The expert opinion was supported by more than 20 scientists and experts who have long been engaged in research on children and adolescents, digital media, online risks, and prevention programs focused on the safe use of technology.
“We were motivated to draft this expert opinion by the highly fragmented nature of the debate surrounding this issue. Many non-experts, laypeople, and others who have never conducted research with adolescents and are unaware of current studies in this area comment on the topic. We therefore reached out to the majority of experts who conduct research with Czech adolescents or implement prevention programs directly related to digital technologies and their use. I’m pleased that the vast majority of the experts we contacted supported the expert opinion. It turns out that there is indeed a broad consensus among experts that banning social media for children under the age of fifteen or sixteen is not meaningful,” says David Šmahel from the IRTIS team.
The opinion points out that banning social media alone is not a sufficiently effective solution. According to experts, current scientific knowledge does not provide sufficient evidence that a blanket ban on social media would lead to improvements in children's mental health. There is also a risk that children would shift to less safe and less regulated online platforms, where protection against harmful content or risky behavior is even more difficult.
“A blanket ban on social media merely creates a false sense of security and only gives the impression that we have protected children and adolescents from the risks of social media. Experience from Australia shows that children do not feel safer online after the ban was implemented, and some have even moved to less safe online platforms. What is truly essential is increasing the accountability of platforms and strengthening media and digital literacy—both in schools for children and among parents,” explains Michaela Šaradín Lebedíková, who, together with Šmahel, has conducted extensive research on the influence of technology on adolescents' well-being, among other topics.
Instead of introducing blanket bans, the experts recommend focusing on increasing the accountability of digital platforms, providing systematic media and digital literacy education, supporting parents and schools, more effectively enforcing existing age requirements for online services, and strengthening efforts to prevent risky behavior in online environments.
According to the authors, parents need practical and accessible guidance on how to talk to their children about the online environment, set appropriate boundaries, and recognize risky situations. At the same time, it is important to enforce existing age requirements for online services consistently and to ensure that age verification is carried out securely and proportionately, without unnecessary collection of sensitive personal data.
On behalf of Masaryk University, the opinion was also signed by experts from the Department of Educational Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and from the Psychology Research Institute (INPSY) at the Faculty of Social Studies.
"The goal is not to exclude children from the digital environment, but to ensure that the digital environment in which they grow up is safer, age-appropriate, and subject to clear rules," the opinion concludes.
