Social media bans, time limits and digital curfews are being trialled in 300 teenage homes to inform the national consultation on children's online safety.
The digital wellbeing consultation has already received nearly 30,000 responses from parent on children. It will close on 26 May 2026.
The pilot will last six weeks and will test how different restrictions affect young people's day-to-day lives.
Each participant household will be assigned to one of four interventions.
One group of the parents will be instructed on how to use parental controls to remove or entirely disable access to selected social media apps, essentially mimicking the enforcement of a social media ban at home.
Another group will implement a one-hour-per-day cap on the most popular social media apps for teenagers, including Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.
The third group will block social media for their children between 9pm and 7am.
The last set will continue to give children the same access to social media they already have, to provide a control group.
The parents and children will be interviewed at the beginning and end of the pilots to understand the impact limiting social media has had on their family life, sleep and schoolwork.
They will also be asked about the practical challenges they have faced, for example the ability to set-up parental controls or the workarounds that teenagers have found.
The data from the trials will be assessed by government officials and a panel of academics alongside the public’s responses to the consultation.
Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said: "We are determined to give young people the childhood they deserve and to prepare them for the future.
"This is why we are listening to parents, children and experts with our consultation, as well as testing different options in the real world. These pilots will give us the evidence we need to take the next steps, informed by the experiences of families themselves."
Furthermore, a scientific trial is taking place looking at effects of reducing social media use among adolescents, such as changes in anxiety and sleep quality, as well as time spent with friends and family, wellbeing, body image, social comparison, school absences and bullying.
The independent study is funded by the Wellcome Trust and co-led by the Bradford Institute for Health Research and University of Cambridge psychologist Professor Amy Orben. It is set to begin later this year.
Around 4,000 students from years 8, 9 and 10 will be recruited from ten Bradford secondary schools.
Professor Amy Orben said: "We currently lack critical insights about how different types of social media policies might work in practice.
"Large randomised controlled trials, like the one in Bradford, will allow us to both better understand the impact of social media and select interventions that work for young people as well as their families."
