India has recently joined a growing list of countries weighing restrictions on children’s access to social media.
Speaking on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit last week, information technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government is discussing age-based restrictions on social media platforms. The remarks follow closely after the Economic Survey flagged the need to address “digital addiction” among the young.
At the state level, Goa, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala are also examining similar restrictions. The push reflects rising concern over online safety risks and mental health challenges among children. Yet serious questions remain over whether such measures would deliver the intended results.
Enforcement could prove difficult given how easily age verification can be bypassed on shared devices. Restrictions could also drive minors toward smaller, less regulated platforms—while limiting access to learning and support resources.
Global push
Australia became the first country in December 2025 to ban adolescents under 16 years from using certain social media platforms including TikTok, YouTube and Meta-owned Instagram and Facebook, setting a global precedent.
Since then, more countries across Europe and Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and Malaysia have announced plans to tighten rules. While France (under 15) and the UK (under 16) have gone farthest with one chamber of their Parliament voting in favour of the ban, others are toying with the idea.
The proposed restrictions fall into the following buckets: an outright ban on social media for minors or a requirement for certain ages to obtain parental consent before opening an account.
India’s case
India is currently the biggest user market for many of the popular social media platforms.
India is currently the biggest user market for many of the popular social media platforms. India is the biggest market for WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. YouTube has 500 million users in India, according to DataReportal, a platform that tracks global digital behaviour.
This amounts to over a third (35.5%) of India’s population. Instagram counts over 480 million users in India, thereby used by over 34% of India’s population. This is followed by Facebook (403 million), Snapchat (213 million) and Reddit (30. 8 million).
Some platforms have taken steps to introduce child-friendly measures. Instagram, last year, rolled out safety features for accounts under 16 years such as default private accounts, restrictions on messaging and tagging among others.
Given the centrality of India to the platforms’ growth strategies, experts argue that the answer lies not in shutting children out but in compelling technology companies to fundamentally rework their platform design and content moderation that make their platforms addictive.
“The burden of proof has to be on these companies to show what they are doing differently and what they are doing better,” Isha Suri, independent researcher and AI and market power fellow at European AI & Society Fund, said.
A sticking point in the debate is what the law will define as ‘social media’ and which social networks should be covered or proscribed. The Australian ban, for instance, does not include messaging services such as WhatsApp and Telegram and generative AI apps.
Experts said that nuances of each platform need to be examined, even while opining that there is a risk of pushing behaviour underground.
“By using escalatory bans to control access to platforms, people could be pushed towards smaller, less regulated services that are even more unsafe and far less moderated than the larger platforms,” said Prateek Waghre, head of programmes at Tech Global Institute
A nuanced debate
While the harms posed by social media are becoming increasingly convincing, a balanced approach between benefits and potential harms will be needed. Research has shown that excess social media usage among children has a directional link to problems of sleep disruption, reduced attention spans and body image issues.
However, enforcement can be a challenge in India’s context. A recent survey of 1,277 Indian teenagers by Rati Foundation, a non-profit organisation, found that many teens used shared devices.
Many social media accounts are created with the help of family members or friends and are often not tied to personal email addresses. This undermines the assumption of individual account ownership on which most age-verification mechanisms rely.
Moreover, India lacks specific data and research, causing a data gap in this segment. Large scale surveys on social media that reflect the reality of Indian households is needed, experts said.
"Internet use in India is gendered, with females facing more restricted access,” Suri pointed out. The government will need to be careful to not limit access to important tools such as menstrual health tracking apps. “Requiring parental consent would be a challenge in this case, given that menstrual health remains a taboo subject,” she added.
Additionally, social media also has an “emancipatory factor”, experts point out. A systematic review of studies on this topic across various countries by researchers at Manipal Academy of Higher Education found that while social media usage “can be a significant source of distraction”, they also have a positive impact on language development and communication skills among young adults. The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) in December 2025 noted that social media has become “a lifeline providing access to learning, connection, play, and self-expression”.
So what is the way forward?
Suri said that young people ought to be at the centre of this decision making process. “Age-appropriate consent mechanisms must be co-designed with the community—children, teachers, counselors, civil society, and the government before implementation,” Suri said. “The autonomy and agency of children also needs to be taken into account.”