Mark Gilmore, a policy adviser at the Evangelical Alliance United Kingdom, believes the government’s plan to ban social media for under 16s could present the church with “missional opportunities” to provide the “real-world community” that many are searching for.
In a question-and-answer session with Evangelical Focus, Gilmore shied away from addressing the rights and wrongs of the controversial policy, instead focusing on the response of churches and how they can best serve their young members.
The ban on social media is expected to come into force early next year and follows similar actions taken in Australia. Supporters claim it will protect young people from predatory behaviour, harmful content and addiction.
Meanwhile opponents suggest it is government overreach and is actually intended, not to protect children, but to keep tabs on adults, who will be required to provide additional personal information to prove they are exempt from the ban.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the policy, Gilmore noted that a hard ban alone would not be enough to protect children from the dangers of social media.
“A social media ban is not a silver bullet; many teens will easily evade it, and so broader online safety reforms are needed to protect the vulnerable," he said.
Young people, he said, also need the support of the adults in their lives and in the real world community they live in.
Gilmore noted that for many young people, a large part of their social life takes place on social media, and that switching it off could be “devastating”.
“As we have seen with the ban in Australia, teens may feel isolated and frustrated as they work out how to rebuild the time they have invested online into the real world," he said.
“This is where youth clubs, camps, missions and spaces where young people are known and loved beyond their online identity become so important.
"There are serious missional opportunities to provide young people with the real-world community that they have been deprived of for too long.”
