🚨 First they came for social media, next they'll come for parenting.
Today feels like a significant moment, not because of technology, but because of what it says about society.
I've spent most of my life around technology, from the days of the Commodore 64, BBC and Amiga, through the birth of the internet and now into the fastest period of technological change I have ever witnessed with AI, social media and the digital economy.
As a parent, I absolutely believe children need protection online, but I also believe this is becoming a question of government control and parental responsibility.
What concerns me most is not social media itself, it is the idea that politicians increasingly believe they know better than parents.
I don't need Keir Starmer telling me how to raise my children.
⚠️ That is my job.
Parents know their children better than any government department, policy maker or committee ever will.
👉 We decide when they get a phone.
👉 We decide what they can access.
👉 We decide the boundaries.
👉 We decide the consequences.
🏛️ Good parenting cannot be outsourced to Westminster.
What many people overlook is that social media is very different for today's generation than it was for ours.
TikTok and Instagram 📸 are not just places to scroll through videos.
They are platforms to showcase:
🎨 Art
📷 Photography
🎵 Music
👗 Fashion
🎬 Creativity
💡 Innovation
They are also places where young entrepreneurs learn:
📈 Marketing
🏷️ Branding
🎥 Content creation
🤝 Audience building
💰 Some are earning their first income before they leave school.
🚀 Some are building businesses.
🎓 Some are creating portfolios that help them secure university places, apprenticeships and jobs.
My own daughter studies graphic design, a creative portfolio often speaks louder than a CV. Research shows people form first impressions within seconds. A portfolio allows talent to be seen immediately in a way a traditional CV often cannot.
We constantly tell young people to be innovative, entrepreneurial and digitally skilled.
Then we consider removing access to the very platforms where many of those skills are developed.
The answer isn't simply to switch technology off.
The answer is better moderation, stronger safeguarding, digital education and accountability from the technology companies themselves.
⚠️ But what frustrates me most is that I think we're solving the wrong problem.
This feels like a classic case of focusing on the symptom instead of the cause. Politicians are debating how to restrict access to technology.
Very few are asking whether we are actually preparing children for the world they are about to enter.
The education system was largely designed for a different age, an age of factories, offices and predictable career paths. That world no longer exists.
Today's children are entering a world powered by:
🤖 AI
⚙️ Automation
📱 Digital brands
🎯 Personal influence
💼 Entrepreneurship
Many will have careers that don't even exist today. Many will work alongside AI every day. Many will build personal brands. Many will run businesses. Many will create content. Many will earn income online. Many will work for themselves.
Yet we continue teaching them largely through a curriculum that has changed far more slowly than the world around it.
If government genuinely wants to protect the next generation, why aren't we asking better questions?
👉 Why aren't we teaching AI literacy?
👉 Why aren't we teaching social media responsibility?
👉 Why aren't we teaching digital marketing?
👉 Why aren't we teaching content creation?
👉 Why aren't we teaching financial literacy?
👉 Why aren't we teaching entrepreneurship?
👉 Why aren't we teaching young people how algorithms shape what they see, buy and believe?
🎯 These are the skills that will shape the next twenty years. The irony is that many young people are already learning them.
They're learning them on TikTok.
They're learning them on Instagram.
They're learning them on YouTube.
They're learning them by creating, experimenting, failing and improving.
Instead of embracing that reality and teaching them how to navigate it safely, we seem determined to pretend the digital world doesn't exist.
That's why I keep thinking about Animal Farm, "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Orwell's warning was never really about animals.
It was about power, control and who gets to decide what is best for everyone else. Young people need safe places to learn, create, build communities, develop businesses and establish a presence in an increasingly digital world.
Parents should be empowered to guide that journey, not replaced by government policy.
To me, that's the real issue.
We're spending huge amounts of energy trying to control access to the future instead of teaching our children how to succeed in it.
That's not solving the problem.
🚨 That's avoiding it.
What do you think?
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