It’s not Gen Z who need to be protected from social media – it’s boomers

Hi mum, my phone has broke and I have a new one, please save this number x.” Remember this infamous scam text that did the rounds back in 2022 and 2023? Sent to a huge number of users on WhatsApp, it was a simple yet brilliant trick – spam a load of people purporting to be their children, and a proportion of those targeted will be in the right demographic. There were variations, but the messages usually involved entreating the parent to urgently lend money for rent or similar, to be transferred directly to a “landlord’s” bank account.

The scammers would rely on an emotional response – tugging at the heartstrings by pretending there was an emergency of some kind and their child needed help – to override parents’ suspicion. It worked. An estimated £1.5m was handed over to fraudsters between February and June 2022, according to Action Fraud, the UK’s reporting centre for fraud and cybercrime. The racket also swept across Australia in 2022, with over 11,000 people reporting they had fallen victim to it and losses totalling A$7.2m (£3.7m).

It was obviously a hugely upsetting experience for victims. might just need protecting from the risks posed by more than .