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Reflecting on social media for young people at the Digital Good Network Summit, Gina Halliwell

Published 21 May 2026.

I am a full-time post graduate researcher in Psychology at Staffordshire University in the final stages of writing up my PhD which focuses on children’s online safety and digital resilience. My research has worked towards co-creating a digital resilience toolkit with primary school children where they can use peer-to-peer teaching methods to guide safe and informed use of digital technology.

One of my favourite emails to receive is the Digital Good Network newsletter. I attended the Summer School in June 2024 and I’m always keen to engage with the events they organise. On Thursday 30^th April 2026 I attended Professor Amy Orben’s keynote at the Think Tank Museum in Birmingham. In June I will be visiting Sheffield again to attend a Policy Masterclass.

I have followed Professor Amy Orben on LinkedIn for a while and was very much looking forward to listening to her talk. She highlighted the importance of thinking about the advancements in technology in the present day in comparison to the introduction of the radio in the 1930s, the TV in the 1960s, and there are many more we can add to this list (landline phone, desktop computer, the internet).

Policy is something I am always considering as I am intending to create a toolkit that schools can embed within their current curriculums to support children in the present digital world. The only way this can become a useful tool is by sharing it with the people who make decisions about school education.

As an early career researcher in this field, it worries me that we as a society are starting to implement prohibitive strategies regarding children’s use of digital technologies. Professor Amy Orben’s keynote made me compile a list of reflections, which then led to a list of questions which I would like to share here.

Reflections:

Technology is a part of society, this is necessary and unavoidable.
We must balance actions and risks – will there be more harm if we act on the unknown or is it better to act based on evidence we have gathered?
Is it possible to take a safety by design approach? How would this approach benefit from involving the children in these designs as they often understand more than we think they do, and more than those trying to change things on their behalf.

Questions: What happens now?

If social media is banned, if devices are banned or limited, what happens to all of the research currently being carried out aiming to make children safer online, through the content they access, as well as ensuring they are appropriately educated to be safer online?
What happens when someone turns 16, do they suddenly know how to behave online, do they know how to avoid harmful content? How can they know if they have not had guided opportunities to allow this to be the case?

About the author

Gina Halliwell

PhD researcher

Gina Halliwell is a full-time PhD researcher in psychology at Staffordshire University focusing on developing children’s digital resilience. She is also a part-time lecturer in psychology at Staffordshire University. As a qualified primary school teacher, her research is influenced by psychology and education and her interest in children’s online safety stems from experiencing the primary computing curriculum and recognising that children need more opportunities develop skills to recognise, manage and recover from online risks. Gina attended the 2024 Digital Good Network Summer School to broaden her awareness of digital research across different disciplines.

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