Voice Notes: Toby on Life Online
Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve had Toby join us at Inspire for work experience. As part of his time with us, we asked him to explore a topic that affects almost every young person today. Internet use, social media and life on our phones.
With Safer Internet Day prompting national conversations about smartphones, online safety and AI, it felt like the right moment to ask a simple question: what do young people actually think?
Rather than filling this space with adult opinions or statistics, we challenged Toby to write about digital life in a way young people would understand. No jargon. No lectures. Just honest reflections on what it’s really like growing up online.
This piece is part of our new blog series, Voice Notes; a space for young people to share their perspectives in their own words. Real experiences. Real opinions. Real voices.
Here’s what Toby had to say:
Social media is running the world. Recently with Facebook, snapchat and TikTok, the average screen time for for teenagers is between 7 to 9 hours a day. Most teenagers are addicted to social media which can affect their mental health.
Technology is getting more powerful by the year with new things like Grok, Chat GPT and other AI. Which can be a good thing, but does have a flip side.
Technology has some benefits like finding out things, research, speaking to friends etc. It can be very useful for lots of different things. However, the internet can also be very scary. With social media you have so many people using it for different things, and not always good things. Also what you put on the internet is there forever and what you post could affect your life in the future.
The questions is; how long should I spend on my phone/technology?
Using social media can affect people sleep, education, physical health, and relationships. Which sometimes leads to bad mental health.
Many young people are wanting breaks from social media and technology but find it hard to switch off and get off their phone. Young people often end up seeing stuff like extreme body standards, cyberbullying, online peer pressure and harmful content.
Taking a break is useful because around 17% of young people feel digital life has a negative impact on their mental health, particularly as they get older.
Putting your phone away before going to bed can help with sleep. You should aim to get off your phone at least 1 hour before bed. Instead of going on your phone you could read a book, do some drawing or talk to the people you live with.
Phones and apps are designed to hold your attention with notifications, endless feeds and ads. Recommendations are built into platforms on purpose.
You can control this by turning off notifications, having time limits on certain apps or choosing apps that only make you feel positive.
Across the UK, the government is reviewing how phones, social media and AI affect children and young people. This may include having strict age limits on apps, platform design and online safety.
