Bauer commercial chief urges action over social media and mental health ‘deterioration’
The Future of Media London
Bauer Media will help combat “shockingly common” mental health issues associated with social media, the company’s advertising chief has pledged in a blistering attack on online tech.
Simon Kilby, managing director of Bauer Media Advertising, told The Future of Media London on Wednesday that the impact of social media on younger people was a personal issue for him as the father of two men who have suffered mental health issues.
“My younger son has had an especially difficult time over the last few years. Right across our community, social media is being increasingly linked with the deterioration of our nation’s mental health.
“My son is in a much better place now. But when you go through this as a family, what you quickly discover is it’s happening everywhere — friends, friends’ kids, everything that comes into your social circle… It is becoming shockingly common.”
‘We are at risk of eroding our legacy’
Kilby said his son’s challenges have been “incredibly disturbing and quite difficult to talk about”.
The experience, he added, has made him “radically reduce my own social media activity”.
He continued: “As soon as you give a child a mobile phone with access to the internet and social media, it will become a central focus in their lives. Rather than just looking at that as a really neat targeting opportunity, we should be asking: what impact is that having on them?
“Our legacy has been built on supporting great, high-quality journalism, joyous radio, great TV, cinema. We are at risk of eroding this legacy by funding platforms that are increasingly linked with growing mental health crises and they’re just doing harm.
“We need to be very careful as an industry that the next generation of people attending a conference like this do not look back and say ‘our generation was asleep at the wheel’ and we need to do something about it.”
Initiative to ‘protect our communities’
Kilby stressed he did not intend his intervention to be interpreted as a call for advertisers to reduce adspend on social platforms and recognised that many Bauer brands and presenters benefit commercially from building audiences on platforms like X, Snapchat, TikTok and Facebook.
However, having spoken to “agencies and clients about this [issue] all the time”, Kilby indicated a frustration of “everyone understanding the situation, but action is then not forthcoming”.
The owner of Magic and Absolute Radio will announce, Kilby revealed, an “upcoming initiative” that will “help protect our communities and ultimately our industry”.
“Bauer have a responsibility to educate and help our audiences navigate this new environment,” he added.
‘Inaccurate and misleading’ legal claims
Kilby’s intervention came a day after 12 US states launched legal action against TikTok for intentionally creating a social media platform that is addictive to young people.
The lawsuits, which include the country’s largest state of California, allege that TikTok design choices such as infinite scrolling, push notifications and in-app purchases prey on the youth and create addictive habits among users. There are over a billion worldwide users on TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.
Michael Hughes, a TikTok spokesperson, said in response to the legal action: “We strongly disagree with these claims, many of which we believe to be inaccurate and misleading.” Hughes highlighted safeguards including proactive removal of underage users, default screen-time limits and default privacy settings for users under 16.
Bauer’s social media awareness initiative will follow its “Where’s Your Head At?” campaign, which has successfully lobbied for mental health first aiders in every workplace in the UK.