13:I[11240,["/_next/static/chunks/3o586ehrmrdn4.js","/_next/static/chunks/2bi1in_35ezbe.js","/_next/static/chunks/1rjk61tr7rkc_.js"],"CategoryPage"] 14:T1c66,

Evidence is building on the dangers of digital platforms and social media for children. Growing up as digital natives, they navigate complex online environments that may not have their best interests at heart. Now, adding to smartphone risks comes the challenge of AI. How can we create a safe digital environment and respect children's rights when parents and policymakers are struggling to understand all the implications?

Scotland faces a critical moment in approaching children's online safety. Future wellbeing and economic growth will depend on the next generation harnessing AI opportunities effectively. Getting the best from AI, while mitigating harms, will need co-ordinated delivery of the various current initiatives. Scotland has the potential to assess best practice in other nations and create its own distinctive policy approach.

Scottish children interact with AI systems through social media algorithms, educational apps, gaming, and smart devices—often without recognising these as AI-driven. Scotland has already begun exploring the problem and possible solutions. A promising initiative by the Scottish Children's Parliament takes a rights-based approach to AI, supporting Scotland's vision of becoming a leader in trustworthy, ethical, and inclusive AI. This project highlighted children's concerns about fairness, bias, privacy, and mental health, while recognising that children need education about AI as it becomes intrinsic to their daily lives. Policy might be best developed alongside consultation with young people about technologies that affect them.

The algorithms and design features that children encounter online are rarely developed to recognise their specific developmental needs or vulnerabilities. Social media may exacerbate pre-existing issues. Economic insecurity, diminishing social institutions, and uncertainty about the future create fertile ground for digital platforms to intensify anxiety, particularly among teenagers already prone to social comparison. The evidence points to specific design features and business models that contribute to harm.

To increase engagement, recommendation algorithms can promote content encouraging negative self-image. Similarly, social validation metrics like likes and followers encourage harmful comparisons, while infinite scroll feeds remove natural stopping points, leading children to spend far more time on platforms than they intend. These engagement-focused features can disrupt sleep patterns and reduce participation in essential offline activities. And data collection practices track children's behaviour to optimise for engagement, often without meaningful consent.

Studies worldwide have found associations between digital media use and mental wellbeing. UK guidance has noted correlations between screen time and reduced physical activity, depressive symptoms, and poorer diet. The Scottish Health Survey has identified patterns of increased screen time and poorer mental wellbeing scores among Scottish children and adolescents, along with sleep quality and anxiety issues. While causality remains difficult to establish in this relatively new field, we shouldn't be surprised that commercial digital environments prioritise engagement over wellbeing.

Yet these platforms are not without perceived benefits. Content consumption alone isn't necessarily harmful - it is the social comparison and validation-seeking aspects that may be most detrimental. AI brings additional risks beyond smartphones and social media, with more opaque data control than when using a single website or app. While AI promises productivity improvements and personalised learning, it simultaneously allows information to tunnel through boundaries. AI may eventually offer a way for users to represent their own personal interests and data permissions online in virtual form, but currently ownership is easily compromised.

The UK's Online Safety Act represents a step toward holding platforms accountable for harmful content, but further changes are needed. Removing "like" counts, limiting infinite scrolling, disabling autoplay, and creating friction in addictive features could help reduce psychological impact without eliminating benefits. Tech companies have begun implementing changes, though improvements like break reminders and screen time limits remain optional rather than default for young users. However, it now appears that the UK Government will delay AI legislation as it attempts to bring technology regulation nearer alignment with the US.

Scotland's incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into law provides a powerful framework for addressing digital wellbeing. This rights-based approach recognises children not just as vulnerable subjects needing protection but as rights-holders deserving of participation in decisions affecting them.

Foundations are already in place: Scotland has the opportunity to become a world leader in child-centred digital governance. Scotland may have little leverage directly with the big global tech companies but has influence with its schools and parents. We need clear standards for age-appropriate design, transparency, and data protection. These standards should require meaningful explanation of how AI systems work in language children can understand, and genuine options for control over personal data and algorithms.

To pull together a wide range of policies and organisations, here may be value in an independent commissioner position with the authority to set standards, monitor compliance and advise on good practice for young users. It would cover a broader range of action than existing roles and initiatives. Digital literacy education should go beyond basic online safety to include critical understanding of how AI systems work, how data is collected and used, and how to evaluate information online. Schools must incorporate robust digital citizenship and literacy, alongside mental health awareness, critical thinking about algorithms, and healthy technology usage habits.

Parents often report feeling overwhelmed by the rapid evolution of technology. Scotland should develop comprehensive resources to help parents understand digital environments, facilitate healthy conversations about technology use, and implement appropriate boundaries without cutting children off from beneficial aspects of the digital world.

Scottish universities and researchers could be encouraged to conduct Scotland-specific research on technology's impact on young people's wellbeing, ensuring policies are based on evidence relevant to Scottish youth. The goal is to create an environment where young people can access the benefits of digital connection without being subjected to features designed to manipulate their attention and emotions.

Scotland has always prioritised children's wellbeing. Now, navigating the digital age, we have an opportunity to lead in creating an online environment where young people can truly flourish. Coordinated action should bring together educators, policymakers, parents, and young people themselves to create a digital landscape that is safe and enhances our children's potential

15:T1142,

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16:T1805,

. Might Artificial Intelligence (AI) actually boost new businesses? France and the US think so, encouraged by signs in the data they collect on the growth of micro-enterprises of fewer than ten workers and solopreneurs operating in their own. This is not yet showing up in the less helpful UK data. But the trend in other nations points to opportunity for the Scottish economy; AI is a tool that can allow young enterprises to accomplish much more without the risks of a big workforce.

Regulation, employment law and accounting requirements are all a challenge for early stage businesses. Overheads for early stage entrepreneurs are growing. In less than two years, micro-entities will lose a filing exemption that currently avoids the cost of income statement reporting. Digital reporting adds to the complexity. But now AI can handle the drafting, admin, customer replies and scheduling that used to force a growing one-person business to make its first hire.

A single skilled person, with the right tools, can now run a larger and more capable operation than was possible even two years ago. This can also support the formation of craft and consulting activities that are always intended just to be solo operations. AI now bundles up online agents that replace employees and take a load off the solopreneur. It might be just one individual, but customer service feels a more comprehensive experience.

There is potential for business guidance and emotional support too - AI can act as a kind of thinking partner, filling the gap left by not having colleagues to bounce ideas off. This comes naturally to Generation Z, who have grown up in the digital world and tend to trust online advice. Older generations might push back at the idea of AI mentoring, but many young people already consult on their life decisions in this way. Going it alone and starting a new venture is tough; with AI coaching, every decision need not rest on one person.

In 2008, France created a simple registration and tax regime specifically for solo entrepreneurs; lowering the practical barrier to starting up and giving the state a proper count of who was doing it. New business registrations in France have grown roughly 80 per cent since 2017, with similar surges recorded in Finland and Australia. In each case it is solo founders rather than conventional employer businesses driving the increase. The UK has neither the simplified route nor the visibility that comes with it, leaving policy relying on estimates.

The UK has no clear, dedicated route for registering as a solo business as France does with its simplified micro-entrepreneur scheme, or the way the US effectively tracks new firms through tax filing numbers. Companies House data leaves out sole traders and the self-employed altogether. Official statistics typically only count self-employed people once they cross the threshold for VAT or for paying tax through payroll - a bar that many small or part-time solo ventures never reach.

The UK government relies instead on its labour force survey. But that looks unreliable : its effective sample size and response rates have fallen since the pandemic and the figures have since been downgraded to “official statistics in development”. The weakness of the statistics is recognised but the issues have not yet been fixed. In summary, a meaningful and probably growing slice of the Scottish economy is operating largely out of sight. Effective policy cannot be developed without a full understanding of the activity.

Although official statistics do not capture solo and micro-business activity well, some of the firms providing payments and other services to new enterprises are seeing growth. This is possibly the best window into what is happening, giving real-time data. One supplier notes that new business sign-ups on their platform have roughly doubled in the UK over two years, closely tracking a similar surge in the United States and France.

New technology has previously driven small business creation, with the internet making many solo business models easier to execute. Payments and delivery services, for example, have developed to meet the needs of small enterprises – no longer need a young business be at the mercy of inflexible suppliers like banks and the post office. Social media supports marketing and can give public presence to new or remote enterprises.

AI could boost this growth. Part of the reason businesses historically tended to be built by teams was that a single individual rarely possesses all the skills needed. AI and AI-based software can fill many of the gaps that founders have. Research suggests a trend towards lower headcount in “AI-native” companies that are building now without legacy. While there is public concern about workforce shrinkage in large enterprises, micro-entities might grow.

Self-employment still accounts for only around one in ten jobs in Scotland, a lower share than in many comparable countries, which suggests there may be room for the trend to grow further. The pattern also has a social dimension worth noting: much of the earlier rise was driven by women and by older workers moving into self-employment, which points to this being as much about flexibility and changing working lives.

However, this potential needs to be nurtured by government. There is a risk of a much noisier business environment. AI can support new enterprise but equally there is the possibility that it fosters a wave of fraudulent activity, creating mistrust of small online business. Without support, in the form of real-time verification, some micro-entities may find it difficult to demonstrate authenticity and build trust. There will be a role for new methods of accreditation.

AI will inevitably deliver some negatives for society and the economy – any positive opportunity it affords should be welcomed. Scottish data should be collected on solo and micro-business activity to allow supportive policies to be developed. Support for these emerging enterprises can be tailored to Scotland’s economy and communities

17:T185a,

Amidst all the celebrations, the US 250th anniversary this year should also be a time for reflection. Might the American economy be about to lose its dominance? The future for global trade - as new alliances emerge – looks set to become less favourable to the US. Already, President Trump’s enthusiasm for tariffs and military threats is actually weakening US influence in many areas, losing friends and soft power. Quietly, trade with the US is shifting; China and the EU are busy with alternative plans that will inevitably impact the UK and the Scottish economy.

For most of the last eighty years the United States led the world towards more open markets. Now it is doing the opposite. High tariffs, a push to make more goods at home, and a wariness of China have become policy in Washington. However, a clumsy belligerent approach to reconstructing its terms of trade has opened opportunity for the rest of the world.

Other nations are not sitting still as their US trade is hit. The European Union has responded by developing radical new trade deals. Brussels has struck a long-delayed agreement with the South American trading bloc that includes Brazil and Argentina, and is now pushing to close deals with India, Australia, the Gulf states, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Economists calculate they could offset most of the harm done by American tariffs. In time that would leave the EU better off than before, because the barriers being removed with these new partners are far higher than the American ones.

China, for its part, continues to spread its trade across more countries rather than depending on any single market. It is investing heavily through its Belt and Road Initiative in ports, railways and factories from Africa to South East Asia, and its trade with these partners is growing rapidly. Chinese firms are also setting up factories abroad, both to get around tariffs and because wages at home have risen.

Developing countries, too, are adjusting. Rather than waiting on Western nations to buy their goods, more of them are trading with each other. Trade within Asia now makes up a majority of that region's total trade, and that share is growing. Countries such as Vietnam, India and Indonesia are attracting factories and investment that once would have gone to China alone.

This is not without strain, since competing for the same investment can set developing nations against each other. China's subsidised exports are also squeezing manufacturers in poorer countries. But the direction of travel is clear: less reliance on any single superpower, and more trading among themselves.

There are good reasons to think the current determination by many to replace US trade will become a sustained trend. Tariffs introduced by the current Washington administration have stuck around far longer than many expected, surviving legal challenges. A tenth of the value of nearly everything America buys from abroad now carries an extra charge, and the tax on Chinese goods has been far steeper still. Trade between America and China has changed shape rather than disappeared.

American firms have been shifting where they buy parts and finished goods from, moving away from China towards Vietnam, India, and Mexico. Investment into Chinese factories has fallen sharply. Some assembly work has moved for countries such as Vietnam and India. However, Chinese firms still supply many of the parts that go into goods now assembled in Vietnam or Mexico before being sold on to the American market.

It is questionable whether this has improved US employment or resilience – China has responded to restrictions on US use of China’s technology by imposing licensing controls on exports of rare earth elements and the critical minerals used in semiconductors. China processes roughly 90% of the world's rare earths, and for some time will be a factor in the supply chains of Western defence, semiconductor, and electric vehicle sectors.

The push for resilience is not just about trade barriers. Vice President, JD Vance, has entered the debate on whether rich countries should simply want less, not just make more at home. He notes the weakness of conventional growth measures, like Gross Domestic Product (GDP), in capturing quality of life. The debate shows that the retreat from open trade is being driven by more than tariffs alone. There is a broader argument in the West about what a healthy, secure economy should look like. Scotland has already contributed to this debate with its emphasis on sustainable inclusive growth. Certainly, economic activity may be better with a sense of community, but most social programmes require prosperity. Citizens still tend to see wellbeing improvement in terms of progress in GDP per head, and that is reflected at the ballot box.

What does this all mean for the world economy? A less integrated trading system tends to mean higher prices for shoppers, since goods no longer flow to wherever they can be made most cheaply. It is likely to mean slower global growth, because duplicating supply chains in the name of security is expensive. And it tends to reward countries that can offer stability and skilled workers as alternatives to China, which is why nations such as Vietnam, India and Mexico are gaining ground.

At the same time, there is a genuine case for less concentration of manufacturing in one place. A world with several reliable suppliers of important goods, even if slightly costlier, may in the end prove stronger. Unfortunately, de-globalisation means that in recent years the world has seen an increase in fragmentation of finance and a decline in mobility and collaboration.

Scotland sits unusually exposed to decisions made in Washington; whisky and salmon exports to the US have dropped sharply this year. But some help has come from Asian markets, with Scottish firms recognising the need to diversify demand, rather than rely on America. Scotland has weathered change in the global economy before. New trade deals between the UK, the EU and fast-growing economies should broaden global growth and offer Scottish exporters attractive alternative markets in the years ahead

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