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Opinion National Interest PoV 50-Word Edit

ThePrint On Camera Videos In Pictures

Society & Culture Around Town Book Excerpts Vigyapanti The Dating Story

More Judiciary Education YourTurn Work With Us Campus Voice

The problem isn’t children on social media. It’s how the apps are designed

Rather than exiling children from social media platforms altogether, we must focus on reshaping those spaces to make them age-appropriate, safer and healthier.

There is a rapidly growing global movement to restrict children’s access to social media. Australia became the first country to implement a social media ban for children in December 2025. Most recently, the UK government announced a ban on 15 June and the UAE announced similar restrictions on 18 June.

This momentum is driven by increased scrutiny on the addictive and manipulative features deliberately designed by social media platforms to maximise user engagement and the resulting harm associated with compulsive use and addiction, particularly on children.

This article argues that such bans are a misguided and incomplete response to the real problem. Rather, the regulatory efforts should focus on mandating social media platforms to ensure safety-by-design and holding them accountable for harmful design.

An outright ban risks oversimplifying a complex problem. While, at first glance, a social media ban appears to be a strong and decisive response, it raises practical and conceptual concerns. Bans can lead to unintended consequences. Such as the migration of children to less regulated or unregulated, dark corners of the internet, where risks may be even greater. Further, effective implementation depends on robust and reliable age assurance systems that are resistant to circumvention and also safeguard user privacy—an objective that is difficult to achieve.

More fundamentally, a ban fails to address the root cause of the problem—the addictive features and manipulative design of social media platforms. The business of social media platforms depends on advertising revenue. The longer users stay on a platform, the more content they consume, and the more advertisements they are exposed to (particularly targeted ads powered by user data), thereby directly increasing platform earnings.

Notably, from 2019 to 2025, global social media advertising spending skyrocketed by 150 per cent, with increased exposure and traffic cited as key drivers. It is not surprising then that these platforms are deliberately and continuously designing and refining their design features to maximise user engagement. These include........

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