The initiative is part of a broader government plan aimed at controlling the negative effects of social networks on the most vulnerable people, including banning access to them for those under 16 years old starting in the first half of 2027.
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The plan includes a curfew activated by default between midnight and 6 a.m. for platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube. It will also limit features designed to prolong usage time, such as autoplay videos and infinite scrolling.
The outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government argues that the measure will help these teenagers improve their concentration, sleep better, and spend more time with their families.
They have some reasons to be confident. They cite a study conducted on about 300 teenagers in May of this year by the firm Savanta, commissioned by the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), which found that, compared to other alternatives such as limiting use to 15 minutes daily or completely removing the apps, a curfew between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. was the easiest restriction to maintain and offered the greatest benefits in rest and concentration.
However, specialists and child protection organizations warn that the initiative alone will hardly solve a problem whose roots are much more complex, while questioning the effectiveness of the measure since it can be deactivated by the teenagers themselves.
Effectiveness and practical issues
For Erick Iriarte, a specialist in law and new technologies, the main challenge is not technological but practical. Implementing a time lock — even one that can be deactivated by its users — requires accurately identifying the underage user, either through software installed on devices or through telecommunications operators. However, even with these mechanisms, there are simple ways to bypass the restriction.
“If a parent lends their phone to their child during that time, the system no longer fulfills the objective sought by the State,” Iriarte points out in conversation with El Comercio.
The expert also questions the measure being presented as voluntary, since in his view, being activated by default means the logic is exactly the opposite. “If it comes activated by ‘default,’ it is not completely voluntary,” he considers. “The rule starts as mandatory and then the user can seek an exception by deactivating it.”
The discussion does not end there either. If the teenagers themselves can remove the restriction, a fundamental question arises: what incentive would they have to maintain a limit that precisely seeks to reduce the time they spend connected? That is why Iriarte believes the success of an initiative of this type will depend less on technology and more on the social support it gains. In that sense, he compared it to other regulations on alcohol or tobacco consumption among minors, where the rule may exist, but mechanisms to bypass it will always appear if there is no consensus among families, schools, and society.
Óscar Montezuma, a lawyer specialized in digital law and CEO of Niubox Legal, goes a step further and questions the need to implement a government-level ‘curfew,’ recalling that both mobile operating systems and social networks themselves already have complex parental controls that allow each family to set schedules, restrict apps, or monitor their children’s activity according to their age and level of autonomy.
“A strict general curfew at the state level does not allow degrees of flexibility according to the needs of each family,” he notes.
What is really needed…
For Iriarte, time restrictions can serve as a complementary tool to combat the harmful effects of social networks, but they do not address the root problem.
The real challenge is to develop a digital culture that allows children and teenagers to use these platforms critically and safely, which involves better training for teachers, educating parents about the risks of the digital environment, strengthening cybersecurity education, and having data protection authorities with greater capabilities.
“The (British) State is trying to take control because it considers that parents, schools, and the teenagers themselves have not managed the problem adequately,” he asserts.
Montezuma agrees with this diagnosis, pointing out that any response to this problem should focus much more on education than on restrictions. In his view, the State should incorporate safe and responsible Internet use skills into the school curriculum, as well as promote ongoing training campaigns that teach everything from how to create secure passwords and enable two-step authentication to how to recognize fraud, prevent cyberbullying, or properly configure parental controls.
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“It sounds very interesting to enact laws to restrict and prohibit, but I think that is not the way,” he said. “We are talking about a generation of digital natives, so it will be very difficult to impose prohibitive measures that are truly successful.”
The lawyer also warns that prohibitions could have the unintended effect of leading teenagers to migrate to lesser-known platforms with fewer protection mechanisms.
“When these platforms are restricted, minors start looking at others that are much less secure, where there may indeed be greater risks such as human trafficking or communities operating outside any supervision,” he opines.
Could it work in Peru?
With several countries increasingly seriously discussing minors’ access to social networks, it remains to be asked whether a similar measure would have a chance to succeed in Peru.
For Iriarte, the main obstacle is not the available technology but the absence of a national strategy on digital transformation. “Peru lacks a State policy on digital matters, a digital agenda, and a long-term vision,” he reflects.
In his view, this lack makes it difficult to assess whether such a restriction would make sense or how it could be coherently implemented, considering the limited nature of digital legislation despite more than three decades since the Internet arrived in our country.
Nevertheless, Iriarte believes that any public policy related to social networks must be designed with clear indicators, evaluation mechanisms, and the capacity to correct errors on the go. “Sometimes it will hit the mark and sometimes it will miss,” he summarizes.
In that sense, although he says he will watch the British experiment with interest, he believes it is still too early to say whether it will pave the way for other countries or end up being merely a symbolic measure.
And even if this measure is successful, he warns not to fall into the fallacy of assuming that a successful policy in one country will necessarily work in another.
“Although both countries use the same digital platforms, the social and cultural contexts are different,” he considers. “It is like comparing the use of a car in countries where driving is on different sides of the road: the vehicle is the same, but the social rules change.”
Montezuma is even more skeptical about the viability of a digital curfew. “If the physical curfew already has difficulties functioning, a digital curfew even more so,” he points out.
Additionally, he considers it could be a case where the cure is worse than the disease, noting how the Internet has democratized access to information and social networks fulfill functions far beyond entertainment, so restricting them at certain hours, even voluntarily, could affect legitimate communications between teenagers and their families or access to relevant information during emergencies.
In that regard, he again emphasizes that any debate around youth and social networks should not focus solely on how much to restrict Internet access but on how to teach new generations to navigate safely in a digital environment that will be a permanent part of their lives. “Risks exist, but they are better prevented with education than with general prohibitions,” he concludes.
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