THE Philippine Pediatrics Society (PPS) said children below 16 should not use social media without supervision.
”The PPS does not recommend social media use among children aged 16 and below. If access is permitted, it should not be independent; accounts should be co-managed by a parent or guardian, with active supervision, clear boundaries and age-appropriate guidance, particularly for individuals with developmental and psychosocial vulnerabilities,” the PPS said in a position paper posted on the Facebook page of the Philippine Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics on Friday.
The PPS said unsafe online hazards include exploitation by online predators, including adults posing as peers to gain children’s trust, and exposure to harmful or age-inappropriate content.
The PPS warned of harmful platform features, such as algorithms that promote compulsive use, disrupt sleep and expose children to health-damaging content. These features, it noted, capitalize on children’s developmental vulnerabilities and can have long-term negative impacts on their well-being.
It added that parents and caregivers are in the best position to assess each child’s readiness to use social media.
”PPS regards 16 years as a population-level protective threshold, consistent with emerging international policy directions for platform-level protections for minors. Age thresholds are useful public health safeguards, but they do not replace individualized assessment of readiness and risk. Developmental capacity, vulnerability and the quality of caregiver supervision remain important considerations even beyond this age,” PPS said.
”Children and adolescents are in a sensitive and critical period of neurodevelopment. Impulse control, emotional regulation, judgment and social functioning are still maturing. Critically, this process does not end at 18 years of age. Brain systems governing regulation, decision-making and long-term planning continue to develop into the mid-20s. Because reward and emotional reactivity systems mature earlier than prefrontal inhibitory systems, younger users are more susceptible to highly stimulating, attention-capturing and commercially driven digital environments. They need meaningful adult guidance and structural protection to navigate these spaces safely,” it added.
PPS stressed the shared responsibility among parents, guardians, schools and the government to protect children from online dangers, citing the vulnerability of young people to such risks.
The Child Neurology Society Philippines (CNSP) supported the PPS position on Friday.
”Screen time impacts brain development depending heavily on the quality of content, how it is used and the age of the user. Despite being marketed to have advantages for education, communication and connectivity, children require continued guidance and protection from the many unintended disadvantages and negative consequences of unsupervised, independent screen time and use of social media,” CNSP said in a Facebook post.
The statements come amid the occurrence of violent incidents in schools across the nation, including the fatal school shooting in Tacloban City.
In other countries, such as Australia, measures are in place to prohibit children below 16 years from social media use.
