ON A sunny Wednesday in May, early in the morning, four coaches left different Church of England secondary schools in Bracknell, Slough, Waddesdon, and east Oxford. We had invited 100 young people to share in the middle day of our clergy conference for the diocese of Oxford, in Swanwick.
The young people (aged 15-17) helped to lead our eucharist as musicians, intercessors, readers, and preachers. We were inspired. After lunch, they divided into groups of about eight, each with a group of 15 or so clergy. We listened to their hopes and fears — for their own lives, for the world, and for the Church. Three months later, we are still talking about their visit in all kinds of ways.
Uppermost in the list of concerns these young people brought to us was technology and the effect it has on their lives. This included AI generally, the use of Chat GPT by pupils and teachers, deepfakes, the changing nature of jobs and employment, and the way in which their lives are being shaped by algorithms.
These young people are all digital natives. Each has grown up with the internet and social media. All of them are worried about the effects of such technology on their lives.
THE debate about mobile phones in schools and classrooms has been bubbling for some time. Two years ago, the Online Safety Act became law, following an eight-year campaign for better regulation of social media.
I was closely involved with a cross party-group of peers in seeking to strengthen the protections in the Bill for young people and for adults. Part of that work involved paying attention to the harms and abuses caused by exposure to adult content, self-harm material, unwanted sexting, and the like.
We were briefed regularly by a group of parents whose children had taken their own lives, in part because algorithms had driven harmful content to their devices, or the devices of others close to them.
Last year, Jonathan Haidt published his landmark book The Anxious Generation: How the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epic of mental illness (Penguin Press, 2024). It is a powerful exposition of the actual harm caused by prolonged exposure to social media during early adolescence, and how this can differ between boys and girls. It also considers how society needs to pay much more attention to the damage potentially being done to concentration levels, and learning, by the continual presence of phones in schools.
On a visit last autumn to one of the diocese of Oxford’s ten church secondary schools, I saw how a new head had taken the courageous step of banning phones during the school day (through the use of lockable pouches for everyone up to sixth form).
What difference had this made? Concentration levels were up; discipline problems were down. Most surprisingly, there had been no fights at all that term. I asked what the connection was. “It’s because they cannot be filmed and posted on social media,” came the response.
MORE widely, we have seen a rising tide of parent and teacher resistance to mobile phones, and calls for legislation that bans phones in primary and secondary schools in ways that are genuinely effective.
Ninety-seven per cent of pupils of secondary age own a mobile phone, and most of these devices are smartphones.
The Government issued guidance in February 2024 asking all schools to prohibit the use of mobile phones during the school day (including the lunchbreak) and cited a range of benefits, including educational, social, and mental health.
As is well known, some bans are more effective than others.
Phones and social media are incredibly addictive, for adults as for young people. A simple request, or any school rule, that is not enforced can easily lead to the use of phones covertly during lessons, behind textbooks, for example, or under desks.
In the school I visited, lockable pouches and occasional random scans were vital to enforce a ban effectively, to the point at which it brought tangible benefits to students and teachers alike.
There remains a growing call for legislation to enforce this kind of ban. I think this is needed, as part of the way in which schools support and defend children during the most vulnerable years, while the young brain continues to develop.
I am mindful that it took eight years to agree the online-safety legislation we now have, and that the need for action for this generation of teenagers is now very urgent indeed.
But school head teachers, governors, and other school leaders have it in their power to implement a more effective ban now, and I hope and pray that many will do so. The learning and mental health of a whole generation is at stake.
ALONGSIDE a ban during school hours, there is a vital need to teach and encourage children and young people to use technology carefully. This involves acquiring the skills and habits needed to be able to function, as well as participate as responsible citizens of the digital world for the whole of their lives, and to make the most of the good that technology can do.
Sadly, the threat from tech is growing. The Netflix drama Adolescence, released earlier this year, was a harrowing and accurate depiction of the ways in which young boys are being shaped by technology. A mobile phone gives access to a world of misinformation, and exposes children to warped formation.
My current and disturbing reading is a new book by the sociologist Laura Bates: AI and the New Age of Sexism: How the AI revolution is reinventing misogyny (Simon & Schuster, 2025). Among other things, it explores the prevalence and ease of producing sexualised deepfakes and the different ways in which these can have an impact on young men and women.
Technology can be used for good. But unregulated and unrestricted technology is an increasing means of harm to young minds. The wider Church of England must wake up to the dangers in parishes, schools, and families, and lead the debate for change, education, and responsible regulation.
Dr Steven Croft is the Bishop of Oxford, co-chair of the Anglican Communion Science Commission, and the Church of England’s lead bishop in the House of Lords on Science and Technology. He was on the Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence.
