By Joakim Reiter, Chief External & Corporate Affairs Officer, Vodafone Group
As a parent, I’m not ashamed to admit that I often feel out of my depth when it comes to the digital world my children inhabit. I work in connectivity. Yet at home I often struggle to understand what they are seeing, how it’s affecting them, and how to have the right conversations without sounding either naïve or alarmist.
That sense of unease isn’t unique to parents. It was echoed powerfully at the ‘Connected Childhood – Building Resilience in an Online World’ event hosted in London by Vodafone Foundation and Save the Children. And it’s backed up by the wider evidence in the accompanying new report.
The findings should give all of us pause for thought:
- Across nine European countries, young people are more connected than ever. But most are surviving, not thriving, in their digital lives.
- Only one in four rate their digital wellbeing as good or high.
- Nearly half worry about missing out when they’re offline.
- And three in ten say being online often leaves them stressed or upset.
Access is high. Wellbeing is not. That gap is not accidental. It is the result of design choices.
This didn’t just “happen”
One of the most important takeaways from both the research and the event discussion is that the digital environment is not a neutral space. It has been consciously shaped by business models, by engagement metrics, and by features designed to keep people scrolling, clicking and staying longer than they intended.
Young people told us that clearly. Doom‑scrolling, autoplay, hyper‑targeted feeds and constant notifications aren’t bugs. It’s working exactly as intended.
But when platforms are engineered for constant engagement, the cost shows up elsewhere: in sleep, in attention, in mental health, in identity and self‑confidence. Harm doesn’t always arrive dramatically. More often, it accumulates quietly.
And it doesn’t only affect teenagers. Adults struggle too. The difference is that young people are growing up inside these systems, often without meaningful control over how they work.
Safety can’t be an afterthought
Another standout from the event was how long we’ve collectively accepted this imbalance. Social media has been with us for nearly two decades. In most other industries, we would never accept products operating at scale for that long without basic safety features baked in.
If cars had run for 20 years without airbags, we wouldn’t call that innovation. We’d call it failure.
The same principle applies online. Safety and wellbeing must be built in by design, not bolted on after harm occurs. That means regulation has a role to play, setting clear horizontal expectations that apply across platforms, rather than chasing individual incidents one by one.
It also means the companies behind those platforms - including those of us in the broader tech and connectivity ecosystem - taking responsibility earlier, not later.
AI raises the stakes even higher
The conversation at the event also made clear that artificial intelligence changes the equation again. AI is accelerating the speed, scale and persuasiveness of digital experiences. Without strong guardrails, it risks amplifying the very pressures young people are already struggling with.
Responsible AI cannot be a slogan. It has to be integrated at the point of experimentation rather than after products are released into the real world. Every organisation working with these technologies has a responsibility to test, anticipate misuse, and course‑correct fast.
Young people are not the problem. They are part of the solution
One of the most hopeful moments of the evening came from listening to young people themselves. They are far more aware, thoughtful and resourceful than we often give them credit for. Many already recognise the downsides of the platforms they use, and they want to be part of shaping something better.
I was reminded of this recently during a visit to a Vodafone Foundation refugee school outside Cairo, where students talked passionately about wanting to become coders and app developers. Digital tools, for them, weren’t just sources of distraction. They were pathways to opportunity.
That’s the future we should be backing.
Watch the event video below:
Three things we need to do now
So where does this leave us?
First, we must insist on safety and wellbeing by design, through regulation where necessary. And we need clearer accountability for platforms whose products shape daily life for millions of children.
Second, we need to exercise the choice we’ve avoided for too long. This is not inevitable. The digital world was built by human decisions, and it can be reshaped by human decisions too - if we act together.
Third, we must listen to young people and equip them, not sideline them. We need more than just access. Programmes like Skills Upload Jr show what’s possible when we combine digital skills with resilience, ethics and agency.
We have the power to change course. The evidence is clear. The voices are clear. And the time to act is now.
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