Social media ban for minors, a nuanced issue

Thanks to the smartphone, children in poor families play a key role in ensuring access to education and public services.

Last week, we saw a clear shift in narrative in India with respect to social media regulation and children. State after state (governed by three different political parties- TDP in Andhra, BJP in Goa and Congress in Karnataka) signalled the need for a social media ban for under 16s. The Chief Economic Advisor’s framing of digital addiction as a public health issue added momentum to this conversation. However, in India, we need to take a more considered approach before this snowballs into a politically emotive issue as it did in the west. 

First, access to internet in India is directly linked with social mobility especially in low income and rural areas. Children are in fact “chief technical officers” of their households, often helping their families navigate the internet including accessing government services which are increasingly going online. The same ASER survey 2024 that has been quoted by the Economic survey noting the high social media usage among young people has also noted that more than half of the young people use smartphone for education, as they lack access to resources that urban children have. Moreover, the survey also found that over 40% mothers of school children are not schooled or have completed less than Std V in rural areas. Nearly another 40% mothers are schooled between Std VI and X, and the remaining have completed Std X. This data clearly shows the inverse dependence of mothers on their children for digital guidance. Many state governments have in fact been distributing phones/tablets especially to students in grade 10 and 12, as they recognise the link between economic mobility and education opportunities not just for them, but their entire families. 

Second,  in many western countries, phones were allowed to be carried in the schools which led to different outcomes on social connections, campus bullying, mental health etc. Here in India, from the very beginning, most schools did not allow phones during normal school days. The Indian instinct to follow the middle path right from the very outset should not be discounted. We also have a high percentage of shared device usage in India (~70% in some surveys in low income and rural households). This leads to higher supervision by parents organically and control on screen time. This is also why a ban will not achieve much in India, as children will continue to access platforms, through the shared household phones.

Third and most important, curbing social media alone will not take care of all online harms. In our recent YLAC SCREEN survey, children expressed a higher degree of concern with unwanted contacts on gaming platforms and gaming culture. We are also beginning to come across AI related harms for children too. Realistically what all can you ‘ban’? We therefore need to make the entire internet safe for children, of which social media is but one type of platform.

Notwithstanding all these arguments, we also have to be honest. This narrative around bans is stemming out of a real concern of parents with the amount and quality of time children are spending online. One of the most taxing part of modern parenting is regulating children’s time online. Millennial parents are exhausted with the onerous task of keep their children off phones, especially when their own lives depend on it. Luckily, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 will be implemented in India next year and it has already made way for verified parental consent. We should wait to see how that pans out and the impact it has on families and children’s screen times. The act has also banned targeted advertising and limited scope for personalisation for children, this may lead to product changes across the industry. 

Further, the tech industry cannot also afford to have its head in the sand anymore. The government of India is clearly alive to the opportunities that our young country has through the internet, however, the political pressure to do ‘something’ is likely to increase as more countries adopt a restrictive approach. There is a real need to discuss a middle path solution with intellectual honesty and rigour. It is not enough to introduce product features for safer teen experiences and parental controls, there is also a need to drive their uptake on their platforms. Further, safety-by-design principles should not apply only to social media, but all platforms that children are more likely to access including gaming and AI chatbots. There are many in-between regulatory approaches that can be adopted provided industry, policymakers and civil society agree to find common ground. 

India is uniquely positioned to offer an alternative pathway to the world around online child safety- one that balances their access and wellbeing because this is an economic imperative for us. If reasoned arguments get overshadowed by political shrill, we will miss this opportunity. Internet has been transformative for Indian children and their families who do not have equal opportunities and access otherwise. It will be a shame if they lose in the process, because we could not find an alternate way to solve this conundrum. 

Aparajita Bharti is the Founding Partner of The Quantum Hub (TQH) and co-founder of Young Leaders for Active Citizenship (YLAC)