Social media age limit: Will banning children be enough?

While setting an age limit may seem like a straightforward solution, enforcing it is a much more complex challenge

Australia’s recent proposal to introduce a minimum age for children to use social media has sparked a global debate about how best to protect young people from its negative effects. With the government suggesting an age limit between 14 and 16, the intention is clear: shield children from the social harms linked to excessive screen time, mental health issues, and unrealistic social comparisons. But is an outright ban the answer? Can we expect this move to be effective, or are we merely sweeping the problem under the carpet?

In theory, setting an age limit seems like a straightforward solution to mitigate the risks associated with social media. However, the reality is far more complex. One of the most significant challenges in enforcing an age limit on social media is the sheer difficulty of verifying users’ ages reliably. Most platforms already have minimum age requirements. Yet, we all know that younger children are active on these platforms, often bypassing age restrictions by simply entering a false birth date during registration.

It’s a loophole too easy to exploit, and without a robust verification system, raising the age limit can't be a solution. Some platforms have attempted to introduce measures such as ID verification or even facial recognition, but these solutions come with their own set of concerns.

For instance, YouTube Kids requires credit card information to verify the parent’s identity. While well-intentioned, this method raises privacy concerns and is far from foolproof. Moreover, tech-savvy children often outsmart such measures using VPNs .  Banning social media for children without a watertight system to monitor and regulate their access is like locking the front door while leaving the back door wide open. When discussing social media and its impact on children, parental oversight inevitably comes into play. Parents are expected to monitor and control their children’s access to these platforms, but can they realistically do so in this hyper-connected world?

The answer, unfortunately, is no. Even the most diligent parents cannot be expected to oversee every minute of their children’s online activity. A well-meaning ban on social media might give parents a false sense of security, but it doesn’t change the reality that children will find ways to access these platforms.

If we push them off regulated, mainstream platforms, they may seek refuge in the darker, unregulated corners of the internet—spaces where risks of cyberbullying, exposure to harmful content, and even predatory behaviour are even greater. Social media is, undeniably, a double-edged sword.

On the one hand, it exposes children to unrealistic portrayals of life, leading to anxiety, depression, and a constant need to measure up to others. On the other hand, it provides a space for young people to connect, express themselves, and access educational resources. Banning it outright may remove the toxic aspects but also deny them these valuable opportunities.

As parents and educators, our challenge is to strike a balance. Instead of rushing towards a ban, it might be more prudent to focus on equipping children with the skills they need to navigate the online world responsibly. Digital literacy, mental health education, and open conversations between parents and children can go a long way in protecting young minds from the pitfalls of social media.

Rather than looking at social media as an enemy to be vanquished, we should view it as a tool that requires careful handling. Age restrictions, when implemented properly, can help shield younger users, but without holistic solutions—ranging from better parental support to more reliable age verification methods—their efficacy will be limited.

Perfect parenting: Navigating expectations and aspirations

In an age where parenting seems to be under constant scrutiny, the stress of raising children has evolved into a modern-day burden

In the olden days, it wasn’t uncommon to be born in large families and be raised along with several siblings. But for some reason, parents back then did it with a laid-back approach and have not been heard or known to feel pressured by the size of the family they had to support. My paternal grandparents had 13 children and my maternal grandparents had ten.

It is a scenario impossible to even imagine in modern times, where stress has become a staple for all – from kindergarten children to pensioners past their prime. Today’s parents are engulfed in a whirlwind of expectations, constantly feeling the weight of being “perfect” while juggling the unrelenting pressures of life.

The irony is not lost on any of us—despite our best efforts, parents often feel they are falling short, outpaced by a society that holds them to impossible standards. Dr Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, recently said that parental stress is a significant public health issue and called for shifts in cultural norms.In our hyper-connected world, where every action and decision is subject to public scrutiny, the quest for perfection is an unending pursuit that only leads to exhaustion. We need to pause and ask: Are we, as parents, pushing ourselves into a corner, one where our best is never good enough? How far should we go to prove our merits and how much strain can we take before we break at the seams?

A young parent recently mentioned how she was waiting for her toddler to grow up by a few years so that the tensions of the difficult years are past, but the truth is the stress of parenting seldom leaves, no matter how old the children become. It is in the psyche of the parent to be ever concerned, with the concerns and expectations only changing with age. Once a parent, always a parent. There is a relentless battle to become the perfect parents who have raised peerless offspring that the world would appreciate. This pressure to adopt the best practices of parenting is now increased manifold by social media which presents picture-perfect family lives. What parents often forget is the travails of raising children are never easy and what seems perfect on social media are filtered versions of a life and landscape filled with challenges.

The idea of being a ‘perfect parent’ is a myth and it would be prudent on the parents’ part to recognise that benchmarks set by society, media and peers are often unattainable. Each family should set its priorities and boundaries commensurate with its resources, circumstances and the children’s capacity to undertake over-demanding expectations from all around.

How parents of yore have been able to divide their attention between the litany of concerns and complaints their children must have presented baffles me. The joke that goes around in our family is this – the children just grew up; no one raised them by following any stringent standards.This attitude may not work in our times where the bars are set so high and the race for achievement is taken so seriously that parents find themselves caught in the quagmire of worry and anxiety even after the children have flown from their homes and built their nests.

The anxiety of being an inadequate parent haunts many and the truth is there is no single right way to parent; neither is there a prescribed format to make children successful and happy except by instilling the right values in them. Embracing their imperfections as parents and learning to let go are difficult but essential traits to pick up in their journey of parenthood. What children need most is not a parent who has everything figured out, but one who loves them, supports them and is present through the highs and lows of life. Constant fretting about children will only take away from the confidence of the children and make them incompetent to face life’s numerous challenges.

Automation vs authenticity: Can AI replace the writer's soul? (Column in The Daily Pioneer)

Will the essence of storytelling — the reflection of genuine human experience — be lost in the rise of machine-generated content?

Way back in the early 2000s, when I started writing my debut novel, it seemed like a daunting task that would take an entire lifetime to complete. Driven purely by my literary instincts and an eagerness to create something authentic, I took four years to finish the story and become an author. To be an author in those days meant a lot. Not many people ventured to do it given the time and effort that one had invested in the process. Cut to the new times, and becoming an author is as easy as blowing bubbles, thanks to the emergence of AI.

Someone I know recently said that they have a target of publishing 10 books this year, and I wasn’t surprised. But can AI-assisted writing be a patch on creative writing that comes from the inner realms of a writer filled with genuine emotions and subjective thought?As a creative writing coach for children, I have often wondered if children will ever need to learn to write in future, and if even readers will stop caring if a piece of writing has come from AI’s backyard or the annals of original human contemplation and creativity.

I have floated this question to people and the responses have been divided. Some believe that in a world that is pressed for time, the source of thought is not as important as the thought itself. If served in an easily, digestible manner, it doesn’t matter where it comes from – man or machine.

While this view has resulted in the spawning of authors around the world, what remains a cardinal truth is that a story or a piece of writing can be resonant with readers only when it is generated in human consciousness. The chief purpose of art and literature is to be able to strike a chord with readers and not to just disseminate information. The reader is looking for a part of herself in the stories, a reflection of common human experiences and the books they read to be echo chambers of their own lives in parts or whole. Authentic storytelling brings with it a chunk of the writer’s soul and it seeks to merge with the soul of the readers. Anything that is generated by a vast reservoir of readymade ideas will be too perfect to evoke responses. Students may be able to produce perfect sentences and passages that will answer a question, but they will not reflect the personality and character of the writer.

What makes a genuine piece of writing enduring and endearing is the voice of the writer and their ability to draw on personal experiences, intuition and a strong need to connect with the audience.

No matter how the concepts are laid out in an artificial piece of story, they will be less distinctive and more formulaic and impersonal.Maybe, our hustling world needs only quick fixes, and as we discover newer methods to replicate human thought, our spirit will also capitulate and settle for the synthetic form of writing. It’s again about what the audience chooses that will determine the future of creativity. If AI can satiate the population, then why would original writers spend time and energy on creating something from the core of their hearts? It is a scary outlook to hold, as a writer and creative writing coach. While a part of me still refuses to believe the doomsday scenario, I am still betting on ethical and moral considerations to deter people from going all out and claiming themselves to be authors and writers without much intellectual investment.

I am under no illusion that writing will remain sacrosanct as it used to be. It will soon become generic and predictable. Or maybe, going forward, AI will be able to generate stylised texts that mimic the voice of a particular writer and erase the distinction between the real and the unreal. It’s a scary and depressive scenario, but one that we, as authentic writers, must brace ourselves for.