Welcome to the very first CAISE Notes. Every week: what’s worth knowing about young people and AI, from the research, the policy, and the field.
This week: policy theatre, student agency, and an entry-point for getting hands-on with AI.
🔍 This week I’ve been thinking about…
Monday brought another UK government announcement about consulting on banning social media for under-16s — the second in as many months. I’ll confess I’m itching to respond formally, but there’s no formal consultation to respond to. I think next month?
Until then: the arguments against bans aren’t new. Young people face two distinct types of harm online: platform design problems (algorithmic amplification, infinite scroll); and criminal behaviour (deepfakes, harassment, fraud) that AI has made devastatingly easier to commit. Neither of these harms are age-specific — both affect everyone and require solutions that work for everyone.
Bans create a third harm that is unique to children: by choosing exclusion over education, we deny young people the literacy that comes from a mixture of education and lived experience. This generation could have been the first to navigate these risks well from childhood. Instead, it looks like we’re ensuring they won’t.
What’s striking about this political moment is the opportunity cost. The political capital spent on age restrictions could instead demand platforms fix their design for everyone, and build genuine digital literacy. That’s harder. But it’s the work that would actually help.
This is why Project CAISE feels urgent: understanding how young people actually navigate these technologies seems foundational to any policy that might help rather than harm them.
📰 Three things worth your attention
1. The UK Government’s proposals, explained — The Guardian
All the coverage summarises a Substack post from Keir Starmer, so here’s what you need to know: UK Government are looking at the ban on social media (which would be fast tracked into law by some legislative sleight of hand); extending online safety rules to AI chatbots (good), and forcing social media companies to provide children’s data after their death to coroners or Ofcom (also good). Worth reading alongside the House of Commons Library briefing for the evidence landscape.
2. What 200 students actually said when asked about AI policy — Honolulu Civil Beat
A high school sophomore writes about a Stanford-facilitated deliberation event where 200 students across 19 states worked through the future of AI in schools. Their conclusion was neither ban it nor embrace it uncritically — it was understand it. This is what genuine student voice looks like, and it’s a useful counterpoint to policies developed without it. (And gives me hope for excellent outcomes for CAISE!)
3. Adventures in vibe coding — Naomi Alderman, Whatever Works
Novelist Naomi Alderman spent a weekend building her own personal software tools using AI, with no prior coding experience. Her reflection on what it felt like (“a feeling of mastery and agency”) is a useful provocation: if we want young people to be critical, confident navigators of AI, the adults around them need to get their hands dirty too. (Paywalled, but the free preview makes the key point.)
🔁 ICYMI
“What I wish my parents or carers knew…” — Children’s Commissioner for England, December 2025
A practical guide for parents on navigating children’s digital lives — but notice whose voice frames it. The title is drawn from what children said they wished adults understood. There’s also a companion activity pack designed to be used directly with children, which is worth bookmarking for anyone working in schools, or any parent. In a week where policy is being made about young people rather than with them, this is a wonderfully useful document that I will refer back to repeatedly, I think.
🔬 What’s new with CAISE
The ethics proposal is in! For those of you who aren’t researchers, this is the major hurdle we need to clear before we can get on and research. It’s not a small piece of work — to do it right, you need to know exactly what you’re going to do, how, and what the risks are. Hopefully, we’ll have some good news very soon.
→ What are you seeing in your school, your research, or your own use of AI this week?
Let me know — or share this with someone who’s thinking about these questions.
