Social Media Teen Screen Time: The increasing addiction of social media among children and teenagers has now become a matter of serious concern for governments around the world. In view of this, many countries are making new rules to protect minors from uncontrolled screen time. In this list, Australia has already decided to ban social media for children below 16 years of age. At the same time, Indonesia and Malaysia have also introduced strict laws for minors this year. But now Britain is also going to take a big step in this direction while the European Union is considering different types of restrictions for children aged 13 to 15 years.
Reuters report says that the British government is preparing to implement a default night curfew on social media apps for 16 and 17 year old teenagers. Under the rules revealed, access to social media apps will be automatically closed from 12 midnight to 6 am. But if users want, they can change this default setting. Not only this, social media companies will also have to keep features like autoplay videos turned off by default so that teenagers can avoid watching videos continuously and doomscrolling for hours.
The British government believes that this initiative will help teenagers improve their sleep, increase their concentration in studies and spend better time with family and friends. Along with this, according to Britain’s Technology Minister Liz Kendall, these measures will prove to be very helpful in helping the youth get enough sleep, concentrate on their studies and spend quality time with family and friends.
Not only this, it is also being told in the report that these rules can be presented in the Parliament by the end of this year. Once approved, they are planned to be implemented from spring 2027. In an earlier trial, positive improvements were seen in the sleep, focus and mental health of teenagers after limited access to social media.
It is being said in the information that it will not be easy to implement such rules. The experience of countries like Australia shows that verifying the correct age of users still remains a big challenge for social media companies. On the other hand, in America too, big tech companies like Google and TikTok are facing legal challenges regarding their impact on the mental health of youth. In such a situation, more strict rules may be seen on social media platforms across the world in the coming years.
