In 2004, when Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook with Harvard University roommates as a college social networking site and two years later as a public social media platform, everyone welcomed it as a great technology innovation to keep in touch with friends and family. Two decades later, this innocuous social engagement platform has transformed into a monster social media industry. Riding the smartphones and Internet boom — India has 963 million Internet users — social media has become an indispensable medium of entertainment, communication, and information sharing. Today, popular social media apps such as Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, X, Snapchat, WeChat and Tiktok among others have billions of users worldwide with Facebook logging in 3 billion and Instagram 2 billion active monthly visitors.
Inevitably social media has its upside. Quick information sharing has instantly connected friends and relations; enabled industry and business growth and spurred international trade. But on the obverse, it has accelerated an international entertainment boom addicting millions of teens and youth to instant messaging and short video reels. This mass diversion of the attention of children and youth has ballooned into a major problem for parents, educators and governments worldover.
In the race to build huge user databases for commercial gain — user data is critical for targeted advertising to create lifelong customers — social media companies are hooking and addicting children especially adolescents through clever tracking algorithms designed to keep them engaged for hours on end, stealing their focus; surreptitiously collecting personal data; exposing them to age-inappropriate content and failing to protect cyberbullying. The outcome is the global social media addiction of children and youth.
Over the past two years, several governments worldwide including the US and the European Union have sued Meta Platforms Inc which owns Facebook and Instagram, the Chinese company Tiktok, among others for distracting children and adversely impacting their mental health. Last November, Australia became the first nation worldwide to pass a law banning the use of social media by children under age 16. Two months later, the Government of India released the draft Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Rules, 2025, under which children below the age of 18 years will be required to obtain prior parental consent to open social media accounts.
Our cover story this month written by Kolkata-based correspondent Baishali Mukherjee beams the spotlight on rising social media addiction of children and its adverse effects on their mental well-being. It also examines the pros and cons of an Australia-like outright ban, and what parents and educators should do to prevent and protect vulnerable children from getting hooked to debilitating social media.
