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Not necessarily. The headline refers to an Opinium poll, reported by The Register, in which around one-third of surveyed Britons thought life would improve if social media disappeared from the internet tomorrow. That is a substantial minority, not evidence that most people chose to erase every platform. The same report found that 7% viewed social media as a force for good, while 49% said they used it more than 16 years earlier.
What did the poll say about erasing social media?
The Register reported that Opinium found around one-third of respondents thought life would get better if social media were erased from the internet tomorrow. The accessible report does not provide the exact question wording or the full distribution of responses, so the figure should not be read as a vote to delete social media—or as proof that a majority would support doing so.
The article also reported that just 7% considered social media a force for good. These are different questions: a low share seeing a positive force does not tell us how everyone else would answer a hypothetical about removing it.
What else did respondents think about social media?
The figures below are those reported in The Register‘s summary of Opinium polling. Several are approximate descriptions, rather than exact percentages. The accessible summary does not establish that every result came from the same respondent base or identical question wording.
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| Reported finding | What it indicates |
|---|---|
| 7% | Thought social media was a force for good. |
| Around one-third | Thought life would improve if social media disappeared from the internet tomorrow; the exact question wording and full answer distribution were not available in the summary. |
| 42% | Called social networks addictive. This records respondents’ views, not a clinical assessment. |
| Around half | Thought social media was worse for society than in 2010. The report discussed misleading information and algorithmic curation, but the finding does not establish that these caused the perceived decline. |
| More than half | Thought commercialization had contributed to social media’s decline. |
| 49% | Reported using social media more than 16 years earlier. |
| 31% | Reported using social media more to view content than to post. |
The Register’s 1 October 2026 report is the source for these headline figures.
Why are negative views and increased use happening together?
The juxtaposition is notable: respondents reported concerns about social media while nearly half said they used it more than 16 years earlier. The figures describe attitudes and reported behaviour side by side; they do not explain why people keep using the services they criticize. Reasons such as keeping in touch, following news or entertainment may be plausible, but the reported figures do not establish them.
The reported shift toward viewing rather than posting also matters to how “use” is understood. Time spent scrolling or watching content is not the same behaviour as publishing posts, and the poll summary does not say how much time respondents spent on platforms.
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The phrase “social media” can mean different things: a respondent may picture large commercial networks, while another may include a broader range of online spaces where people communicate. A forum commenter raised this definitional issue in response to the report. The available summary does not establish a detailed definition used in the disappearance question, so its result cannot be confidently extended to every service or community that might fit the label.
How does the under-16 restriction finding differ?
A separate Opinium survey asked about a policy focused on restricting under-16s’ access, rather than removing social media for everyone. Opinium’s April page reported support for an Australian-style restriction among 66% of UK adults and 72% of parents; support among 18–24-year-olds was 51%. It also reported that seven in ten supported fines for companies whose platforms expose under-16s to harmful content. These measures concern age-focused regulation, not a blanket deletion.
Among supporters of the under-16 restriction, 69% cited reducing harm to young people and 66% cited improving their mental health as reasons. Among opponents, 49% cited excessive government control and 42% said the restriction would be difficult to enforce. These are reported reasons from the survey, not a resolution of the policy trade-offs.
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Opinium’s April page describes the Australian measure as having taken effect in December 2025 and covering ten platforms, including Instagram and TikTok. That is the survey page’s description; it does not establish the current legal status of any equivalent UK policy. See Opinium’s social media and mobile phone attitudes page for the separate findings.
How much weight should readers put on the numbers?
Opinium’s published account of related online-safety research says it surveyed nationally and politically representative online samples of 2,000 UK adults and 1,110 parents on 20–22 May 2026. Opinium’s research page gives those field dates and sample sizes. The Register characterizes its cited research as a thought-leadership exercise not commissioned by a commercial or government entity.
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Those method details do not fill in the missing information for every result. The accessible pages do not show the exact disappearance-question wording, response options, weights, subgroup bases or uncertainty intervals. Without those details, the figures should be treated as a snapshot of reported opinion, not a referendum or a precise estimate of how Britons would vote on a concrete proposal.
Nor do attitudes establish effects. Calling networks addictive, or perceiving society as worse off, does not demonstrate that social media causes addiction, misinformation or social division. The poll reports what respondents said; it does not, by itself, test those causal claims.
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