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Game over? How kids are losing out to onscreen glow

In a shocking incident, recently three minor sisters jumped from the ninth floor of their apartment building in Ghaziabad, UP, allegedly after their parents objected to their gaming addiction.  According to police, the girls locked their room from inside and jumped from the balcony window one by one.

The deaths of these minors have once again brought attention to the risks linked to certain online games and digital challenges. 

The Economic Survey 2025–26 that was tabled in Parliament recently, has also flagged the rapid rise of digital addiction and screen-related mental health challenges in India, particularly among children and adolescents.

In the recent past, cases of suicides were reported allegedly due to addiction and tasks related to these games. Cases in point are several suicides and self-harm attempts in 2017 connected to the ‘Blue Whale’ online challenge.

Similarly, several incidents of suicide were reported between 2018 and 2020, where the deaths of kids were linked to their addiction to PlayerUnknown Battlegrounds Mobile, better known as PUBG Mobile.

Momo Challenge, yet another online game that went viral in the same year, led to the suspected suicides of a class X student in Ajmer, Rajasthan and an 18-year-old man and a 26-year-old woman in Darjeeling, West Bengal.

Most recently in September 2025, a 14-year-old boy in Lucknow committed suicide as he was addicted to mobile gaming and had lost ₹14 lakh from his father's bank account.

These are among the few that are widely unreported. Such cases are an indication and reflect the widening gap between us and our children.

If reports are to go by, India is one of the most critical growth markets for social media companies. India's total internet users numbered nearly 1.02 billion by September 2025, a sharp increase from about 250 million in 2014. The country is also the world's No. 2 smartphone market, with 750 million devices.

According to data from research form DataReportal, India is home to 500 million unique social media users. Though Alphabet and Meta do not officially disclose country-specific figures, but going by DataReportal reports, YouTube users in India are at 500 million, Facebook 403 million, Instagram at 481 million, and Snapchat at 213 million. Elon Musk's X has about 22 million users.

According to survey reported by Reuters, nearly 90% of children aged 14 to 16 have access to smartphones at home. Interestingly, the survey revealed recreational use dominates screen time. More than 76% of the surveyed children in that age group spoke of their access to social media, compared to just 57% using the devices for education in the week prior to the survey.

Similarly, a survey conducted by LocalCircles across 302 urban districts in 2025 reveals that nearly half of Indian parents say their children are spending three hours or more every day on social media, video streaming platforms, and online games. Around 22% report children exceeding six hours per day.

Shockingly, it’s not limited to adolescents. A study conducted by Ashish Khobragade and M Swathi Shenoy from AIIMS Raipur, which was published in Cureus journal in 2025 revealed that an average child under the age of five years in India spends close to 2.2 hours daily in front of screens, double the recommended limit.

These figures indicate that Indian children aged roughly 5–15 commonly spend 2–6+ hours daily on screens — often exceeding expert recommendations.

So, why are on screen time among children on the rise? Reasons are manifold. Some of the major causes include:

Structural change in Indian family system: India, till last few decades, followed a joint family system. Urbanisation, industrialization driven by migration for better pasture, increase in education among women, coupled with various other socio-economic causes have led to the decline of joint family.

In a newly built nuclear family set up, mostly both parents are working. Child rearing has been taken over by house helps in most of the urban set ups.  While parents are at work, children after coming back from school are left alone for around five to six hours and sometimes more than that.  That feeling of isolation has given way to dependency on the digital media, which over time is becoming an addiction among majority of children. Due to lack of communication between their parents, they prefer the virtual world to the real world.

Rise of consumerism

Economic liberalization post 1991 not only opened doors to series of economic reforms but also led to a rapid surge in consumerism, which over the years has become huge. This rapid rise in consumer culture is not only shaping a child’s childhood but also parenting. The easy flow of money has resulted in delayed desires turning into instant fulfilment. Materialistic gratification has taken over emotional bonding. Parents make up for their not being with their kids by fulfilling their demands, which in turn have made them impatient and restless. They get bored easily and want things instantly.

In fact, this generation is not just digital natives, they are digital consumers. Long before earning, many already take the liberty to choose, demand, spend and of course scroll!

Children of this generation believe their worth in society is counted through the phone they own, the number of foreign trips they undertake in a calendar year, the avatar they upgrade, among others.

Onslaught of media channels and overflow of information

The excess flow of information, thanks to 24*7 media channels, unending social media sites, OTT platforms, gaming apps, and short feed videos is increasingly shaping how long children stay online. In fact, it has also influenced how they think, feel and engage with the world. Gone are the days when television was confined to news hour and entertainment in a limited time duration. The competition to grab consumers has especially influenced children. With developing attention spans and limited filters, they have become the easiest audience to capture. Online screen time has become their best buddy to overcome their boredom, isolation and sometimes loneliness.

Peer Pressure

Unlike in the past, peer pressure for today’s generation is not confined to school premises or playgrounds, it has expanded digitally, becoming one of the driving forces towards online addiction among children. Friendships are increasingly maintained through group chats, gaming teams, etc. A child believes his/her worth is identified through his online presence. He undergoes FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) if he logs out. He is under constant pressure to be in ‘that’ gang for social approval. Sometimes, children stay online not because they enjoy it, but because everyone else is there.

The Impact

These factors have severely impacted on the emotional, mental and social well-being of this generation. Various studies have shown that children addicted to screens suffer not only from anxiety, low self-esteem but also emotional numbness, which in the long run may lead to depression.

Short attention spans coupled with aggressive behavior when screens are restricted, failure to accept rejection and less resilient to stress could stunt their growth and can act as a stumbling block in their personality development, warn psychologists. The overflow of information has blurred boundaries between news, entertainment and advertising. They have fallen into the trap of influencers who sell products as lifestyle advice; to games with rewards, which at times have turned dangerous, and news half-baked and half cooked, molding their personalities.

The way forward: The change we need

Whenever there’s a discussion on online addiction, especially among children, the blame game begins. From blaming parenting to technology onslaught, including government measures, the list goes on. But if we as a country with more than 34% of the young population need to safeguard our demographic talent, we must go beyond blame game, advice and look out for structural change.

It’s noteworthy that the government too realizes the potential danger. The Economic Survey 2025-26 has called on the government to implement age-based limits for social media usage for children and digital advertisements targeted at them.

It also said that simpler devices, such as basic phones or education-only tablets, should be promoted among children along with enforced usage limits and content filters. This could reduce their exposure to harmful material, including violent, sexual, or gambling-related content.

Presently, the central government has a few safeguards such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) 2023, which requires parental consent for users under 18, and proposals for age-based restrictions on social media. 

But then, these measures can only be effective when there are concrete efforts on the part of parents and schools, where children spend most of time. Some of them are:

Let homes be the place where our heart is: They say, ‘Charity begins at home’. Rightly so. In this modern world, it’s not possible to keep your child out of technology but it’s certainly not impossible to spend quality time with them. There are times when children go online not because of entertainment but to beat boredom, loneliness or isolation. Parents should lead by example by not only keeping a curfew on screen time for their kids but also for themselves. Children emulate from their parents.

It has been observed that parents often pass on their mobiles to their toddlers to watch cartoon or movie songs while feeding them or working or talking to their friends, etc. They forget that this becomes a habit and later as they grow, it becomes an addiction.

Keep your children off from smartphones: It’s very important to keep children, especially in their early years, away from smartphones, which in this modern era has become a mini world packed with infinite content, instant rewards and constant notifications. Parents often justify smartphones as tools for safety or learning. However, studies suggest handing over smartphones to children, especially adolescents, create certain habits that become irreversible and addiction in the longer run. Give them a normal mobile if you are concerned about their safety and for learning purposes, allow them to use it under parental supervision. It will allow parents to spend and understand the needs of their child.

Let your child not be your content: In this Tik Tok era, where your life has become completely virtual, highly dependent on likes, traffic, views and viral fame, a disturbing trend has come to the forefront. Children are brazenly being used by parents as fodder for generation of content. Kids are being asked to perform, pose and act for the virtual world. Channels with their kids’ names in the handle have become huge marketing trend to earn money. Recently, a mother was seen doing a reel on her 3-year-old child ordering candies from an online grocery app. The reel got viral instantly garnering more than a million views with viewers finding it cute and adorable. What looks like harmless fun today may leave permanent footprints on a child’s life tomorrow.

Schools must create awareness on digital literacy: While it’s important for schools to equip students with new tech driven amenities, it is equally important for them to create an awareness on digital literacy. While schools boast of smart classes, AI driven techniques, they forget to teach them to disengage from it.  It’s unfortunate that classroom teaching has just been confined to lectures with no classwork being done, which has hugely affected the speed and grasping power of students. Instead of asking students to do their projects under their supervision in classes, teachers often ask students to take online help or outsource it to homes. It is the duty of teachers to talk to their students about online screen time, harmful content floating around digital media, and flag addictive signs of children by warning their parents. Parents, on the other hand, must cooperate with schools rather than taking an aggressive and biased stand in support of their kids.

Encourage offline activities for your child: A growing child is full of energy, use it to the optimum by encouraging them to indulge in outdoor activities like sports, gardening, art, libraries, etc. Develop it as an alternate life skill. It would not only channelize their energy in a positive direction but will also shape their personality in the right direction.

Platforms must be held accountable: Usually, tech companies get away by just mentioning a disclaimer. It’s time they became accountable by showing transparency such as mentioning clearly on default screen-time warning for children under 14. There should be heavy penalties for violations.

Let’s remember technology is a necessary evil and we can’t live without it, but we can keep our children safe by logging them into a  world with adequate safety measures.

 

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