• Children can be exposed to weapons, violence & suicide content on social media.
• Domestic abuse charities say young people are being exposed to harmful ideas about teen relationships online.
• Charities and organisations say social media can "make young people feel worse".
• Experts say mobiles phone can be useful for learning, with the right controls.
• We've spoken to young people about how their views on social media.
• Children at a secondary school have told us how they've found a smartphone-free challenge.
• Social media companies say they are taking the issue seriously and working to remove content.

Journalists Harriet Robinson and Andy Howard used fictional profiles as part of a week-long investigation into how teenagers might see harmful content online.

This is the response from social media companies here.

Deputy Chief Constable Katy-Barrow Grint of Gloucestershire Constabulary is in our studio talking to BBC Points West presenter Amanda Parr about whether teenagers should, or shouldn't, be considered as victims of domestic violence.

And David Wright, chief executive officer of online safety charity SWGfL, tells Amanda manufacturers need to make it easier for parents to monitor phones.

Much of the discussion around online safety focuses on teenagers, but younger children often go online to watch videos or for gaming.

There is a huge range of resources aimed at primary school children available on BBC Bitesize here.

Earlier this week, we reported how a mum has started a campaign to highlight the danger of phones for young people as pupils get ready to take exams.

Miranda Wilson, from Bath, set up Teched Off to raise awareness of the dangers of social media and smartphones for young people.

She said: "What I would like is really simple; one is legislation to stop under-16s being on smartphones and social media and two is a public health campaign so parents are educated about the harms."

At a discussion event in Bath this week, she screened a film about the dangers of smartphones for children, featuring interviews with health professions who are part of the group Health Professionals for Safer Screens.

Dr Rebecca Foljambe, founder of the group, said children are dealing with issues like "very poor sleep" and body image concerns.

Twelve-year-old Louis, a student at Bournside School in Cheltenham, said he had been "spending a lot more time playing games and football with my brother" after cutting his smartphone use over the past month.

He told us he would usually be on his phone "before and after school", mainly to play games and watch videos but said "frightening videos did keep coming up" on certain apps.

Faith, 12, said she has been "spending more time with family" and "becoming less reliant on screen time" since going smartphone-free.

Benjamin, 11, said he used to watch YouTube regularly, but when his mum took it off his phone he said it was the "first night he spent hours outside in the garden with his sister".

"I've noticed I'm doing so much more outside and my sleeping patterns are better," said Jemima, 13.

Staff at Bournside School in Cheltenham are encouraging pupils to go smartphone free until at least Year 10.

Find out how they are getting on in this clip above.

Pupils at King's Oak Academy in South Gloucestershire spoke to BBC Points West presenter Amanda Parr about online safety.

Student Lillie told her she would like parents to help educate them in online safety.

She said: "When you're not told what to do, how are you supposed to be expected to know what to do? If you're a parent and you're going to let your children have a phone and be online, you need to take on that responsibility and educate them, and lay down the rules."

See the full chat with pupils on Points West tonight at 6.30pm on BBC One.

'Talk to young people about challenging content online'published at 16:20 British Summer Time 15 May

16:20 BST 15 May

Image source, Karl Hopwood

Karl Hopwood is an independent e-safety expert and works with the network of Safer Internet Centres across Europe.

He told the BBC that social media can be a positive place to "communicate and learn", but that young people can be exposed to "very challenging content on subjects such as suicide, self-harm and eating disorders".

He said sextortion scams (blackmailing people when they have shared explicit images) was becoming more widespread on mainstream social media platforms.

"There's a lot to be concerned about."

He said the most powerful tool was talking to young people: "We would want young people to come and tell us when things go wrong. In reality, they fear the reaction of their parents... their parents will ask where that happened and the parents will say 'well you can't use that then'.

"We need to think carefully about how we react, otherwise they won't come and tell us when they need ."

He said for older teens, talking to them about their online reputation affecting job and university applications, or visas for visiting the United States, can be "quite powerful".

He advised parents to use s, external [external website] to help safeguard young people.

Earlier this week Gloucestershire reporter Georgia Stone met staff and students at Bournside School in Cheltenham, which is on a mission to delay children getting smartphones until at least Year 10.

School rules mean all phones have to be turned off and put away within school hours but teachers want to encourage less screen time at home too.

You can read our full article about the school's approach here.

The nature of the harmful content we've been examining online has covered some distressing topics - some of which can be very difficult to deal with.

As many of our experts have said today: If you are struggling with anything we have covered, you are not alone.

There are many resources available online, including within the BBC. A good place to start may be our Action Line page, which signposts to a huge variety of serves.

To find out more you can visit the website here.

Image source, TikTok

Throughout the day we've been sharing details of our investigation into what teenagers are being shown on their social media feeds.

Reporters Harriet and Andy spent a week posing as six different teenagers, all from the West, who had interests ranging from Sabrina Carpenter to Call of Duty, and simply scrolled for ten minutes a day on each of their Instagram, TikTok and YouTube feeds.

But while their viewing was initially largely related to their interests, troubling and potentially harmful material began to appear on their feeds - including posts apparently referring to suicide, poor mental health and violence.

The following are screenshots we gathered throughout the course of our investigation:

The Social media companies say they are taking the issue seriously and are working hard to remove harmful content

Image source, TikTok

Image source, TikTok

Debbie Beadle, chief executive of the Wiltshire based charity FearFree, told us that there was "a danger in criminalising children".

"I don't think we just should rely on laws," she said. "Ultimately what we should be looking at is early intervention and education around what a healthy relationship is.

"It's about looking at the messaging that our young people are getting on social media, through the games they're playing, the conversations that they're having at schools."

Ms Beadle spoke to the BBC as part of an investigation into the role social media has played in abusive relationships between young people, which you can read in full here.

Deputy chief constable of Gloucestershire Police, Katy Barrow-Grint, said cases like those we've heard about in our investigation published today, external were not uncommon.

"Most weeks there will be cases presented to us where there are teenagers who are boyfriend and girlfriend, where there is physical or sexual violence, which would be classified as domestic abuse if they were over 16," she said.

Gloucestershire Police, she added, is working on a pilot project with the Home Office, looking at potential changes in the law around under-16s and domestic abuse.

As part of our investigation into young people subjected to domestic abuse in which the perpetrator uses social media (which you can read in full here), reporter sca Osborne spoke to Sarah O'Leary, chief executive of Next Link which provides domestic abuse services in Bristol, South Gloucestershire and North Somerset.

She told us how concerned she was that social media and other online content is fuelling abusive behaviour and being used as a "toolbox on how to control women".

"We know there's been a rise in online misogyny and encouraging young men to act out those misogynistic values," she said.

"Much of the pornography that boys will view is violent towards women and girls.

"I do think a lot of the boys that are witnessing that online and are being radicalised."

Meg Haldane, a cyber protection officer for Avon and Somerset Police has been speaking with BBC Radio Somerset's Simon Parkin in the studio this morning.

"We need to really start to think more about our own digital footprint and the information we're sharing about ourselves," she said.

With the conversation turning to artificial intelligence (AI), Ms Haldane said: "The way that AI has evolved has meant that it is now incorporated in a lot of the fraud and online crime that is targeting us.

"It also feeds into the misinformation and fake news. AI makes it trickier to distinguish between what's genuine and what is not.

"Criminals are using pictures like Martin Lewis and Elon Musk to create AI generated images endorsing investment scams."

Early this morning we published our investigation into what young people are really seeing on their phones - made possible by our reporters Andy and Harriet setting up six profiles for fictional teenagers and spending a week scrolling through their feeds.

Despite searching only for innocent interests like fashion, music, football and gaming, we saw unprompted videos discussing poor mental health, violent crime and adult material - all pushed to children aged 13 to 15.

Andy and Harriet will appear on BBC Points West's special programme this evening to discuss their findings, but you can read their full report here first.