President of the National Parent-Teacher Association of Jamaica (NPTAJ), Stewart Jacobs, is calling for legislators to consider implementing a ban on social media platforms for children under 16 years old.
A ban on social media for young teens has been trending across several countries with the United Kingdom set to join.
The UK’s move to a full ban comes after a government consultation conducted between March and May found that nine out of 10 parents backed such a measure.
Mr. Jacobs says with significant behavioural challenges being observed in children, all stakeholders must take serious measures to address the looming crisis.
He says children are too often exposed to extremist content that can deviate from the morals that parents work hard to teach them.
“We have a deliberate addiction that is happening now with our children on social media to contents that is quite questionable and harmful to them. You have those who have political as well as religious misinformation. And so you are teaching your children, inculcating in them a certain lifestyle, a certain religious ideal and philosophy and so on. And someone else is seeping all that into them, unknown to you. Then there is the cyber bullying. I mean children are bullied online…. In my time, you get a buss head, this time it is a psychological buss head you get,” said the NPTAJ, who was a guest on TVJ’s Smile Jamaica on Tuesday morning.