Recently, three minor sisters ended their lives after jumping off the balcony of a ninth-floor flat in Ghaziabad, when their parents restricted their mobile phone usage. The preliminary police reports indicated that the tragic incident is linked to severe addiction to online gaming. While experts opined that it reflected ‘a fatal outcome of a digital dependency’. Recent data indicate that globally about 25.89 per cen of adolescents suffer from internet addiction, with 40 per cen experiencing addictive use of social media. A WHO 2022 study of 44 countries in Europe, central Asia and Canada, found that 11 per cen of adolescents, 13% of girls and 9% of boys, exhibit signs of problematic social media use, and that 12 per cen of adolescents are at the risk of troublesome gaming, with boys significantly more affected (16 per cen) than girls (7 per cen).

While socio-psychologists maintain that a combination of factors, such as biological vulnerability, tailored platform designs with the ease of access and personalisation of algorithm-driven content, and a shifting social landscape drawing children more towards the world of social media. A Pew Research Centre study in 2025 noted that 36 per cent of the US teens use one of five platforms, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook, ‘almost constantly’, and around 64% of use AI chatbots, with 30% doing so daily. In its  2024 poll, it was revealed that many teenagers themselves have reported becoming more uneasy about the time they spend online, with girls in particular telling that apps were affecting their self-confidence, sleep patterns and overall mental health. While Jason Nagata, an associate........

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