A new major study from the Nuffield Foundation and the Ada Lovelace Institute offers one of the clearest windows yet into how teenagers and young adults in Britain actually experience growing up in a world shaped by smartphones, social media and artificial intelligence.
And the message running through it is not simple outrage or enthusiasm. It is something more conflicted, captured in the report’s own framing: “I love it, but I hate it.”
The research focuses on 49 young people aged 14–24, drawn from Dundee, Shetland, Islington and Sandwell. Rather than surveying them at arm’s length, the study used peer researchers working alongside youth organisations, a method designed to make conversations more candid and less filtered by authority.
That matters, because this group represents what the authors call the first generation to grow up fully inside the shift from basic mobile phones to smartphones, from limited internet access to constant connectivity, and now into early encounters with AI systems.
Their lives also span another defining backdrop: the COVID-19 pandemic, which intensified reliance on digital spaces for education, friendships and entertainment.
One of the most consistent themes is what researchers describe as a paradox: young people feel both overexposed to technology and unable to avoid it.
On one hand, they are told to limit screen time. On the other, they are required to use digital systems for schoolwork, job applications and even accessing public services. That tension, the report argues, leaves many feeling they have little real control over when or how they go online.
The study highlights how smartphones and platforms are no longer optional tools but infrastructure, woven into education, communication and employment.
The benefits: connection, identity and support
Despite widespread criticism of platform design and harms, the report is careful not to reduce young people’s experiences to negativity.
Many participants described digital spaces as vital sources of support and belonging. For some, particularly those facing marginalisation, online communities provided access to advice, friendship and identity exploration that was not available offline.
Across the sample, young people consistently reported positive experiences too: entertainment, relaxation, communication and community-building all featured strongly.
In short, digital life is not framed as either good or bad, but as essential, uneven, and deeply embedded.
Alongside these benefits, the study documents repeated exposure to harm.
Young people described encountering sexual content, graphic violence and abusive material online, often at a young age. Some reported receiving explicit images without consent or having sexualised images of themselves shared among peers.
The report notes that these experiences were often not limited to “bad actors”, but also arose from platform dynamics, including algorithmic recommendations, age-inappropriate interactions and unsolicited contact, including adults seeking emotional support from children.
There were also concerns about hate speech, discrimination and a sense that harmful content is difficult to avoid or challenge.
Importantly, the report stresses that exposure to such material can happen before young people have the emotional maturity to fully understand it or recognise it as harmful, raising questions about how safeguarding should work in digital environments where exposure can be early, repeated and automatic.
A central conclusion of the study is that young people do not see their online experiences as neutral or accidental.
Instead, they describe platform design itself, including recommendation algorithms, gamification features and so-called “dark patterns”, as actively shaping behaviour and attention.
The report argues that many participants interpret these systems as prioritising engagement and profit over wellbeing. This perception leads to a broader sense of manipulation, rather than choice.
That is not just a technical concern. It shapes how young people understand agency itself: whether they are genuinely choosing what they see, or being guided by systems designed to hold their attention.
Mental health, surveillance and “always on” anxiety
The study also draws a strong link between digital environments and mental health pressures.
Young people described strategies for coping with harmful content, including curating feeds or limiting exposure. At the same time, many reported emotional fatigue, desensitisation and anxiety linked to constant exposure to distressing material.
Another recurring concern was surveillance. Participants described feeling continuously watched , by platforms, by data systems, and sometimes by social expectations embedded in digital spaces.
The result, the report suggests, is a persistent background pressure: being online is not just something young people do, but something they are aware of all the time.
The study also explored attitudes to AI, which many participants were still forming.
Views were mixed. Some were optimistic about efficiency or creativity. Others raised concerns about the impact of AI on employment, education, creative industries and interpersonal relationships.
There were also more systemic worries: that AI could reshape access to work, alter how information is produced, and introduce new forms of dependency or deskilling.
Crucially, these concerns were not only about misuse or illegal content, but about long-term structural change, how AI might reshape society itself.
Perhaps the most striking finding is not disagreement, but convergence. Despite differences in background and experience, many participants expressed similar conclusions about the direction of travel.
A recurring sentiment was that future generations should not experience digital life in the same way they did.
The report summarises this as a belief that “profound change” is needed, not just tweaks to safety tools, but a redesign of how platforms operate and how power is distributed between users and technology companies.
The timing of the report is significant. Across countries, policymakers are actively debating stricter controls on children’s access to social media, including proposals for age limits and bans.
In the UK, the introduction of child safety measures under the Online Safety Act has already reshaped regulatory expectations, while the regulator Ofcom plays a central role in enforcement.
But the study warns against focusing only on restrictions. It argues that design features — such as algorithmic amplification of sensational content or engagement-driven ranking systems — affect users of all ages, not just children.
In other words, even if access is restricted, underlying risks remain.
Seven policy directions and a warning against “quick fixes”
The report sets out several policy implications, but they broadly point in one direction: regulation must go beyond individual behaviour and address system design.
Among the most significant proposals:
- stronger age-specific protections across all digital spaces used by children
- safeguards to ensure restrictions do not remove valuable community support for marginalised young people
- “safety-by-design” requirements that reshape platform architecture
- stronger privacy protections to prevent excessive surveillance
- regulation of AI developers to address system-wide harms, not just content-level issues
- improved digital literacy for both children and adults — though not treated as a standalone solution
- and the creation of a dedicated youth governance body to inform digital policy
That final idea a standing panel of young people feeding directly into policy — reflects a broader conclusion of the study: that young people should not only be studied, but involved in shaping the systems they live within.
Perhaps the most important takeaway is conceptual rather than technological.
The report argues that separating “online” and “offline” life no longer reflects reality. Experiences flow between both. Harm experienced online has offline consequences, and vice versa.
That means, the authors suggest, policy cannot treat digital life as a separate domain. It has to be treated as part of childhood itself.
This study does not offer a simple verdict on technology. Instead, it presents a generation navigating a system they did not design, cannot easily exit, and increasingly must rely on.
Young people in the report are not rejecting digital life. But they are questioning how it is structured and who it is structured for.
And beneath the policy detail, that may be the central issue: not whether young people can live with technology, but whether technology can be made to live better with them.
