Social media ban announced in Karnataka for children below 16 years of age, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah made a big announcement

New Delhi: The increasing use of mobile and social media is now becoming a cause of concern for children’s health and education. Keeping this in view, the Karnataka government has taken a big decision. State Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has announced that the use of social media will be banned for children below 16 years of age. He made this announcement while presenting the state’s annual budget on Friday.

The Chief Minister said that the main objective of this decision is to protect children from the negative effects of excessive use of mobile and social media. The government believes that prolonged exposure to screens at a young age can have a negative impact on the mental and physical health of children.

The first state in the country to take such a step

With this announcement, Karnataka has become the first state in the country to take concrete steps towards limiting children’s social media use. Although earlier the governments of Andhra Pradesh and Goa have also said that they will consider such rules, but Karnataka has made a clear announcement on this subject. Actually, this issue was being discussed within the state government for some time. Many ministers and MLAs had expressed concern about the increasing addiction of mobile and social media among children.

Concerns have arisen before

State Information Technology and Biotechnology Minister Priyank Kharge had said in the Assembly earlier this year that the government was considering measures to ensure responsible use of social media and artificial intelligence among young users.

Health Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao had also warned that children being exposed to mobile screens for a long time could be harmful to their health. BJP MLA Suresh Kumar had also appealed to the government to take this issue seriously. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had also discussed the issue with vice-chancellors of universities and sought their opinion on whether the use of mobile phones should be limited for children below 16 years of age.

Similar debate is going on all over the world

This decision of Karnataka has come at a time when the debate regarding children’s access to social media is intensifying in many countries of the world. Many countries are trying to implement new rules in this direction. Australia has introduced strict rules to limit social media access for underage users. At the same time, United Kingdom and Finland are also discussing new security measures regarding online safety of children. In some European countries like France and Spain, schools have banned the use of smartphones during classes so that students can remain focused on studies.

Why is social media becoming a matter of concern for children?

Experts say that excessive use of smartphones among children is becoming a serious problem. It has also been mentioned in the Economic Survey of India 2025-26 that due to excessive use of mobile phones among the youth, problems like lack of sleep, anxiety, lack of concentration in studies and mental stress are increasing.

Apart from this, cyber security experts also say that children often share their personal information on social media, which can put their privacy at risk. Many apps and platforms also collect users’ location, browsing habits, and other personal data.

Online threats are also increasing

Another big danger for children in the internet world is online grooming. Many times criminals befriend children through social media or gaming platforms and gradually win their trust and try to exploit them. Apart from this, artificial intelligence based algorithms can also keep children engaged on the platform for a long time and show them such content which is not suitable for them.

Sanctions are not the final solution

However, experts believe that merely imposing restrictions will not solve the problem completely. Sometimes children can access social media through VPN or fake accounts, which can make monitoring more difficult. For this reason many policy makers are talking about a balanced solution. This could include measures like age-based safety rules, strong privacy laws, parental control tools, and digital literacy.