Should Children Be Banned from Social Media?
At the end of the day, one has to wonder when a Pakistani government will begin to care about legitimate public opinion, rather than merely caring about its optics by manipulating social media.
Pakistan has one of the youngest populations in the world, with more than 64% of its population under the age of 30. All of them are constitutionally empowered with the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of information under Articles 19 and 19A, respectively. In this context, discussions about banning social media for those under 16 are particularly concerning.
Social media can have harmful effects on individuals of all ages, and there has been extensive discussion about its potentially greater impact on adolescents. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to see such a ban as being primarily intended to protect the children in question. Instead, it risks becoming another means of suppressing public opinion—something that appears to matter less and less to our government by the day. This concern is reinforced by Pakistan’s continued efforts to exercise strong control over free internet usage, reflected in its score of just 27 out of 100 in the Freedom on the Net Report.
There are countless examples of social media mobilisation serving as an effective means of holding the state accountable. In the recent Ali Jafri case, it is reasonable to argue that the police may not have mobilised into action, or at least not as quickly, had a tempest demanding justice for the victim not swept across the social media landscape. It was a storm that developed overnight and was driven largely by young people, many of whom were below the legal age. Social media’s response also appeared to give the victim the confidence to come forward and pursue justice.
Examples of this nature can be found around the world, demonstrating the role social media has played in encouraging democratic responses, including the mobilisation of mass movements against authoritarian states that refused to engage democratically with their populations. Some of the most prominent examples have emerged from South Asia. Social media has played a significant role in political transformations in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. These examples are not intended to suggest that social media poses a similar threat of political change in Pakistan. Rather, they demonstrate the power that the box in our pockets is capable of wielding.
Social media enables political participation across different segments of society and at all socio-economic levels. This is particularly important in a country where poverty stands at 28.9%. In a world experiencing continued democratic backsliding, social media may facilitate one of the highest forms of democratic expression, as highlighted by the Freedom in the World 2026 report.
Studies support this argument. Research dating as far back as 2012—at a time when social media access was considerably more limited among lower socio-economic groups—demonstrated that social media was crucial in shaping the youth-driven protests in Egypt in 2011. Another study examined the role social media played in the even earlier political uprising that began in Tunisia in 2010.
Most importantly, no body of literature can conclusively establish that adolescents face a uniquely greater harm from social media. A meta-analysis examining mental-health harms associated with social media found no “heterogeneity of these summary correlations by age,” while another study reported larger effect sizes for psychological distress among older samples. At the same time, an often-overlooked aspect of social media—the benefits it can provide—cannot simply be ignored. One study has also found that younger people are more likely to benefit from social media.
Furthermore, when it comes to internet fraud, scams and phishing emails, people of different age groups are, broadly speaking, similarly vulnerable. The nature of fraud and scams may differ depending on age, however, with older adults more likely to suffer significantly greater financial harm.
All of this leads to the conclusion that social media is not a uniquely harmful phenomenon for adolescents. Rather, it has the potential to harm people across all age groups. At the same time, the government does not exactly inspire confidence when it comes to restricting social media use for political purposes.
After all, who can forget the great X-ban—or Twitter-ban—saga that followed immediately after the 2024 national elections, a ban that the government initially refused even to acknowledge? The Interior Ministry refused to comply with the Sindh High Court’s direction to either justify the ban or withdraw it. Such restrictions only serve to increase disinformation.
Then, almost magically, the ban disappeared when favourable public opinion became convenient amid military skirmishes with India. This demonstrated that the state understands the democratic power of social media quite well—at least when that power works in its favour.
As was the case around the national elections, political discourse is once again reaching a peak. The prospect of new provinces, which could potentially alter Pakistani politics forever, appears to be on the horizon. In this context, the timing of discussions surrounding a social media ban for those under 16 is deeply concerning.
Such a ban could limit the future generation’s access to news and information and, perhaps, take away the only political voice available to many of them.
At the same time, the ban carries a broader consequence: it could hinder the development of political awareness and critical thinking among the voters of tomorrow. This is not to absolve social media platforms of their responsibility towards children. They must be held accountable for creating safer online environments. The trade-off, however, cannot be a blanket ban that effectively silences the voice of a major demographic.
At the end of the day, one has to wonder when a Pakistani government will begin to care about legitimate public opinion, rather than merely managing its optics by manipulating social media.
The emperor remained unclothed even when both the emperor and the public behaved as though he was dressed in the finest clothes until a child finally pointed out that he was wearing nothing at all.
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