Guiding the AI generation: Why safeguarding and digital literacy must go hand-in-hand

Source: Google Date: 2026-06-10 URL: https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/around-the-globe/google-europe/united-kingdom/safeguarding-and-digital-literacy/

Summary

A Google-commissioned piece by Dr. Jeffrey DeMarco of Save the Children UK argues against blanket social media bans for under-16s in favour of a “scaffolded” approach combining platform regulation with adult-guided digital literacy. The argument rests on Google-commissioned research of 6,000 UK teens showing 67% use AI for creative projects daily or near-daily. DeMarco’s framework calls for graduated supervision (strong initially, shifting to coaching as children mature), stricter regulation of harmful design features, and a national behaviour-change campaign for adults — rather than prohibition.

Implications

• Regulatory framing through third-party voices. Publishing the argument under a Save the Children byline rather than a Google author is a standard positioning move: Google signals opposition to outright bans while maintaining plausible separation from the lobbying. Relevant for tracking how AI labs and platforms are shaping the regulatory conversation around youth safety.
• 67% daily AI use among teens is a data point worth tracking. If this figure is representative, it means AI-native workflows are arriving in the next adult cohort much faster than adoption curves for prior consumer technology cycles.
• Feeds: agent safety/governance, voices/power dynamics (youth as stakeholders in AI governance), regulatory environment.