Should India follow Australia's proposed ban on social media for under-16? Jury is still out

New Delhi: Australia’s decision to bring in a law banning social media use among children under 16 has received mixed response from psychologists in India who maintain that while the decision is well-intended it is difficult to implement.

According to Dr Rajesh Sagar, professor of psychiatry at AIIMS Delhi, there is evidence of association of problematic social media usage and increase in psychological symptoms in children and adolescents. In this regard, he said, banning the use of social media among children is a welcome step. But, Dr Sagar added, it will be difficult to implement the complete ban.

“It is important to understand the positive and negative effects of social media and technology use. Hence, there is a need for promotion of healthy use,” the AIIMS professor explained.

Recently, the American Psychological Association (APA) also issued a health advisory on social media use in adolescence which stated that excess or ‘problematic social media use’ can impair the ability to engage in daily roles and routines among adolescents. It can also present risk for more serious psychological harms over time, the APA advisory said.

Dr Pramit Rastogi, child and adolescent psychiatrist at STEPS Center for Mental Health said the ban proposal captures the reality that children whose minds are not developed enough to have access to, and to regulate screen time are being given these devices without the necessary checks and balances in place. “Having said that, this will run into second order difficulties like development of unregulated and illegal social media channels. We should let the west first go through one iteration of this so that we can learn from it and then introduce the second generation level of social media ban, for example, inability to access mainstream social media in school premises, Internet providers, offering these parental controls at provider level rather than individual device level checks and balances that parents have to do right now,” he said.

According to Dr Roma Kumar, senior consultant psychologist at Sir Ganga Ram hospital, widespread access to digital and social media has drastically altered the nature of adolescents' interpersonal connections. “Depression, anxiety and suicidality have all sharply increased in adolescents over the past decade,” she said.

The APA, while referring to various research, said adolescents should get at least eight hours of sleep each night and maintain regular sleep-wake schedules. “Data indicate that technology use particularly within one hour of bedtime, and social media use in particular, is associated with sleep disruptions. Insufficient sleep is associated with disruptions to neurological development in adolescent brains, teens’ emotional functioning and risk for suicide,” it added.

Indicators of problematic social media use in adolescents (10-19 years):

• Tendency to use social media even when they realise it is interfering with necessary tasks

• When there are strong cravings to use social media, or disruptions in other activities from missing social media use too much;

• Lying or deceptive behaviour to retain access to social media use

• loss or disruption of significant relationships or educational opportunities because of media use

Advisory

• Parents should monitor social media use; autonomy may increase gradually as kids age

• Exposure to content that instructs or encourages to engage in health-risk behaviours, such as self-harm (e.g., cutting, suicide), harm to others should be minimized, reported, and removed

• Social media use should not interfere with sleep and physical activity: adolescents need at least 8 hours of sleep each night

Source: American Psychological Association