Responsibly regulated access to social media

Human body grows right from our early childhood. We enter varied phases of our life. ie adolescence, youth, adulthood and old age. Childhood is characterised by developing body and mind. But there is hardly any limit on the visual and hearing ability of the child.

In olden times, parents restricted their child’s presence at certain places or restrained them from listening to unhealthy conversations for protecting the childhood. Adolescence is a bridge between childhood and adulthood.

However, in the present times, social media, often described as mobile applications, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc, has gained access onto the small palms of our children, whose astrological lines are still being drawn by the Almighty.

Social media exposes the child, to an unlimited digital content. Some concepts of human life, visual content, human relationships, words and phrases, which the child’s young mind, body, eyes and ears, are not prepared to comprehend, experience, see or hear, corrupt the child’s psychology, thereby poisoning his/her present and murdering the future.

I am not against social media. Human is a social animal. Being a social, both physically and virtually would impede human development. But as future national human resources, children have to be jealously guarded for raising responsible adults.

Unrestricted access to social media in those tender years of life is comparable to a house without doors and windows. The fundamental difference between a child and an adult is, that a child does not know his/her good or bad. Being guardians, parents must act as filters, for the social media access to their child.

A complete ban on social media for the child under 16 years of age, may impede the child’s growth in present digital era, but regulated access may be desirable. There can be facial recognition blockers, content blockers and parental permissions, for certain content, which can help the child in understanding the social media and to eventually integrate himself/herself into the broader canvas of the emerging digital society.

So let us advocate a responsibly regulated access to social media rather than imposing a complete ban, thereby depriving our young one’s of the benefits of hard-earned digital age.

 The writer is a student of Class VI-B, Carmel Convent School, Sector 9, Chandigarh