INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Media captionJames Reevell looks at the tricks technology companies use to keep you hooked on your phoneSocial media firms need to limit
features that hook youngsters on devices, Children's Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, has said.Streaks, the number of consecutive
days people have sent Snapchat messages to each other, should be dropped, she told the Telegraph.She also pinpointed autoplay videos and
algorithms that identify interests to serve youngsters with more content.Snapchat said its streaks were not designed to encourage
addiction.In an interview with the newspaper, Ms Longfield said: "I would like all these to be looked at and really reduced down, if not
taken away."The internet is set up to be addictive
All of the algorithms on it are silently working there to keep us addicted, whether it is the little dots that come up to tell you someone
is writing a reply, to the YouTube video that moves on to the next in a nanosecond."Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage caption
The health secretary thinks online addiction could be as problematic as obesity
A Snapchat spokesperson said that
Snapstreaks were designed to allow friendships to deepen over time and were meant to be light-hearted and fun.In recent updates, the streaks
indicator has been made smaller to make them less of a focus, the spokesperson added.The UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary
Matt Hancock does not allow his own young children to have mobile phones.The Children's Commissioner's words also echo those of Health
Secretary Jeremy Hunt, who said earlier this year that spending too much time on sites such as Facebook could pose as great a threat to
children's health as being obese.He has met with executives from Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Google and Apple to discuss the issues.He
asked them whether they could provide evidence of what constitutes too long online and whether they can provide ways of alerting children
who have exceeded that amount of time.Since the meeting, Apple has introduced Time Limit in its latest operating system
This will allow users to pre-determine how much time they should spend using individual apps and setting off an alert when that allowance is
used up.And, at its developer conference, Google also focused on moves to reduce screen-time, with pop-ups on YouTube telling youngsters to
"take a break" after a certain amount of time, pre-determined by parents.
