By Ebube Bruno
“The same way we tell our children not to wander through strange streets at night, we must now teach them not to roam the internet without light.”
A few weeks ago, a colleague shared an experience she witnessed during a school outreach on digital safety. She had met a mother who said something that struck her deeply. Her 12-year-old son had started wearing glasses; not because of genetics, but because of screen fatigue. “He stays up chatting with friends till 2 a.m.,” she said. “I thought he was studying.”
That story could have come from anywhere — Sydney, Copenhagen, or Lagos. The difference is that some countries are already acting on it.
The Ban Wave Begins
Australia has drawn the line. Starting December 10, all children under 16 will be banned from Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, TikTok, X, and Reddit. The government says the decision aims to safeguard young people’s mental health and reduce their exposure to addictive design features that keep them scrolling endlessly.
The Australian eSafety
Commissioner explains that these features “encourage unhealthy engagement and expose children to harmful content.”
In Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen plans to follow suit, with a slightly softer edge —allowing parents to grant limited access from age 13. “The cell phone and social media are robbing our children of their childhood,” she declared.
Meanwhile, governments are probing TikTok over data privacy and national security risks.
Efforts to localise ownership — or even ban the app — show how quickly mental health and national interest have become intertwined.
A 2024 report by Denmark’s Wellbeing Commission found that 94% of young Danes had social media profiles before age 13, even though most platforms forbid it.
Across Europe and the United States, similar restrictions are under review. The debate is global
— and urgent.
Courtrooms and Crosshairs
In America, social media companies face lawsuits from parents who say platforms “hook” their kids through manipulative algorithms. Over 40 US states are suing Meta, claiming Instagram is designed to be addictive and harmful to teens. A California judge recently compared social media’s impact on minors to “nicotine for the digital age.”
Nigeria’s Quiet Dilemma
Here at home, Nigeria is not untouched by this conversation. Families are already policing what children watch or post, often without clear guidance or digital literacy themselves. Some schools ban smartphones; others quietly tolerate them.
In one Ibadan neighborhood in Nigeria, I met a teenager who said she deletes her apps every Sunday — “so my mum thinks I’ve stopped.” It’s a silent tug-of-war between curiosity and caution, freedom and fear.
The risks multiply; from unfiltered adult content to gambling disguised as games, to online scammers using fake “friend” profiles.
Platforms Respond (Slowly) Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, has rolled out global “Teen Accounts” with automatic privacy settings, restricted contact lists, and parental supervision tools. As of September 25, 2025, these features are active worldwide.
But experts and advocacy groups like DIniti8tive warn that Direct Messages (DMs) remain the weakest link. Alternative company Websare finds it its report that unlike public posts that can be flagged, private chats are invisible — “dark alleys” of the internet where predators thrive.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself admits that Facebook has drifted from its family-photo origins. “Now the algorithm decides what people see — and how long they stay,” he said in a recent interview.
Between Bans and Balance
Supporters of age limits say they restore sanity — less pressure, less comparison, less anxiety. Critics argue that bans risk isolating teens from modern education, digital creativity, and social
belonging.
But the conversation shouldn’t be about walls; it should be about guardrails. Just like cities have traffic lights, speed limits, and pedestrian crossings, the internet needs its own version; safety rules that grow with the child.
Because whether in Melbourne or Makurdi, what’s at stake isn’t just screen time — it’s childhood itself.
And maybe, in this new digital world, what our children need most isn’t another password. It’s a curfew.
In the next episode of “Roaming the Internet Streets,” I’ll explore how digital education and parental tech-literacy can protect children better than bans — and what Nigerian families can learn from nations leading the charge.
