Under-16s could be limited to two hours a day on social media sites to break 'unhealthy' doomscrolling habits, says Cabinet minister
Peter Kyle, the Technology Secretary, said the Government was 'looking very carefully' at how to stop youngsters spending hours viewing online content.
The Cabinet minister warned that children were displaying 'compulsive behaviour' on some apps and 'need some help just to take control of their online lives'.
According to Sky News, a two-hour cap per platform is being seriously considered following ministers' meetings with current and former employees of tech companies.
A night-time or school-time curfew has also been discussed. The measures would block children from accessing apps such as TikTok or Snapchat once they hit a limit.
Mr Kyle told the TV news channel: 'I'll be making an announcement on these things in the near future.
'But I am looking very carefully about the overall time kids spend on these apps.
'I think some parents feel a bit disempowered about how to actually make their kids healthier online.'
The Technology Secretary added: 'I think some kids feel that sometimes there is so much compulsive behaviour with interaction with the apps.
'They need some help just to take control of their online lives and those are things I'm looking at really carefully.
'We talk a lot about a healthy childhood offline. We need to do the same online. I think sleep is very important, to be able to focus on studying is very important.'
Mr Kyle said his aim was to stop children spending hours viewing content which 'isn't criminal, but it's unhealthy, the overuse of some of these apps'.
He added that he wanted to 'tip the balance' in favour of parents 'not always being the ones who are just ripping phones out of the kids' hands'.
'I think we can incentivise the companies and we can set a slightly different threshold,' he continued.
A survey of 1,000 children from Darlington, County Durham, mostly aged 14 and 15, found that 40 per cent of them spent at least six hours a day online.
One in five spent as long as eight hours scrolling.
Most of the under-16s (55 per cent) had seen inappropriate sexual or violent content - often unprompted.
And three-quarters of the under-16s had been contacted online by strangers.
Under the Online Safety Act, sites containing potentially harmful content, like porn sites, will have to perform age checks on users.
Any company that fails to comply with the checks by this Friday could be fined or could be made unavailable in the UK through a court order.
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