Survey: Put age bar on social media

New Delhi: Taking cues for social media ban for children, the government’s Economic Sur-vey on Thursday said age-based access to online platforms should be consid-ered while also cutting down online teaching to avoid digital addiction. The Survey tabled in Parliament called for schools to play a critical role in shaping digital habits of children and promoting simpler devices for children for educa-tional content access to prevent their exposure to harmful content online. “Pol-icies on age-based access limits may be considered, as younger users are more vulnerable to compulsive use and harmful content. Platforms should be made responsible for enforcing age verification and age-appropriate defaults, par-ticularly for social media, gambling apps, auto-play features, and targeted ad-vertising,” the Survey said. The Survey said online platforms should be made responsible for enforcing age verification and simpler devices should be pro-moted for children to access educational content with safeguards to address ris-ing problem digital addiction. “Schools play a critical role in shaping digital habits and should introduce a Digital Wellness Curriculum covering screentime literacy, cyber safety, and mental health awareness… Dependence on online teaching tools, which expanded during Covid-19, should be reduced in favour of offline engagement,” it said.