India, Feb. 18 -- There have been some strong indications that the Union government is considering age-based restrictions on social media. While the Economic Survey recommended this, Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday spoke about the need to protect children from social media harm. A senior IT ministry official told HT that deliberations are on, including with social media platforms. If India eventually adopts age-based restrictions, it will join a growing list of countries and jurisdictions that are turning to legislation to manage the fallout of social media usage among youngsters.

As this newspaper has highlighted earlier, there is enough scientific literature that links unrestricted social media access and usage to serious...