When Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah rose to present the state budget on 6 March 2026, few expected a digital governance milestone to emerge from the speech. Yet in a single declaratory sentence, he made Karnataka the first Indian state to formally announce a ban on social media use for children under 16 – joining a small but growing group of governments worldwide that have decided enough is enough. The announcement was unambiguous in intent. “With the objective of preventing adverse effects of increasing mobile usage on children,” Siddaramaiah stated, “the use of social media will be banned for children under the age of 16.”

What the speech did not provide – and what policymakers, legal experts, technology companies, and parents have been urgently asking about ever since – were the specifics: which platforms, what legislation, what timeline, and above all, how. Those unanswered questions are not peripheral. They are, in many ways, the entire story. And understanding them requires understanding both why Karnataka felt compelled to act and what the realistic limits of that action are. The concern driving the Karnataka government’s decision is neither new nor unique to India. Across the world, a convergence of research, public anxiety, and high-profile tragedy has forced governments to confront what platforms themselves have been slow to address: the measurable harm that heavy social media use inflicts on adolescent mental health.

Studies consistently find that teenagers are spending between five and seven hours daily on social media and smartphones, with many spending considerably more. The consequences documented in the research literature are serious: chronic anxiety, depression, severely disrupted sleep, declining classroom attention and academic performance, and a deep psychological dependency on platforms engineered to maximise engagement through algorithmically curated content loops. Unlike a book or a television programme, social media is designed to prevent stopping.

The endless scroll is not an accident – it is a feature. For adolescents, whose brains are still developing, the vulnerability is acute. Self-esteem and body image are particularly susceptible to the constant social comparison that platforms encourage. Cyberbullying – the online variant of peer harassment – has evolved into something qualitatively different from its offline predecessor: it operates 24 hours a day, spreads with unlimited reach, and offers its victims no physical refuge. The link between severe cyberbullying and adolescent suicide has been documented in jurisdictions across the world. India is not immune. Karnataka had already signalled its concern before the budget announcement.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah raised the issue at a Vice-Chancellors’ conclave in February 2026, seeking the views of university leaders on restricting mobile phone and social media access for minors. The state has also run public awareness campaigns – most visibly, ‘Mobile Bidi, Pustaka Hidi’, a Kannada-language initiative urging children to........

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