The parents of a 16-year-old boy who took his own life after suffering from ‘screen addiction’ have joined calls for a new social media ban for children and young teenagers.
Chris and Jo Barber lost their son Leo in November 2023 after the youngster suffered months of depression linked to his extreme phone and computer use.
The youngster from Beckenham, southeast London, who was also diagnosed with autism, became increasingly withdrawn after using chat and gaming platforms to speak to people over the internet.
His favoured sites were Discord and Steam, which are both currently available to those who are 13 or older.
Mr Barber, 51, said he feared his son had also ‘suffered self-radicalisation’ after he stumbled across a US ‘suicide’ chat site.
Last night, he told the Mail on Sunday a social media ban for under-16s could help parents navigate difficult conversations with their children about the dangers of the internet.
He said: ‘Jo and I support a ban on social media for under-16s as you could at least have a conversation with your kids and tell them that the government would consider you to be a bad parent if you let your child access them before 16, in much the same way that you’d be a bad parent if you were to facilitate their smoking habit.’
Chris and Jo Barber lost their son Leo in November 2023 after the youngster suffered months of depression linked to his extreme phone and computer use. Leo and Jo are pictured
After Leo’s inquest at South London Coroners’ Court in September, assistant coroner Edmund Gritt recorded a verdict of suicide
However, he added: ‘Although a good first step, the ban would only protect children in Leo’s situation if the parents had full sight of their online activity, for example if you could review what your child was accessing.
‘Leo would have had no problems bypassing security measures and accessing sites such as this with a VPN.
‘Ultimately the only solution is to make platforms liable for what their users publish then these sites would disappear overnight.’
Mrs Barber, 53, said that vulnerable children – particularly those who are neurodiverse – were suffering with isolation, which then led to an over-reliance on screens.
She said: ‘No child should feel like suicide is their only option and the trauma of how Leo died will never leave me.
‘There are too many neurodiverse teens in crisis and too many being lost to suicide.’
For the year leading up to his death, Leo had not been able to attend school due to his poor mental health.
On the night of November 28,2023, he crept out of the home he shared with his parents and twin siblings to take his own life at a nearby train station.
Dame Rachel de Souza, Children’s Commissioner, delivering a speech during the King’s Fund conference on children’s health, at the King’s Fund in London
After his son’s death, Mr Barber managed to access Leo’s laptop where he was horrified by what he found.
‘Parents desperately need more help in getting children off smartphones and online platforms,’ Mr Barber said.
‘He had been looking at suicide forums for quite a while. He’d used a fake date of birth.’
After Leo’s inquest at South London Coroners’ Court in September, assistant coroner Edmund Gritt recorded a verdict of suicide.
Afterwards, he wrote a Prevention of Future Deaths report copying in Google’s vice president and managing director, outlining his concern that a teenager could access a suicide site.
He said in his report: ‘For an extremely vulnerable person such as Leo, it would provide an environment in which he might find collective approval for taking the step of ending his life and be reinforced in that step by that approval.
‘I conclude that Leo’s exposure to the website probably would have acted to reinforce his decision to end his life and as such contributed to causing his death.’
Australia has become the first country to ban under 16s from using almost all social media apps.
Meta announced this week that it had blocked almost 550,000 accounts in the first month of the ban – 330,639 on Instagram, 173,497 on Facebook and 39,916 on Threads.
For confidential support, call Samaritans on 116 123, visit samaritans.org or visit www.thecalmzone.net/get-support
