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Last week, the Australian government announced its plan to introduce legislation to ban children under 16 from using social media. Since the news broke, several netizens have called for a similar law to be introduced in India, citing sexualisation and radicalisation of children as major concerns.
Metrolife spoke to educationists and psychologists about the pros and cons of banning social media for kids.
Teachers support it
Sunil Fernandes, principal of St Joseph’s Boys’ High School, Ashok Nagar, welcomes such a move in the current socio-political climate. He explains, “Social media has both its positives and negatives. However, it’s not possible to monitor a kid’s social media activity every second. And not all kids are mature enough to deal with bullying, body shaming, hatred, and other such negativity online.”
Social media apps prescribe a minimum age for setting up the account, usually 13 years. But Fernandes feels there is a need for legal age restriction as in the case of voting or driving.
A Hindi teacher at a school in Malleswaram is also battling for a ban. She is concerned about the growing radicalisation of children and she attributes it to the overexposure to social media. “While discussing religion is healthy, in the last few years I’ve seen more and more students making friends on the basis of their religion. They are also making hateful posts on social media. I have called out my students for such behaviour. I think many social media influencers and political figures they look up to are not positive influences,” she reasons.
Some of the online personalities popular among children aged 10-16 are Logan Paul, Andrew Tate, Tanmay Bhat, Mr Beast, Carry Minati, and Dhruv Rathee.
Radha Swaminathan, senior teacher at Deccan International School, Padmanabhanagar, supports the ban but she feels the world is too late for it. She says it would be much better if parents make an effort to supervise their child’s social media lives. “This can curtail the predatory nature of social media,” she explains.
Psychologists’ POV
Child psychologists and counsellors Metrolife spoke to were not in favour of such a ban in India. They believe this would violate their freedom of expression and access to information.
“Children are curious by nature. The more you keep kids away from something, the more they are likely to explore it. Instead of a ban, we need to educate children about the dangers of social media and how to navigate the (online) space. Parents and educators need to talk to kids about their values and beliefs, instead of imposing rules,” says Hannah Awayz, child and adolescent psychologist. She believes social media is only bringing out problems that already exist in society, such as sexualisation of kids — “it is not the root cause”.
Psychologist Nithya J Rao believes the onus of providing a safe online environment for children should be on social media platforms. “These companies should moderate the content on their platform so it is safe for everyone to use. Instead of a ban, we should be asking for better regulations on social media platforms,” she says.
Until moderation on these platforms improves, she urges schools and parents to look after children’s mental health. “Parents can encourage co-viewing, where they sit with their child and explore different social media pages and content creators together. Schools can hold social media training classes to shed light on problems of catfishing and online scams,” she suggests.