Be like Alia, get your kid offline

Has social media finally knocked money off its pedestal and taken its place of pride as 'the root of all evil?' Cynics who are dubiously eyeing Elon Musk's grandiose ambitions to colonise Mars may strongly – and justifiably – believe 'money' still holds that top spot. But the rest of us who are in the trenches of parenthood are acutely aware of the dangers of spilling one's guts on Instagram and TikTok. Or at least, those of us with common sense are.

Parents who shun socials

The latest to join this esteemed and rarefied common sense camp is Bollywood star Alia Bhatt, who may amuse us all by reacting to posts lauding her husband as the world's biggest 'green flag', but has equally has made headlines in recent days by deciding to delete all photos of her daughter, Raha, from her Instagram account.

As the Times of India tells us, Alia and Ranbir have taken things a step further by asking photographers to also cease taking photos of their daughter on the grounds that they are responsible parents and that it is unwise for their daughter (who never asked for famous parents) to have her face splashed for the world to see. In this, they are not unlike that other power couple, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Saif Ali Khan, who also beseeched paparazzi to leave their sons Taimur and Jeh out of their photography endeavours – although with Kareena and Saif, it took a knife-wielding attacker breaking into their home and injuring the latter for them to arrive at this decision.

Then, of course, we also had Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh telling photographers to keep it down at a Mumbai airport in January lest they wake their sleeping baby over yonder just out of sight. Because they have no wish to appease loitering photographers, they did not have the sleeping baby on full display in their arms – and not just because they were afraid the click of a camera would catapult her into unwanted wakefulness. Their ultimate noble goal was to preserve her privacy, free from the intrusive glare of a trigger-happy photographer seeking out her face.

If you want to branch out further, there is also Prince Harry and Meghan Markle adamantly shielding their children's faces from prying eyes. However much they yearn to give interviews to Oprah or star in their own Netflix documentaries, they take extra trouble to keep their son and daughter out of the spotlight, much to the chagrin of devoted readers of that UK right wing tabloid, the Daily Mail. In the ruthless, unforgiving eyes of Daily Mail readers, there is very little that Meghan can get right, especially when juxtaposed with her jethani, Kate Middleton, who dutifully appeases the public by trotting out carefully selected photos of her children on birthdays and other special occasions.

But Kate's photo-choosing process appears to be a carefully considered exercise – unlike non-famous parents willy-nilly filling their own social media feeds with every waking moment from their precious children's lives. Without quite understanding the ramifications, parents choose to sully their children's digital footprints by creating one for them before their dear offspring even know the meaning of the word 'foot', let alone have any sort of understanding of what a 'digital footprint' entails.

By ceaselessly sharing their parenting adventures (or 'sharenting', if you want to keep up with the current lingo), parents somewhat lose the moral high ground when it comes to reprimanding them for always being on Snapchat. However tempting it is to adopt the mantra 'do as I say, not as I do', sadly real life never quite works out like that. Much as we wish they would stop it, kids gravitate towards our worst side like a moth to a flame. They ache to emulate us when they spy us eating ice cream on the sofa after they have been specifically banned from such a sinful activity; there is very little stopping them secretly posting duck-faced selfies online if they know there is a precedent at home.

Learning from down under

What can we learn from Deep-Veer, Alia, Saif and Kareena, and Meghan and Kate? Why, we can learn what the Australian government has been trying to teach tech-savvy kids and parents all this time: that for the under-16s, social media is the equivalent of the big bad wolf. Worse, actually – a wolf would at least theoretically leave you alone for some time to sleep. But once you open that pandora's box and have children's faces popping up on social media, there is no slamming it back shut. As any bullied teenager is aware (but will be loath to tell you out of a fear of damaging their ego) nasty messages from their peers are no longer the domain of under-the-desk note-swapping in the back of a classroom. Bullying thrives in full bloom on WhatsApp groups, in unsolicited photos on Snapchat, and across unfunny TikTok videos that travel at the speed of light.

As was widely reported last year, Australia, at least, wants to rein in all this unfettered access to these bullying breeding grounds. Australia's social media ban is set to take effect at the end of this 2025, and will restrict access for young people to social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X, Snapchat and TikTok.

YouTube is the sole outpost to have been granted a reprieve; however much of a toxic wasteland it may be with content ranging from mindless 'unboxing' videos to outright easy-to-access pornography, it at least has some redeeming value by also providing educational content. Those of us who have been in the unhappy position of explaining the cosine rule to a 13-year-old will be aware of how close we get to banging our heads repeatedly against the nearest wall. When it comes to maths lessons, at least, YouTube has the cool-tempered ability to impart wisdom in ways we can only wistfully dream of.

So whilst the virtues of YouTube may be something we can no longer live without, Australia has a point. We may not quite want to give our kids a Nokia brick – how would we be able to track their live location on a brick? – but there is certainly value in kicking them off Snapchat and TikTok and reinforcing the long dead lesson that their self-worth is not tied up in 'likes'. But sadly, for that to happen, we first need to wean ourselves off plastering our children's faces across our own social media so that – unlike that ice cream on the sofa – they can, at last, do as we say and not as we do.