Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch and Reddit applications are displayed on a mobile phone in this picture illustration taken on December 9, 2025. REUTERS/Hollie Adams/Illustration
NEW DELHI, Jan 29 (Reuters) - India's chief economic adviser called on the government to set age-based limits on access to social media apps to counter "digital addiction", cautioning against use of platforms by children in the largest user market for Meta and YouTube.
A shift in India would align with a growing global trend. Australia last year became the first nation to enforce a social media ban for children under 16. France's National Assembly on Monday backed legislation to ban children under 15 from social media and Britain, Denmark and Greece are studying the issue.
The adviser made the call in India's annual economic survey and recommended families promote screen-time limits, device-free hours and shared offline activities.
"Policies on age-based access limits may be considered, as younger users are more vulnerable to compulsive use and harmful content," the adviser, V. Anantha Nageswaran, wrote in the survey.
"Platforms should be made responsible for enforcing age verification and age-appropriate defaults," he added.
India, a key growth market for social media apps, does not have a unified national minimum age for social media access. The country is also the No. 2 smartphone market in the world with 750 million devices, and has 1 billion internet users.
The recommendations of the adviser are not binding on the Indian government, but are typically considered seriously in policy deliberations by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's administration.
BIG MARKET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook operator Meta, YouTube-parent Alphabet and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Cheap telecom data plans in recent years have increased usage of social media apps.
Among the youth who use a smartphone, over half reported using digital platforms for education, and around 75 per cent use them for social media, the survey report said.
"Digital addiction negatively affects academic performance and workplace productivity due to distractions, ‘sleep debt’, and reduced focus," Nageswaran said.
The federal recommendation also follows growing momentum among Indian states to regulate screen time. The coastal state of Goa and southern state Andhra Pradesh recently announced they are studying Australia's regulatory framework to potentially ban social media for children.
Meta has previously said it supports laws which require parental oversight but that "governments considering bans should be careful not to push teens toward less safe, unregulated sites."
(Reporting by Manoj Kumar, Aditi Shah, Arpan Chaturvedi, Munsif Vengattil; Editing by Aditya Kalra, Christopher Cushing and Neil Fullick)
