Fitness professionals have a key role to play in mitigating the harms of social media, says school smartphone researcher, Dr Victoria Goodyear.

Associate professor in pedagogy, physical activity and health at the University of Birmingham, Goodyear led The Smart School Study, which was funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research in the UK. This three-year study, ran from 2022 to 2025 and involved 1,200 pupils from 30 UK schools that had a mix of permissive policies and mobile phone bans.

The first worldwide evaluation of the impact of school phone policies on adolescent mental wellbeing, the results were unveiled as this topic blows up around the world. Phone and social media use are increasingly being blamed for the alarming decline in mental health of under-16s. Australia has recently banned social media for this age group and there is lobbying for the same in the UK.

While researchers found there is no difference in outcomes for adolescents attending a school with a smartphone ban compared to those at schools which take a permissive approach, they did find that the more time young people spend on their phones and social media, the worse the outcomes in terms of mental wellbeing, anxiety, depression, physical activity levels, sleep, disruptive classroom behaviour and educational attainment in English and maths.

Goodyear told HCM this means that tackling phone use in schools isn’t enough to make an impact, the issue needs a holistic, multi-faceted approach and the fitness industry has a role to play.

“We found that adolescents are spending four to six hours on their phones per day and two to four hours a day on social media. Restrictive school phone policies only reduce phone use by around 40 minutes and social media use by 30 minutes a day, which isn’t enough to make a difference to overall,” she says.

The University of Birmingham is calling for the apparatus to be put in place to support children and young people to thrive in a digital society where tech's not going away. Goodyear uses the analogy of cars, which are potentially dangerous but have safety built into the system with driving licences, seat belts, educational campaigns and awareness building.

“There are two key priorities,” she says. “One is age appropriate design of phones and social media – embedding features and technologies that have children's wellbeing in mind. We want to see measures that don't promote endless scrolling that can be associated with keeping people on their phones and an end to algorithms that can promote harmful content. This is being picked up on in the Online Safety Act.

“The second priority is to equip young people with digital skills that are conducive to their wellbeing. Education is also needed for parents, schools and teachers to remove the gaps between what adults know about young people's phones and social media use and what young people are actually doing on their phones.

“It's about building up a broader societal and ecosystem approach that's addressing everybody involved with young people, rather than just addressing the schools as one isolated context.”

As well as working with policy makers, schools and teachers, the University of Birmingham is working with UK Active on the implications for the fitness sector. “The fitness sector could actually lead the way in this,” says Goodyear.

“Lots of the content young people look at is related to body image and we know that a lot of fitness professionals are active on social media, so they have a responsibility to educate young people and be good role models.

“The fitness industry could take a lead role in showing how mobile phones can be used in positive ways to impact physical activity and sleep and that moderate levels of sensible, responsible and safe use could be supported at the same time.”

With an international study showing that following fitness influencers can motivate young people to exercise more vigorously and eat more fruit and vegetables, but often at the expense of their mental health, it’s time for the fitness industry to take ownership of the space with solid advice and appropriate messaging.

There will be more coming from the University of Birmingham soon: in August the research team will start work on creating resources and guidance from the study into actionable solutions. A further study has looked at how phone use at school impacts young people socially and those findings, as well as data on how parents should approach the issue, will be released at a later date.