Primary school children are using social media and addicted to porn

Dr Charlotte Armitage has warned that primary school aged children are getting addicted to pornography. This comes as the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) issued analysis that estimated over 800,000 under fives use social media apps.

The CSJ’s analysis found that one in five under-fives use social media independently of parents or guardians, and 40% of under 13s have a social media account despite restrictions on those platforms.

One in four eight to nine-year-olds who game online have reported interacting with people unknown to them. Three quarters of parents have expressed worry about their children being exposed to inappropriate content online.

Speaking to LBC, psychologist Dr Charlotte Armitage said, “I've got families whose children are addicted to porn and they're in primary school, children who are up till 4am in the morning and won't go to sleep.”

Responding to data from the CSJ, Dr Armitage said: “I'm absolutely flabbergasted and I'm really disappointed. I've been working in this area for a really long time and to hear that 800,000 children aged three to five on social media when we know what the risks of that are is just shocking to me.”

Along with exposure to pornography, the CSJ’s analysis also raises concerns about the effect of social media on children’s attention.

Dr Armitage explained: “When a child has access to short form content, the brain gets used to receiving the reward of dopamine for every new video. Then when we get these children into school, they struggle to focus, they struggle to sit still, they can't read a book, their attentiveness is compromised as a result of that.”

Lord Nash, former minister at the Department for Education, commented on the CSJ’s data: “This research is deeply alarming. With hundreds of thousands of under-fives now on these platforms, children who haven’t yet learned to read, being fed content and algorithms designed to hook adults, should concern us all.”