Org Report

Digital and Media Literacy in Secondary Schools

Jun 2026 🇬🇧 Molly Rose Foundation

This June 2026 research briefing from the Molly Rose Foundation — founded and chaired by Ian Russell — examines how UK secondary schools teach children about social media, algorithmic recommendation systems, and harmful online content. The foundation's public summary describes significant gaps in current teaching, including limited dedicated curriculum time, uneven staff training, and inconsistent coverage across year groups, with algorithmic literacy — helping students understand how recommendation systems decide what they see — described as particularly under-supported relative to its role in exposing young people to misinformation, conspiratorial content, and material the foundation associates with self-harm risk. The briefing argues that stronger digital-literacy education is one policy response to the exposure patterns documented in the foundation's other research. This entry draws on the foundation's summary page, not the full briefing. TechKids Foundation includes it as a solutions-oriented education-policy resource, not a clinical claim about any student.

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CITATION

Molly Rose Foundation. "Digital and Media Literacy in Secondary Schools." Research briefing, June 2026. https://mollyrosefoundation.org/resource/how-secondary-schools-teach-about-social-media-algorithmic-recommendations-and-harmful-content/

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