Digital shield for our children

The Punjab Assembly's unanimous passage of a resolution seeking to ban social media accounts for children under 16 is a welcome move that recognises the biggest crisis facing children around the world. While social media does have its benefits, far too often, mixing children's still-developing brains with a forum where they can choose to be nameless and faceless, or be forced to become nobodies, exposes them to extreme bullying, sexual exploitation, inappropriate content and psychological stress that no child should have to endure.

While the resolution is merely a starting point, it still strongly reflects the unanimous desire of the provincial assembly to improve the lives of children in the province. Research links social media to mental health issues among all age groups, but especially minors, who are at increased risk of anxiety, depression, self-harm, addiction and adverse effects on cognitive and emotional development.

Social media also does not live up to its claims of bringing people closer. Yes, it may increase our ability to occasionally communicate with people great distances away, but it is actually causing a loneliness epidemic as children and adults alike spend hours online and forget how to build meaningful real-world relationships and engage in other healthy activities.

Digital rights groups claim bans are a flawed, regressive response, but this argument has its own fatal flaw in that most of the useful information online that these groups say children would lose access to is actually available at several unaffected locations online. TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X should not be anyone's go-to source of information.

And with more countries passing social media restrictions for teens, lawmakers will also have several examples to model their own proposals. As for criticism that enforcement will be difficult, this is true of all restrictions. Just because it is hard to control the supply of drugs does not mean the government should stop catching drug dealers, and as many users will admit, social media is as addictive and dangerous as any street drug.