Protecting Our Children in the Age of Social Media

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Shahida Kausar Farooq 

In today’s Pakistan, childhood is changing before our eyes. It is no longer unusual to see a child as young as 10 scrolling through TikTok, watching YouTube Shorts, or trying to create the perfect Instagram profile. What was once seen mainly as teenage entertainment has now become part of the everyday lives of much younger children.

Technology has brought enormous opportunities. Children can learn from some of the best teachers around the world, explore new ideas, stay connected with family and friends, and access information within seconds. But alongside these opportunities has come a growing set of risks that many Pakistani families are only beginning to understand.

Visit a school in Karachi, Lahore, or Islamabad and you are likely to hear similar concerns from teachers. They speak about children who find it difficult to concentrate, students who come to school tired because they have been using their phones late into the night, and young people who feel anxious because of constant pressure from their online peers.

The emotional impact can be serious.

A teacher in Lahore recently shared the case of a 12-year-old student who suffered a severe emotional breakdown after being repeatedly bullied in a WhatsApp group. The child had been added to the group by classmates without consent. Unlike traditional bullying, which usually ends when a child leaves school, online bullying can continue throughout the day and night. It can follow a child into the bedroom, leaving no place where they feel completely safe.

Sadly, this is not an isolated problem.

UNICEF has reported that around one in three internet users worldwide is a child. Children are increasingly exposed to risks such as cyberbullying, inappropriate content, online exploitation, and other forms of digital abuse. In Pakistan, where digital literacy and parental awareness are still developing, these risks can become even more serious.

Cases of online grooming have also raised concerns in Pakistan. In Karachi, a teenage girl reportedly became a victim of online grooming through a popular social media platform. The case was later investigated by the FIA Cyber Crime Wing. Such incidents remind us how easily online predators can approach children who may not fully understand the dangers of communicating with strangers on the internet.

Psychologists in Islamabad and other major cities are also reporting growing concerns about what is often described as social media anxiety. Young people constantly compare themselves with carefully edited and highly curated images of other people’s lives. They may begin to believe that everyone else is happier, more successful, more attractive, or more popular than they are.

For some children, this constant comparison can damage confidence and self-worth. Research has also found associations between problematic or excessive social media use among adolescents and symptoms of depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance, and other mental health difficulties. These relationships are complex, however, and social media should not be described as the sole cause of mental illness or suicide.

The Algorithm Trap

The problem goes beyond the amount of time children spend online. Social media platforms are not simply digital playgrounds where users independently choose everything they see. Behind these platforms are sophisticated algorithms designed to learn from a person’s behaviour and continually recommend material likely to hold their attention. The more content a person watches, likes, searches for, or shares, the more the system learns about their interests and the more personalized its recommendations become.

For an adult, this can already be difficult to manage. For a child, whose ability to understand risk and regulate impulses is still developing, it can be particularly concerning.

A child may open a platform to watch a harmless educational video or funny clip. Within minutes, a recommendation system can lead that child towards increasingly sensational, disturbing, or compulsively engaging material. For young people already experiencing loneliness, anxiety, body-image concerns, bullying, or depression, repeated exposure to harmful material can be especially troubling.

Recent developments in the United States demonstrate how seriously some families now view these risks. In July 2026, the families of four teenagers, aged 13 to 18, who had died by suicide filed a lawsuit against Meta, TikTok, Snap, and Google, alleging that years of exposure to features designed to maximize engagement contributed to addiction, sleep deprivation, depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts before their children’s deaths. The allegations have not yet been proven in court, and the companies have disputed or defended against similar claims. Nevertheless, the case is part of a much larger wave of litigation in the United States over youth mental health and social media design. In August 2026, families affected by suicide, sextortion, and other online harms also gathered around a major trial against Meta to demand stronger protections for children. The important lesson for Pakistan is not that social media alone causes suicide, which the evidence does not establish so simply, but that platform design, online exploitation, cyberbullying, harmful content, and compulsive use have become serious child-safety concerns requiring much closer scrutiny.

This is why we need to stop treating social media simply as a matter of personal choice. When children are involved, it is also a matter of public safety and child protection.

What the Rest of the World Is Doing

Governments around the world are beginning to recognize the seriousness of the problem. Several countries are moving beyond general advice to parents and introducing stronger legal safeguards for children online.

Australia has introduced strict age restrictions aimed at preventing children under 16 from maintaining accounts on certain social media platforms. France has pursued stronger age-verification requirements and greater restrictions for younger users. China has introduced systems for minors that restrict screen time, certain categories of content, and nighttime access. In the United States, individual states have also pursued laws requiring greater age verification, parental involvement, and protections for younger users.

These approaches differ considerably from country to country, and some have faced legal and technical challenges. Yet they reflect a common realization: children need protection in the digital world just as they need protection in the physical world.

Parents have an important role to play, but the responsibility cannot rest entirely on them. A mother or father cannot reasonably be expected to monitor every platform, understand every new feature, keep up with constantly changing privacy settings, and compete with technology companies employing sophisticated systems designed to maximize user engagement.

Pakistan Needs Stronger Legislation

Pakistan has not been completely silent on this issue. Legislative efforts have been proposed, including the Social Media (Age-Restricted Users) Bill, 2025, which brought the question of children's access to social media into the national debate.

But debate alone is not enough.

Pakistan needs clear, practical, and enforceable legislation to protect children online. Age verification should be meaningful and technologically sound rather than simply asking a child to enter a date of birth that can easily be falsified. At the same time, verification systems must protect privacy and avoid unnecessarily collecting sensitive information about children.

Platforms operating in Pakistan should also be required to provide stronger safeguards for younger users. Recommendation systems designed primarily to maximize engagement should not necessarily operate in the same way for children as they do for adults. Privacy and safety settings for minors should be strengthened by default rather than leaving parents and children to discover and activate them on their own.

Technology companies that fail to meet reasonable child-safety obligations should face meaningful legal and financial consequences. The central issue is not whether children should have access to the internet. It is whether they should be given unrestricted access without adequate protection.

Building a Safer Digital Environment

The answer is not to completely ban children from technology. Digital technology is now an essential part of education, communication, creativity, and modern life. Instead, Pakistan needs to create a safer and more responsible digital environment. A strong national framework should include clear minimum-age requirements for different types of online platforms. It should require reliable, privacy-respecting age-verification systems while protecting children’s personal information.

Parents should have access to simple and effective tools for managing younger children’s online activities. Platforms should be required to provide stronger protections for minors and should face serious consequences when they negligently expose children to exploitation or fail to address foreseeable safety risks.

Digital literacy should become an important part of education. Children should be taught how to protect their privacy, recognize manipulation, respond to cyberbullying, report abuse, question what algorithms show them, and understand the risks of communicating with strangers online.

Teachers and parents also need training. Many parents desperately want to protect their children but simply do not know enough about the rapidly changing digital world their children are entering.

Parental responsibility, therefore, should not be presented as an additional burden or punishment. Parents need guidance, education, and practical support from schools, technology companies, civil society, and the state.

Childhood is for real life, not just screen life

Childhood Deserves Protection

Childhood is brief and precious. It should not be spent entirely behind a screen. Children need physical activity, outdoor play, books, conversation, friendships, creativity, time in nature, and the freedom to explore the real world. They need opportunities to make mistakes, learn from others, develop their personalities, and discover their strengths without constantly comparing themselves with carefully edited versions of other people’s lives.

Social media, when used responsibly, can be useful. It can help children learn, communicate, express creativity, and discover new opportunities. But when children are exposed to it without proper safeguards, the consequences can be serious.

As Pakistan moves deeper into the digital age, the question is no longer whether our children will use social media. They almost certainly will.

The real question is how safely they will use it.

Will we allow powerful algorithms and commercial interests to shape our children’s childhoods without adequate safeguards, or will we create a digital environment where technology serves children rather than exploits their vulnerabilities?

The time for passive observation has passed. Pakistan needs a serious national conversation involving parents, teachers, psychologists, psychiatrists, occupational therapists, technology companies, civil society, young people themselves, and, most importantly, lawmakers.

Protecting children online is no longer simply a matter of personal choice or family discipline. It is a matter of child protection, mental health, public responsibility, and national policy.

Our children deserve the freedom to benefit from technology without becoming victims of it. Protecting that freedom requires informed parents, responsible technology companies, digitally literate children, supportive schools, and effective Pakistani law.