India’s chief economic adviser has urged the government to consider age-based limits on social media access, warning of rising digital addiction among children in the world’s biggest growth market for online platforms. The proposal places India at the centre of a growing global debate on regulating young users.
The call was made on Thursday during India’s annual economic survey, a key policy document that often shapes debates within Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration.
While the recommendations are not legally binding, they are typically considered seriously in policy deliberations, according to the survey.
“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 report.
He added that platforms should be made responsible for enforcing age verification and age-appropriate defaults.
India is a crucial growth market for global technology companies, including Meta and YouTube, with cheap mobile data plans driving explosive growth in social media use over the past decade.
The country is the world’s second-largest smartphone market, with about 750 million devices, and has roughly one billion internet users.
The adviser warned that widespread use of digital platforms, particularly among children and young people, is having measurable social and economic consequences.
“Digital addiction negatively affects academic performance and workplace productivity due to distractions, sleep debt, and reduced focus,” Nageswaran said.
The survey noted that among young people who use smartphones, more than half reported using digital platforms for education, while around 75 per cent said they used them for social media.
The findings highlight the dual role of digital tools in India’s fast-growing economy, serving both as learning resources and sources of entertainment that can become excessive.
India currently does not have a unified national minimum age for accessing social media platforms, leaving enforcement largely to companies’ own policies and parental oversight.
The adviser’s comments signal a potential shift toward more direct regulation, placing responsibility on platforms themselves to ensure compliance.
A move by India would place it alongside a growing number of countries examining stricter controls on children’s access to social media.
Australia last year became the first nation to enforce a social media ban for children under 16.
France’s National Assembly has backed legislation to ban children under 15 from social media, while Britain, Denmark and Greece are studying similar measures.
The survey also encouraged families to take practical steps to limit digital overuse, recommending screen-time limits, device-free hours and shared offline activities as ways to counter excessive reliance on smartphones and social media apps.
At the regional level, momentum is also building within India. The coastal state of Goa and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh have announced that they are studying Australia’s regulatory framework as they consider whether to introduce their own restrictions on social media use by children.
Technology companies have reacted cautiously to calls for outright bans. Meta has previously said it supports laws requiring parental oversight but warned that governments considering bans should be careful not to push teens toward less safe, unregulated sites.
Facebook operator Meta, YouTube-parent Alphabet and X did not immediately respond to requests for comment following the survey’s release.
With India’s vast population of young internet users and its importance to global technology firms, any move toward age-based limits would carry significant implications for both policymakers and the digital economy.
For now, the adviser’s recommendations stop short of proposing specific legislation, but they reaffirm growing concern that digital addiction among children is becoming a national policy issue rather than a private family matter.
As India debates its next steps, the balance between protecting young users and preserving access to digital opportunities is likely to remain at the centre of the conversation.
