Britain Bans Children Under 16 From Social Media

Social Media does a lot of damage to adults. People no longer know where to place the barrier between private issues and public discourses. We are literally, taking our bath on the streets, before the full view of everyone. Complete eediots have become role models to many people and family values have been seriously eroded.

We may not be able to do much to correct the harm that social media does to adults, because we are in an era, where freedom seems limitless, and many genuinely intentioned attempts to save us from the harm of unrestrained freedom are met with vigorous resistance. There are always to be quoted and there are always judges to side with “Fundamental Rights”.

But, for our children, we owe them that responsibility to protect them from the moral, mental and even physical toxicity of social media. It is not for the government to issue directives or make laws to ban children of certain ages from accessing social media, parents have a significant role to play in safeguarding our children from this dangerous but necessary invention.

Unfortunately, many parents feel compelled to purchase the most recent gadgets and link their children to the social media as quickly as possible. Some parents even go to the crazy extent of opening social media accounts for their children as soon as they are born. Like I tell some people very close to me, some of these children will grow up to find out that they have lost all their essential privacy and that their orientation about life, which they might have gotten mostly from the social media, are unrealistic and do not help in guaranteeing their happiness and fulfillment. Many of them might never forgive their parents for ruining their lives.

Countries that are at the forefront of developing the technologies that enable access to social media are already working hard to protect their children from its harm. This recent regulation by the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer is one of the many such actions by some of the world’s most advanced nations to protect their children.

I wish Nigerian lawmakers can take this up and make more laws for the protection of our future instead of their usual lousy lawmaking and motions for the cameras and for the money.

May God bless our children.

Onwuasoanya FCC Jones, PhD