Civilisational Approach to Social Media: Beyond Bans for Minors

Why in News? 

Growing concerns over social-media addiction, cyberbullying, harmful content and online exploitation have prompted several countries to restrict children’s access to social media. 

The debate raises an important question for India: Should it rely primarily on prohibition or combine regulation with family, educational and cultural institutions that develop responsible digital behaviour?

Emerging Global Response: 

• Australia: In 2025, the government announced that designated platforms must take reasonable steps to prevent persons below 16 from maintaining social media accounts. Responsibility falls on platforms rather than children or parents. 
• United Kingdom: In 2026, the government announced an under 16 social media prohibition, proposed for implementation by 2027, along with restrictions on addictive and harmful platform features.
• United States: Regulation remains fragmented, with federal child-privacy protections and varying state-level age-verification and parental-consent laws.

Why are Restrictions being Considered?

Social media may expose children to:

• Cyberbullying, grooming and sexual exploitation
• Violent, extremist or self-harm-related content
• Algorithmically amplified misinformation
• Addictive design, infinite scrolling and compulsive engagement
• Sleep disruption and reduced physical activity
• Social comparison, body-image concerns and anxiety; and
• Behavioural profiling and targeted advertising.

A WHO study covering nearly 2.8 lakh adolescents across 44 countries and regions found that problematic social-media use increased from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022. 

However, the WHO also recognises that social media can support connection, learning and self-expression, demonstrating that its impact is not uniformly negative. 

Why Blanket bans may be Inadequate?

• Easy circumvention: VPNs, false age declarations, encrypted platforms and borrowed devices can undermine prohibitions.
• Age-verification risks: Collection of identity documents or biometric information can create new privacy and surveillance concerns.
• Migration to unsafe spaces: Children may shift from regulated platforms to less visible and more dangerous services.
• Digital exclusion: Social media also facilitates education, creativity, community support and civic participation.
• Parental digital divide: Many parents lack the knowledge required to supervise rapidly evolving digital platforms.
• AI challenge: Children will increasingly interact with generative AI tutors, companions and recommendation systems, making a social-media-only ban technologically narrow.
• Rights concerns: Excessive restrictions may affect adolescents’ access to information and freedom of expression.

Therefore, regulation is necessary, but it cannot substitute for the capacity to exercise judgment.

India’s Existing Framework: 

• Under the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, a child is a person below 18 years. Section 9:
  • Requires verifiable parental consent before processing a child’s personal data;
  • Prohibits processing likely to harm a child’s well-being; and
  • Restricts tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising directed at children, subject to statutory exemptions. 
• The framework is supplemented by:
  • Information Technology Rules, 2021: Platform due diligence and grievance redressal;
  • POCSO Act, 2012: Protection against online sexual abuse and child sexual-abuse material; and
  • General criminal laws dealing with stalking, intimidation, fraud and obscenity.

However, India does not yet have a comprehensive child-centric online-safety law addressing addictive design, algorithmic amplification and age-appropriate platform architecture.

What is a Civilisational Approach?

A civilisational approach does not mean mechanically recreating the past. It means adapting India’s traditions of intergenerational learning, self-discipline, ethical reasoning and community responsibility to the digital age.

The guru-shishya tradition treated education as more than the transmission of information; it sought to cultivate character, restraint and judgment. Its contemporary equivalent should involve:

• Families: Digitally literate parents, open communication, shared screen-time norms and age-appropriate supervision.
• Schools: Integrate digital literacy, critical thinking, ethical reasoning, media literacy and digital citizenship into education.
• Teachers and mentors: Guidance on navigating online pressure rather than mere technological instruction.
• Community and cultural organisations: Constructive engagement with technology instead of complete withdrawal from it.
• Peers: Student-led digital-safety clubs and bystander training against cyberbullying.
• Technology companies: Build safer-by-design platforms and stronger safeguards for minors.

Way Forward: Balanced Indian Strategy:

India should follow a protection-participation-preparedness model:

• Protection: 
  • Impose a statutory duty of care on platforms;
  • Ban targeted advertising and manipulative design for children;
  • Provide default high-privacy settings;
  • Ensure rapid reporting of grooming and abuse;
  • Conduct independent audits of recommendation algorithms.
• Participation:
  • Consult children while framing rules affecting their digital lives;
  • Preserve access to educational, creative and mental-health resources;
  • Develop age-appropriate rather than purely exclusionary platforms.
• Preparedness: 
  • Introduce compulsory digital and AI literacy in schools;
  • Train parents and teachers in emerging online risks;
  • Expand school counselling and cybercrime-reporting mechanisms;
  • Promote critical thinking, self-control and responsible online conduct.

India need not choose between technological freedom and child protection. A blanket ban may offer temporary insulation, but it cannot prepare children for an AI-driven society. India’s most effective response would combine firm platform accountability and privacy safeguards with family guidance, ethical education and digital citizenship.

The objective should not merely be to keep children away from technology, but to enable them to use it with judgment, resilience and responsibility.