UK Sets Default Midnight–6 a.m. Social Media Curfew and ‘Infinite-Scroll’ Switch-Off for 16–17-Year-Olds

Governments have long tried to shelter youth from new mass media—think Britain’s 9 p.m. TV ‘watershed’ rule (1964) or the U.S. Comics Code Authority of 1954—only for technology to outrun each fence. This latest move signals a broader 2020s trend: reframing platform design as a public-health matter, much like seat-belt mandates in the 1980s or child-labour limits in the 1833–1878 Factory Acts. While the 300-person study is slim evidence and the opt-out loophole plus easy VPN work-arounds may blunt impact, the precedent of state-mandated software defaults could, over decades, normalise algorithmic safety standards across AI and immersive media. On a 100-year horizon, whether this specific curfew sticks may be less important than the shift from laissez-faire ‘move fast’ ethos to a regulatory era treating code as infrastructure subject to youth-protection rules.