The U.K. government will try out various social media restrictions on certain families as part of a pilot program to inform its decisionmaking about a potential social media ban for some teens.

The move comes amid an ongoing public consultation to determine how to move forward with potential social media restrictions, whether to raise the digital age of consent and how to use age assurance technologies most effectively.

In January, Prime Minister Keir Starmer promised action, saying that “for too many today, [social media use] means being pulled into a world of endless scrolling, anxiety and comparison.”

The four pilot programs announced Wednesday will involve hundreds of families from all four nations of the U.K. Each of the four pilot groups will be assigned a different intervention and will participate in the pilot for six weeks.

One group of parents will be taught how to use parental controls “to remove or entirely disable access to selected social media apps, practically mimicking the enforcement of a social media ban at home,” the U.K.’s Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT)  said in a press release.

A second group will impose a one-hour-per-day limit on the most popular social media apps for teenagers, including Instagram, TikTok and Snapchat. A third group will disable social media for their children between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m, and the final group will serve as a control and will give children the same access to social media as always. 

Parents and children will be interviewed at the start and finish of the pilots to “understand the impact limiting social media has had on their family life, sleep and schoolwork,” the press release said.

The government also will be able to learn from parents about the challenges faced when setting up parental controls or about whether their teens found ways around the restrictions.

DSIT launched its consultation about potential social media restrictions on March 2 and has said it will end on May 26. Nearly 30,000 parents and children have already responded to the consultation survey, the department said.

The government has said it is “committed to taking swift action on its findings.”

In February, Starmer announced new legal powers that will give the government the ability to move quickly after the consultation process ends, with action expected without waiting for new legislation. The government has said it will announce its plans this summer.