Banning Social Media for Under-16s: What You Need To Know - An Interview With Lord Bethell

What if we look back on social media the same way we now look back on smoking?

In this thought-provoking episode, we're joined by Lord Bethell, one of the leading voices behind the push for stronger online protections for children and the proposed social media legislation in the UK.

We explore why governments are finally stepping in, what age verification could mean for young people, the hidden impact of algorithms on developing minds, and why some experts believe social media has become one of the biggest public health challenges of our time.

But this conversation goes far beyond politics. We dive into addiction, loneliness, AI companions, the future of human connection, and the uncomfortable question of whether technology is serving us - or whether we've become the product.

Whether you're a parent, a grandparent, or simply someone who finds themselves endlessly scrolling, this is a fascinating conversation about where we're heading as a society and what we may need to do to reclaim our attention, our wellbeing, and our humanity. This is one episode you'll be thinking about long after you've finished listening.

Transcript

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The Midlife Mentors: short, then we'll You turned your email off and everything? Yes. Yeah?

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, let me turn this off.

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The Midlife Mentors: Panics me now. See? What would you do without me?

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The Midlife Mentors: You lost. You would. See you wearing it!

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The Midlife Mentors: It's a silent email.

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The Midlife Mentors: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Midlife Mentors with me, James. It's me, Claire. How are you all? We've done a couple without each other! We have, I did a solo one last week. And then I did a solo one… well, I had an inter… interviewee, but yeah, you weren't on it. Yeah, it's just been busy times, I think. I know, I know. But we're back together. We are, with another person. With a guest. With a guest. Actually, I was trying to think, Claire, have we had someone before?

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The Midlife Mentors: That has been on twice.

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The Midlife Mentors: Nope. Sud.

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Lord Bethell: Oh my goodness.

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The Midlife Mentors: We are thrilled to reintroduce Lord Bethel, formerly of the House of Lords, and you've played a huge role, and continue to play a huge role, in preventative health.

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The Midlife Mentors: But specifically, the subject we're going to talk around today, the new proposed social media legislation. You were kind of a key figure in putting through the age verification around pornography. You've been very vociferous in the House of Lords about the need for tighter controls around social media.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I know it's something that you're really passionate about, so we're thrilled to have you here talking about what this legislation could mean, and, well, if the government will even get it through, bearing in mind we have had a potential change in Prime Minister today.

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Lord Bethell: I know.

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The Midlife Mentors: Today, hot off the press. Thanks, James, for being here. Thank you so much for coming back!

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Lord Bethell: No, it's a hell of a day. And you're right, the, four… four or five years ago, when I was doing age verification for pornography.

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Lord Bethell: It was just a completely different world.

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Lord Bethell: most people, particularly the tech companies, but not just the tech companies, would say, there's no way it can work. You don't understand the internet, mate.

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Lord Bethell: You can't stop people from doing things on the internet.

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Lord Bethell: You can't oblige them to say what age they are. You can't tell a company to quiz

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Lord Bethell: their viewers on, who they are. It's impossible. It's… it's a misunderstanding of how the internet works.

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Lord Bethell: And we said to them back, no, that's wrong. Of course Google knows exactly how old you are. They have hundreds of thousands of data points on you. They know more about you than your wife or your husband. I mean, like, give me a break. And of course they've got the software.

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Lord Bethell: to do age verification, all ready to go. They're prepared for this moment, they just don't want to do it.

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Lord Bethell: And so…

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Lord Bethell: We chose the age verification for pornography route specifically because no one, not even Mark Zuckerberg, could argue that children should watch pornography.

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Lord Bethell: So, it was an unarguable good.

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Lord Bethell: And secondly, you can define pornography very clearly. There was a judge in 1963 who was asked how to define pornography. He said, I know it when I see it.

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Lord Bethell: And there is a certain truth to that. It's pretty obvious what pornography is, right? And there are legal definitions of it as well. Whereas some other things like harm and hostility and even incitement to violence, which should be clear, is sometimes ambiguous. Pornography… no, no, no. Pornography's pretty straightforward.

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Lord Bethell: So you've got those two things, it's an unarguable

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Lord Bethell: good, and it's easy to define. Therefore, it is quite an easy law to put in place. You don't have to have complicated definitions and worries about application.

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Lord Bethell: And I pushed hard at that in order to create the principle that there were two internets, one for kids, which was safe.

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Lord Bethell: And one for adults, which was fruity.

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Lord Bethell: And once we had established that principle.

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Lord Bethell: Then, other things, other opportunities open themselves up, and that's where we are today.

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The Midlife Mentors: That's great. I mean, amazing work there, James, and obviously so needed, because we're all too aware of the horror stories of some of the content that miners could access. And like you say, I guess that proves the case for them rolling this out to social media.

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The Midlife Mentors: Some of the legislation that they're talking about is quite far-reaching, but the first thing is the age verification, right? Like, banning it completely for the under-16s.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, well, what it opened my eyes up to is, well, firstly, the age verification can work, and it does work. I mean, it works incredibly well. You know, the pornography viewing numbers amongst kids have crashed. I mean, and what a relief! What a relief.

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The Midlife Mentors: No.

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Lord Bethell: By the way, most pornography is not kids looking

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Lord Bethell: It's predators and bullies pushing images

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Lord Bethell: at boys and girls. So this is not some… it's not answering some kind of teenage desire to watch naughty videos. It is, on the whole, grooming and bullying. That's… that's the pornography consumption amongst children, generally speaking.

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Lord Bethell: So we established the principle that verification could work, and that if you put it in place, it would protect kids

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Lord Bethell: From groomers, predators, and bullies.

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Lord Bethell: And then, it also opened my eyes up to how… how fed up children were with being addicted to the kids. So it's… it's the predators.

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Lord Bethell: It's the fraudsters. It's the filth.

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Lord Bethell: It's the algorithms that are very, very addictive and screw with your brain.

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Lord Bethell: And it's just the sheer quantity of time, you know, that's 6, 7, 8 hours on average. Not even peak.

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Lord Bethell: On, on, on average.

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Lord Bethell: And I suddenly began to realize that the world really would be a lot better if kids didn't have any of that in their lives. And we could try to tidy up the internet and try to create an internet that was safer for children, but actually the situation was so bad.

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Lord Bethell: There were so many predators, so much filth, so many fraudsters, so many algorithms, so much time. But actually, why don't we keep kids

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Lord Bethell: off social media altogether until their brains are a little bit more accustomed to it, when they're around 16. And when I first started saying it, people, even my own, even people in the, sort of, social media skeptic group were very hostile to it. Well, Bethel, you don't understand how the internet works.

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Lord Bethell: Actually, people get a lot of good things out of it. If you're lonely, if you're…

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Lord Bethell: If your parents are mean to you, you know, if you have peculiar interests,

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Lord Bethell: This is an incredible, valuable resource. People have incredibly rich lives, they found stuff on YouTube that they would never find before. Yeah, okay, maybe.

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Lord Bethell: But, boy, it turned really quickly. I mean, I was… I was staggered. And it was the… it was the parents of the victims, people like Ellen Room, who really…

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Lord Bethell: moved the needle. But actually, the science and the observed experience of doctors and social workers and teachers really began to play, and that really took over.

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The Midlife Mentors: And so, with the porn, legislation, when did that come in?

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Lord Bethell: that what was passed in 23, and it became effective in June 25. So it takes a little bit of time to write the codes.

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Lord Bethell: to send all the materials to the tech companies. I mean, too long, in my opinion, but, you know, you've got to take people with you a bit, so it does take a couple of years to come through.

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The Midlife Mentors: And you said earlier that that's actually dropped.

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Lord Bethell: Oh, yup.

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The Midlife Mentors: That's amazing.

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Lord Bethell: Particularly, I mean, porn. The kids really don't want to watch the porn. They hate it. And the girls, you know, you can just see, now that we're wised up to it, it's horribly abusive, it's violent, it's not normal, it's not rumpy, pumpy.

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Lord Bethell: Playboy magazines like I used to have at Harrow's School. Not that even that was great, but, you know, it was slap and tickle and fun.

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Lord Bethell: Sort of. I mean, I'm not trying to endorse the pornography industry, but it… today's pornography is vicious.

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Lord Bethell: nasty, violent, the girls are clearly abused, abused, and there's this horrible violence escalator that you start with, you know, something that might seem a little bit innocuous, but really quickly, you're into violent, abusive pornography. And even for the kids.

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The Midlife Mentors: And one of the things that you also said earlier was that… they don't…

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The Midlife Mentors: what surprised you was that these kids don't like it. So you said that about the porn, they don't like that, and they actually really wanted to reject it, but it was so addictive.

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The Midlife Mentors: That it's so difficult to wean yourself off it. So that's the porn thing, but you also said for social media, what… what were you… types of things were you hearing from these young people? What gave you that surprising.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, well the…

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The Midlife Mentors: insight.

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Lord Bethell: There is a lot of research,

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Lord Bethell: The Children's Commissioner, Rachel D'Souza, has done very good research with, in her last, piece of research, 300,000 children. So this is not anecdotal, this is

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Lord Bethell: And they don't like the social pressure. They… the nastiness is two things. One is, algorithmically, the dopamine hit draws you in. I mean, adults have this, I have it, I have to leave my phone downstairs. It's a real struggle, we all hit that. But, you know, we're adults, we can make our own decisions. For kids.

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Lord Bethell: their frontal lobes aren't fully developed, they are really susceptible to that Moorishness, that sort of crack addict component of the algorithm. And no one, I mean, it doesn't leave you refreshed or, you know, they're really empty calories. It's a horrible feeling to have spent hours doing that. And then secondly, it's just this social pressure.

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Lord Bethell: Which, for different people, it means different things, but, you know, if it's your looks, how much you're spending, what holiday you're having.

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Lord Bethell: And the bullying, and the social coercion.

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Lord Bethell: Just day in, that it is absolutely inescapable.

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Lord Bethell: And so many people, like, the majority of people, have some horrible story of a video was taken of them doing something embarrassing and sent around the whole school.

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Lord Bethell: I mean, just all that vicious schoolyard stuff. Now, kids will be competitive and give each other a hard time. I don't think that's going to change.

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Lord Bethell: But for it to be amplified and put on a huge platform on a, you know, national, global basis, I mean, it's horrible. Absolutely horrible.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah. I mean, we all know the arguments for putting this in place are really strong. Of course, other countries, like Australia, have already successfully…

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Lord Bethell: but James, it's not… I mean, honestly, the roll call of countries… I mean.

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Lord Bethell: Embarrassingly, there was always countries that did it. They were China. I have a lot of cousins in China. Their kids were never allowed on social media. You've got to be kidding. There's no TikTok in China, I can tell you. No way. They're too smart. They won't, you know, their kids are learning maths and engineering, they're not wasting time.

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Lord Bethell: doing TikTok videos. And of course, a lot of the Islamic countries. Now, we don't cite them as examples, because they don't share our values on democracy, transparency, courtesy, but they're not stupid either. You know, they were protecting their kids in a way that somehow we didn't.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, so I guess an issue might be…

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The Midlife Mentors: if this ban, or when this ban comes into place, obviously for the social media companies, that's like a big tranche of their audience gone, which has an impact on their business model. So how do you think they're gonna adapt to this?

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Lord Bethell: Well, I think that they're now making money in other… I mean, my heart's not bleeding.

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Lord Bethell: They've always misrepresented it. They've always sort of said, oh, we don't make any money out of kids. That's rubbish. I mean, James, you and I have worked in the youth marketing game before. Kids are incredibly lucrative.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah. Within a… within a family group, the kids make a lot of the decisions, even about buying a car or a house, or…

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Lord Bethell: So…

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Lord Bethell: selling children's eyeballs is huge. And also, if you've got kids doing 7, 8, 9 hours a day, that's a lot of eyeballs, right? There's, what, 15 million kids in the country doing 10 hours a day? That's a lot of hours to sell. So, I think they will take a hit on the advertising.

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Lord Bethell: And on… and on their influence. But they've known this was coming. I mean, I… I… you know, my… this was…

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Lord Bethell: set in stone that this was going to happen. And they've got other ways of mining data. I mean, what I'm worried about is, of course, that this will now go into AI bots.

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Lord Bethell: And, they'll now use different types of algorithms, different types of intelligence, different types of engagement. And we'll just have to start all over again.

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Lord Bethell: We had a parent at school who turned up with the meta glasses.

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Lord Bethell: And you know, there was a little bit of a huddle, and he was asked to take the metal glasses off, because they are quite creepy.

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Lord Bethell: And walking around a girl's school with metal glasses on. Probably not a great idea. So, you know, we're gonna be giving up.

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Lord Bethell: you know, the kids are going to be giving up Instagram, but there's going to be a whole ton of other challenges on the horizon.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, I was gonna say, do you think that's an issue? Like, we've got… we've got the known channels, of course, all the brand names, you know, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook…

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The Midlife Mentors: With AI now being the force it is, you know, is there technology yet that we don't understand coming down the track that we're going to have to regulate again?

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Lord Bethell: Oh, 100%. I mean, I had no idea that these AI bots were going to be as addictive as they are.

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The Midlife Mentors: So, for the layman person, because I'm not very good at tech, or understanding it, what do you mean by that, so all our listeners can be a bit more clued up?

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Lord Bethell: Well, well, you know, Claire, give it a go. You can either just do it with regular chat GPT.

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The Midlife Mentors: Okay.

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Lord Bethell: up and start asking personal questions, and it becomes, you know, a bit of a habit quite quickly to start asking ChatGBT or whoever.

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The Midlife Mentors: I say…

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Lord Bethell: It's on pretty much anything. Hi, my friend Claire has asked me to do a podcast, what should I say? Hi, my friend Claire, you know, this, that, or the other. And before long, you're asking, you know, you're not doing anything. And then you can start programming

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Lord Bethell: Subscription services that will be your friends.

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Lord Bethell: So you can say, well, I don't have many friends, so I'm gonna create my own friend called Fred.

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Lord Bethell: And then you start asking Fred, you know, you start having a relationship with Fred. And then they're… they're very… they become sexualized very quickly, a lot of them.

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Lord Bethell: So you can then have a boyfriend called Fred, and you can start having intimacy with Fred, and it gets into your brain, really, in a big, big way, and you can find, people spending lots of hours giving up their external relationships.

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Lord Bethell: And if the bots aren't, well, programmed, start in… you know, if you start asking Fred, oh, I'm thinking about committing suicide, or thinking about murdering my neighbor, or I'm thinking about, you know.

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Lord Bethell: cutting my arm off. They're not very reliable friends. Advice they give you is not always very sensible. So, yeah, there's real danger, and…

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Lord Bethell: Of course, they're trying to get the dopamine hit, as did TikTok and Instagram, so… so they know that that's done by flattering you, by avoiding contradiction.

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Lord Bethell: By trying to elicit your excitement and interest. So these are not reliable people.

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The Midlife Mentors: Hmm.

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The Midlife Mentors: Wow. We've already seen, I guess, at a local institutional level, I guess, a kind of bank. I mean, we've heard, like, schools, you know, saying no phones at school, or that people have to put them in lockers at the start of the day, and…

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The Midlife Mentors: What challenges do you think a government is going to face at a national level, implementing this type of legislation?

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Lord Bethell: Well… Legislation is always, you know, we live in a consensual country. On the whole.

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Lord Bethell: You know, we don't have coppers on every door… on every street corner.

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Lord Bethell: enforcing the law. We've only got 120,000 coppers enforcing the law for the whole country. And so, if you bring in a law.

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Lord Bethell: You've got to kind of hope that people are going to jog along with it.

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Lord Bethell: And the law… of course there are fines, and of course there are criminals that… and the law is a very, very serious matter.

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Lord Bethell: But its impact is often not as a writ to take a load of people to court, it's to try to

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Lord Bethell: Affect legal change, which includes, in part, culture change.

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Lord Bethell: And so,

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Lord Bethell: you know, you bring in a 20 mile an hour speed limit, as we have now in London.

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Lord Bethell: And it's tough, because we, you know, I was brought up driving all around London at, you know, breathtaking speeds, and I have to learn to adjust.

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Lord Bethell: But my… my mindset has adjusted over the last 3 or 4 years, and I am now super cautious about bicycles and children, and my whole attitude, you know, it doesn't occur to me now to sort of

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Lord Bethell: punch the accelerator and go down Park Lane at 100 miles an hour, like I used to when I was a teenager.

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Lord Bethell: Sadly. And so what you're trying to do… and so we aspire in our technology to be a little bit the same, to try and set some guardrails that not only protect the children, but also

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Lord Bethell: create a framework for people to understand the technologies that they're playing with. So if it's a car.

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Lord Bethell: May, with the greatest respect.

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Lord Bethell: driving around London in a two-ton car, when there are children and bicyclists all over the place, not a good idea. You've got to kind of do it slowly, and there's good factual reasons for doing this.

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Lord Bethell: If it's a phone, mate, with the greatest respect, spending 8 hours a day on your phone chatting to your, you know, kinky bot, not a good idea. Probably better to try and get to the gym and, you know, do some social work and…

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Lord Bethell: you know, go and see the granny next door who needs some help. You know, like, you're trying to convey a better way of life to people. And that's hard, and you can't use law to set culture completely. In fact, there are dangers to doing it. But definitely guardrails that point people in the right direction, I think is fair enough.

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The Midlife Mentors: Hmm. It's interesting, I wonder if we might see the development of a completely new type of platform that's just, like, much more positive.

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The Midlife Mentors: That has transparent algorithms and is all geared around positive information and learning.

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Lord Bethell: Well, we haven't… we do…

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The Midlife Mentors: bed.

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Lord Bethell: we have this dilemma, that I feel very keenly, that the science of

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Lord Bethell: Playing with people's behaviors and drilling into their brains has leapt forward.

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Lord Bethell: So we have it in food, where, you know, God, blimey, delicious food is so Moorish, you know, caramelized cream and chocolate cereals and…

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Lord Bethell: crisps and what have you, I mean, you can quite easily snack your way through the day and get into the habit of doing that, and the food is just so Moorish. Gambling, I mean, if you enjoy sports these days.

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Lord Bethell: And you're bombarded with the advertising, and everyone around you is like, oh, I think it's gonna be a corner, not a corner. I'm gonna… you know, like, every 15 seconds, people are laying a new bet here and there. Pornography, you know, like, oh my goodness, I haven't…

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Lord Bethell: you know, I haven't felt sensual for an hour. I need to… I need to… and, you know, that's… that's how people start watching porn on the Tube or in the House of Commons. So… so the algorithmic and the drilling into our brains and our hypothalamus has just become so sophisticated.

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Lord Bethell: And the legal, you know, the way of regulating it is tough.

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Lord Bethell: I mean, a 16-year-old ban on social media, I mean, that is a… not a… that's… that is brutal.

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Lord Bethell: That is the equivalent of a 20 mile an hour speed limit in a city. It's sort of as far as you ever want to go in terms of law, and by the way, will have negative consequences. It's not going to be perfect. There are going to be people who, I don't know, will…

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Lord Bethell: feel lonely or not find out about, I don't know, model guidance in the way that they might have done.

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Lord Bethell: But, that's where you end up, and so I… there is this pitched battle between the science of the brain and our attempts to try to create an environment where people can lead healthy lives.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah. It was actually, just as an anecdotal thing, I put something on LinkedIn the other day about ChatGBT.

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The Midlife Mentors: And there was a piece of… there was an article that had come out

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The Midlife Mentors: about… I think it was Gen Zs. Now, I'm gonna try and remember, I think it was a third of Gen Zs would prefer to chat to their AI bot than speak to a real human.

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The Midlife Mentors: There was a piece of research that had come out.

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Lord Bethell: Yup.

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The Midlife Mentors: And I don't know how big that…

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The Midlife Mentors: that piece of research, like, how many people they did that on, but anyway, so I put it up on LinkedIn, and actually, this broke my heart, because there was actually someone underneath, and it did make me think differently. You saying about the negative implications of that, and loneliness, and how people were saying, oh, you know, but there are good aspects of it. There was this young lad that had put underneath my LinkedIn post that

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The Midlife Mentors: that him and his girlfriend, have got their chatbot, and she's called X…

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The Midlife Mentors: They don't have any friends, they don't have any family around, they moved away, and… and she makes them feel really good about themselves, and it was just… it was heartbreaking, and everyone underneath was actually really compassionate and really kind to him, rather than, like, lay… because that's not helpful either, laying into this poor lad, saying, this is just…

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The Midlife Mentors: like, mentally unstable behaviour, that actually what we were trying to do on that post was understand.

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Lord Bethell: I learned.

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The Midlife Mentors: Why… how… how in society we've even got.

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Lord Bethell: Oh, no.

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The Midlife Mentors: To that stage.

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Lord Bethell: No, I agree. I took a Waymo, you know, one of the robot taxis in Los Angeles.

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Lord Bethell: And, it was lovely. You got him.

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Lord Bethell: It drove beautifully.

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Lord Bethell: No erratic, mad, driving habits.

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Lord Bethell: the route it took, I totally agreed with. I didn't feel like I had to lean over and say, mate, do you want to…

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Lord Bethell: The cab was impeccable. So clean.

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Lord Bethell: And no back chat, no kind of, like, asking me about squirrels, or immigration, or trying to sell me, you know, E's and whiz, or a gun, you know, or any of the crazy.

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The Midlife Mentors: What taxes do you take, Dave?

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Lord Bethell: I know, someone wants to try to sell me a gun in a taxi. I mean, like, mate, it's like… And so, I got out, and I thought… and I… now, in LA, I only use Waymo, but I feel bad about it, because part of the, you know, richness of life is having a chat with taxi drivers.

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Lord Bethell: I don't know, I don't know what the answer to that, I don't…

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The Midlife Mentors: I know.

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Lord Bethell: proffering a theory there. Yeah. And definitely, clinically, some of the bots are working very well. I am really surprised by this, but I have it on very good authority. A friend of mine runs a platform for people who have suicidal thoughts, one of the two big ones, Samaritans and hers.

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Lord Bethell: They have a whole call center full of people who are incredibly well trained in order to coach and talk to people who are thinking about suicide. You know, really, you know, we all know someone who's committed suicide. I mean, what a wonderful asset. And she said that for a certain type of person, particularly men.

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Lord Bethell: Not only, but particularly men, and particularly sort of slightly autistic-y men. Doing it by chat rather than talking takes out, you know, diffuses the conversation a bit, so that's what they found was quite good. And then chatting with a bot, now they have very highly trained bots.

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Lord Bethell: that know exactly how to behave, they have a whole stack of telephone calls from the past that they train their bots on. Very, very highly regulated. So they're very, very careful about it. But there are some people who will find that reassuring, and prefer the privacy and the emotional, kind of.

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Lord Bethell: And… and they have really good stats on their suicide numbers coming down, because they are now able to reach a type of person who was never very keen on phoning up and having, you know, a mumsy

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Lord Bethell: Prying person who they felt uncomfortable with chatting to them.

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Lord Bethell: So, listen, this is… there's a huge amount of richness and value in all of this insight. It just breaks my heart that a lot of capitalists have chosen

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Lord Bethell: to use their power in a way that is not productive. Definitely not. And do you know what? For adults, I think it's sad, but it's kind of their lookout.

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Lord Bethell: But for the kids, you know, really, spare me. I mean, like.

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Lord Bethell: Using all of your science and your power to…

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Lord Bethell: chew up 8 hours a day of children's time on rubbish.

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The Midlife Mentors: Heck.

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Lord Bethell: You know, you need to get a better life than that.

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The Midlife Mentors: sell them stuff they don't need, effectively.

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Lord Bethell: And introduce them to predators and lie about it. I mean, Snapchat and the predators. I mean, it's just ridiculous.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's what I gleaned from that comment. I was like, I… it was less…

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The Midlife Mentors: It was less, like, scoffing.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: Oh, how ridiculous, and more, oh my goodness, like.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: How… how have we got to a stage where that's…

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The Midlife Mentors: That's a good option, and that his loneliness, is being… is being helped Through a bot.

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Lord Bethell: Yep.

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The Midlife Mentors: And he's got a girlfriend. I'm thinking…

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The Midlife Mentors: So… Watch out, I might stop. I was going to do that joke earlier on, but it was a serious moment where James was speaking, and I was thinking, I won't make that joke now, but I was about to say, watch out, James, because, you know, an AI bot will be way more flattering towards me than you are.

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Lord Bethell: No, I've got to be honest, I was just sorting out my mobile phone, you know, real pain in the ass thing to have to do.

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Lord Bethell: And I had a phone call and a chat going on at the same time.

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Lord Bethell: And I ended up hanging up on the phone call, because it was so painful, and I sorted it out on the chat with the bot, and the bot got me there.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yes.

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Lord Bethell: Dum… you know, the chat person was perfectly nice, and I… but just was painful, like…

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Lord Bethell: Whereas with the… it was a lot easier. So, I mean, yeah, we're all… you know, we already have a very fragmented society, there's a lot of loneliness, and a lot of, sort of, slightly weird behavior. Yeah, there's a lot more to come.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah. James, I know how long is a bit of string, but how long do you think it will take the government to get this through, and for it to become…

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Lord Bethell: A couple of years.

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The Midlife Mentors: Copy in.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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Lord Bethell: Everything will be judicially reviewed.

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Lord Bethell: The tech companies will fight every… everything. But, you know, the Australian model, they got that through very quickly. They have a very similar legal system.

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Lord Bethell: It's hugely popular amongst voters.

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Lord Bethell: Yes.

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Lord Bethell: Ofcom have got the pornography template already in place. I don't know, maybe it'll be quicker than that.

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Lord Bethell: Okay. They haven't… they haven't timetabled it, and it's still…

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Lord Bethell: In recommendation and consultation phase, so it hasn't, yeah. There's a way to go.

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Lord Bethell: And there's absolutely no sign

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Lord Bethell: that the industry, in any way, want to, sort of, have any self-restraint. Yeah, the measures they put… the child protection measures that big tech put in place. I've got 4 kids. I mean, they are a joke! My 10-year-old takes that stuff to pieces in 5 minutes!

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The Midlife Mentors: Well, we've all seen the interviews, haven't you, where a journalist is in with one of these tech people, and they're like, you know, you say you're removing stuff about self-harm, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they'll be like, here's one, here's one, here's…

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, I know.

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The Midlife Mentors: And they're like, oh, we need to go and look at that.

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Lord Bethell: Oh, and James, you know, my… a couple of years ago, my son was 17.

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Lord Bethell: If you look at my, Twitter feed, because I'm obsessed by politics, it's all Dan Hodges and Jon Snow and Laura Koonsberg. I mean, it's pretty, you know, with the occasional bit of porn that sort of gets chucked at me.

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Lord Bethell: My son's interests are Kim Kardashian, Ronaldo, rap stars, and it is full!

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Lord Bethell: Full of porn.

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Lord Bethell: Because he's a type.

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The Midlife Mentors: Right.

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Lord Bethell: And it's pushed at him. I mean, you know, because they know who he is.

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Lord Bethell: And, at 4.30 every day, it's full of Deliveroo.

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Lord Bethell: 30 every night, it's full of Deliveroo. Ping, ping! Five guys. Ping, Deliveroo. Five guys. You know, like…

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Lord Bethell: They know who the kids are, and they push them really hard.

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The Midlife Mentors: It's disgusting. It makes me so angry.

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The Midlife Mentors: It's irresponsible capitalism.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: James, it's been thrilling and fascinating.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: If listeners could take away just one message about their own relationship with social media, what would you want it to be?

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Lord Bethell: I think we're gonna look back at it like smoking, I really do. You know, I smoked a bit. I quite liked smoking for a bit. You know, if you've ever smoked a cigarette, it's obviously bad for you. You really don't need a doctor to tell you it's a…

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Lord Bethell: But I did, and now when I look back, you know, if I look at a pack of cigarettes, I just think to myself, oh my god, what was I thinking? That was a terrible idea. I haven't had a cigarette in a long, long, long time. I do think we will look back at doomscrolling and all of that, and just think, what were we thinking?

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah.

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Lord Bethell: a mistake.

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The Midlife Mentors: It's really difficult, because I was saying to James the other day, I mean, I went away for 9 days 2 years ago. I remember it very well. It was August, just for my birthday, 9 days without any devices, and I just went on kind of, like, a clear, silent retreat. I didn't spend.

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Lord Bethell: jump.

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The Midlife Mentors: one for nine days, no devices, I just had books and a journal. I was a changed person for 9 days.

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Lord Bethell: What's the change?

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The Midlife Mentors: Creativity.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, combo.

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The Midlife Mentors: Healing. Healing. Yeah, my central nervous system just completely, like, regulated. I had more time to think, and a lot of people are afraid to think, because they're worried stuff will bubble to the surface.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah.

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The Midlife Mentors: bubbled to the surface, but I was able to map it out almost in my head, and make connections, and then

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The Midlife Mentors: heal from that. Yeah. It was unbelievable. Like, I came back, more grateful.

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Lord Bethell: Yep.

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The Midlife Mentors: Things, more creative.

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The Midlife Mentors: less scared about just putting the phone away for long periods of time. And I said to James, you get hooked back into it. You know, you were saying, we're all addicted to it. There was a guy that I saw on LinkedIn, and he's doing,

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The Midlife Mentors: like, a series of… a journey with me with my flip phone. So he's got a Star Trek or something, he's got a flip phone, he's got rid of his smartphone, and gone back to…

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Lord Bethell: This unknown.

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The Midlife Mentors: what would that be like? But then you start thinking of all the things that you usually.

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Lord Bethell: well.

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The Midlife Mentors: Home for, and it's.

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Lord Bethell: I do, so I have a balanced phone, so it has WhatsApp, Maps, and, Bank, but it doesn't have any Chrome, any social media.

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Lord Bethell: So, it does clear my brain.

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Lord Bethell: But, it's a pain in the neck. Like… Yep.

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Lord Bethell: half a dozen times a day, I am caught out trying to verify something, you know, like, the practicalities of modern life are so embedded.

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The Midlife Mentors: Exactly.

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Lord Bethell: in it all.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah. So I'm following him, but he's already… he's being brutally honest about all the challenges it throws.

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Lord Bethell: I think you have to be semi-monastic, and just say, you know, I've just done, whatever, 11 flights in 14 days.

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Lord Bethell: Doing that without a telephone.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah. Because my visa's on there, my.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yep.

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Lord Bethell: Every boarding card is on there, you know.

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The Midlife Mentors: apps.

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Lord Bethell: Absolutely. So you have to… you have to embrace the fact, I'm going to print all my boarding cards, I'm going to have cash for the taxicabs.

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Lord Bethell: I'm gonna have a telephone book in case… yeah, so you… you have to… yeah, I know.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, I mean, in an ideal world, I'd love to go back to it, but then I started figuring it out, thinking, okay, yeah, maybe I won't be done.

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Lord Bethell: My funny life. I've just redone a… we bought a house in the country, and we've made it low-tech. No cameras, no Xenon lighting, no… I mean, it's, like, super, super low-tech.

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The Midlife Mentors: Oh, wow.

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Lord Bethell: Really nice.

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The Midlife Mentors: Fat.

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Lord Bethell: Yeah, it's refre… I mean, it does… it makes me feel calmer.

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah. Okay.

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The Midlife Mentors: James, thank you so, so much for this. And your insight. Of course, people can hear more from you on your amazing prevention.

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Lord Bethell: Yes!

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The Midlife Mentors: Yeah, fantastic.

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Lord Bethell: Thank you for mentioning that.

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The Midlife Mentors: Fantastic. It's on all the podcast platforms, it really is an in-depth, insightful.

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The Midlife Mentors: I guess, overview of everything happening in health and politics, particularly around preventative health. We have great guests, great chat on there with your co-host, Steve. So yes, check that out, prevention is the new cure. Where else can we connect with you, James?

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Lord Bethell: Brilliant. James, Claire, thank you for having me, and thank you for your leadership, particularly on midlife issues, of which I have a great many.

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The Midlife Mentors: It's always great speaking to you, James, it really is. Thank you so much for coming on again.

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Lord Bethell: You bet, take care.

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The Midlife Mentors: Thanks!

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Lord Bethell: Bye.