For Lauren Cowell, the decision to let her and partner Simon’s 12-year-old son Eric have a phone was something she was not going to take lightly. As she began to research the effect of social media on young people, she came across powerful stories from parents who had lost their children to the dangers of the internet and the issue moved from a personal debate to a passionate cause. 

Lauren has recently lent her voice to the Raise the Age campaign, which wants to ban all social media for every person under the age of 16 in the UK. And she won’t rest until that goal is implemented into law. “I think we need to act to protect our children because they are vulnerable and they don’t have the voice and the capacity to advocate for themselves,” she tells Hello! exclusively. “We need to be the ones who do that for them.”

© Hoda Davaine

She came across Raise the Age while thinking over her son’s request to have his own phone. The situation came to a head when she realised that Eric, who would borrow her phone to play music in the car, had downloaded Snapchat on her device without her knowledge. 

“The majority of his friends have a smartphone and are on social media platforms and he was often saying to Simon and I, ‘Why can’t I have a phone?’” she explains. “I knew from my personal use that it is like a slippery slope and once you’re on these platforms, it’s quite difficult to get off. I researched it and came across parents who had lost children due to social media-related circumstances and that really grabbed my attention.”

Vowing to help

She soon came across the story of Ellen Roome, whose 14-year-old son Jules tragically took his own life in 2022 after taking part in what she believes was an online challenge. After reaching out to her, the pair became close and Lauren vowed to do all she could to help Ellen and other bereaved parents implement a social media ban for under 16s.

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“They are trying to make sure that no other parent has to go through the devastation and heartbreak they’ve been through, and that really gave me the motivation and the drive to commit myself to this,” she says. After asking ‘How can I help?’ they encouraged her to use her platform to raise awareness. 

She recently visited the House of Lords to attend a debate on the issue and also reached out to her and Simon’s celebrity friends for support with stars like Robbie Williams, Cheryl and Leona Lewis joining in the campaign. “They really got behind this, which means so much,” she says. “This is a real opportunity for us as parents and all of us who fundamentally believe that children don’t belong on these social media platforms.”

An important open dialogue

After thinking over her own situation, and not wanting Eric to be alienated from his friends if he couldn’t communicate with them, Lauren, who also has son Adam, 20, says she and Simon agreed he could have an Apple phone without any access to Google or Safari or social media apps. “He is supervised on his phone,” she says. 

“I always try to encourage him that if anything doesn’t feel right or he doesn’t understand, he can always come to myself or Simon to talk about it. I never want him to feel like he did something wrong. I think it’s really important to have that open dialogue with your kids.”

With Parliament still debating the ban, she continues: “We’re not there yet, but the fact that the government is now taking this seriously is a huge step in the right direction.”