July 15 (Citizen News) - A couple of months ago, Owl Factory Studio organised Puchke Mela, a screen-free family initiative at Jatra Biroti in Banani. The objective was simple: to encourage children to spend a few hours planting, painting, creating, singing, storytelling, and simply enjoying one another’s company without screens.
The children surprised us.
Many immersed themselves in colours, creativity, listening and games with remarkable ease.
The adults were another story.
Parents repeatedly reached for their phones to check notifications, take photographs, upload them, or simply scroll through social media. It became increasingly clear that keeping children away from smartphones was far easier than keeping their parents away from them.
That experience has stayed with me as Bangladesh debates banning social media for children under sixteen.
Every generation has had its villain. There was a time when parents worried that children spent too long playing outside. Then television became the enemy. Video games followed. Computers came next. Today, smartphones and social media have become the latest culprit.
We seem to have a habit of blaming the newest technology for every challenge facing the next generation.
That does not mean social media is harmless. It isn’t.
Cyberbullying, harmful content, misinformation, online predators and addictive algorithms pose genuine risks, particularly for young minds. Children deserve better protection, and technology companies must be held to a much higher standard of accountability.
But we should not mistake a simple solution for an effective one.
Will banning social media actually solve the problem?
I doubt it.
Bangladesh has already experienced something similar. When PUBG was banned, players did not simply stop gaming. Many used VPNs to continue playing, while others migrated to lesser-known alternatives with fewer safeguards, weaker moderation and far less public scrutiny. The ban did not eliminate the behaviour; it merely pushed it into spaces that were arguably less safe.
Social media is unlikely to be any different.
Children determined to access these platforms will borrow devices, use VPNs or migrate to newer applications that parents, educators and even regulators know very little about. A policy designed to protect children could unintentionally push them towards corners of the internet where protection is even weaker.
Instead of asking whether children should be online, perhaps we should ask a more useful question.
How can they be online safely?
The answer begins at home.
Parents should not wait until their children become teenagers before taking an interest in their digital lives. Healthy digital habits begin from the moment a child first holds a connected device. Parents should know which platforms their children use, who they communicate with and what kind of content shapes their online experience. Device-level parental controls, open conversations and age-appropriate guidance are far more sustainable than assuming children can simply be kept away from technology.
This is not about spying on children. It is about accompanying them as they learn to navigate a world that will inevitably become part of their education, careers and relationships.
Just as we teach children how to cross a busy road instead of forbidding them from leaving home, we should teach them how to navigate the digital world instead of pretending we can keep them out of it forever.
Dr Sujata Gamage recently made another important observation. Before restricting children’s virtual spaces, we should ask why we have steadily allowed their physical ones to disappear.
She is right.
Children today have fewer neighbourhood playgrounds, fewer safe open spaces, fewer libraries and fewer opportunities for unstructured play than previous generations. Many families spend evenings under the same roof but in different digital worlds. Parents answer office emails, children scroll through social media and conversations become shorter than notifications.
We worry that children are escaping into screens.
Perhaps we should first ask why the real world has become less inviting.
If we genuinely want children to spend less time online, we need to give them something better offline.
More parks.
More reading clubs.
More sports.
More music.
More arts.
Above all, more quality time with family and real life friends.
More community initiatives that remind both children and adults that joy still exists beyond a screen.
Government still has an important role to play. Platforms should be required to strengthen age-appropriate design, improve privacy protections, provide effective parental tools and invest far more in content moderation in Bangla. Harmful content targeting children should be dealt with swiftly and transparently.
But government cannot replace parents.
Nor can Parliament legislate good judgement.
There is another reform that deserves equal attention.
Digital literacy should become part of Bangladesh’s national curriculum from the earliest years of schooling. We teach children road safety because we know they will eventually use the roads. The internet deserves the same approach. Children should learn how algorithms influence what they see, how misinformation spreads, how to recognise scams, protect their privacy, respond to cyberbullying and use digital platforms responsibly. These are no longer optional skills; they are essential life skills.
Our objective should not be to raise children who fear technology.
It should be to raise children who understand it.
Children who know how to benefit from it without becoming controlled by it.
Children who know when to put the phone down because they have discovered that the world beyond the screen is richer, kinder and far more rewarding.
Parliament can regulate technology.
Platforms can improve safety.
Schools can teach digital literacy.
But only parents can raise children.
And Parliament cannot do that for them.