Teaching union: ’Smartphones give kids unfettered access to porn’

Easy access to pornography on smartphones is harming children, the leader of the UK’s largest education union has warned.

Daniel Kebede, General Secretary of the National Education Union, expressed concern that children with mobile devices in school may even be viewing harmful content while in the classroom.

A recent poll conducted by YouGov for the Children’s Commissioner found that 23 per cent of eight to 15-year-olds surveyed spend more than four hours on a normal day using a computer, smartphone, tablet or gaming console.

‘Incredibly damaging’

Kebede said: “The average 12-year-old has access to the most hardcore pornography on their mobile phone”.

This, he argued, “is incredibly damaging to the wellbeing of young boys and their perceptions of women, girls, sex and relationships”.

He added: “My personal view is I would support a statutory ban on mobile phones in schools”.

Dangers

Speaking to BBC Sounds in January, campaigner Mary Sharpe listed some of the harmful effects online pornography is having on children, including depression, inability to form relationships, body dysmorphia, lack of sleep and poor concentration.

The Co-Founder of The Reward Foundation, which offers education on the dangers of watching internet pornography, warned that “over a period of time high level stimulation changes the brain – just the way cocaine or alcohol or drugs can do”.

Her colleague Anton Ferrie told the programme: “The average age that kids first see porn is 13 but that one in ten kids have seen it by the age of nine. And the thing is, the majority of those kids have stumbled upon it by accident.”

Sharpe added that “ready, free access to internet porn” had completely changed the world, and was now fuelling “a hidden epidemic”.

Online safety

Since January, under Ofcom guidelines on implementing the Online Safety Act, some sites that host pornography have been required to “deploy” age-verification systems deemed to be “highly effective”. Sites classed as ‘user-to-user’ platforms will be under a similar obligation from July.

Speaking to LBC Radio earlier this year, the watchdog’s Chief Executive Dame Melanie Dawes said it was “very clear that our under-18s deserve a very different experience than the one they’re getting now”.

This means, she said, “no pornography, no suicide and self-harm material, and significant down ranking of things like violent content, misogyny, racist content, and so on”.

She added: “Parents need to be part of this. Children can do things to keep themselves safe. But above all, I want the platforms to make the service safer.”