the year When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Shutterstock) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter A medical report compares the threats of social media to smokingMedical professionals are being encouraged to ask young patients about their screen timeThe UK…
Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at TechRadar.
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