February 18, 2025
JAKARTA – American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt begins his popular book The Anxious Generation with a graphic showing a sudden and very large upturn in major depressive episodes among adolescents after the 2010s, a period he refers to as “the great rewiring of childhood”.
He continues by explaining how the rapid increase in social media and smartphone use during the period, combined with the decline of play-based childhoods, has been harmful to children’s mental health; anxiety, depression and self-harm is found in many western countries, with those born after 1995 being hit hardest.
This phenomenon, however, is not exclusive to the western world. Various studies in Indonesia highlight the negative impacts of social media to children and adolescents.
In 2023, the Indonesia National Adolescent Mental Health Survey found around 35 percent of the country’s teenagers, amounting to over 15 million, had dealt with a mental health issue.
High exposure to negative content on social media, including cyberbullying, contributes to the problem, said one of the researchers.
It is not surprising that now more and more countries are considering limiting the use of social media for the younger generation. Australia took the lead by passing the legislation that bans social media for children under 16 last November. Shortly after, the Indonesian government announced its plan to follow in the footsteps of its southern neighbor.
Internet penetration in the nation of 280 million people reached almost 80 percent as of last year, a survey by the Indonesia’s Internet Providers Association showed, further noting that nearly half of children under 12 had access to the internet.
President Prabowo Subianto earlier this month gave a two-month deadline for the Communications and Digital Ministry to finish an interim guideline on child online protection as a stepping-stone toward national legislation. The impending regulation will, among others, include increased parental guidance in internet use and sanctions for tech companies that allow underage users to access their social media platforms.
While the plan to restrict social media among minors is largely welcomed by the public, particularly parents, authorities should implement the upcoming policy with extra caution. The social media verification process might become more stringent in the future, with users required to present the combination of their valid ID and detailed profile information, as well as biometric data. This is prone to data misuse and exploitation.
Indonesia has seen a surge in cyberattack incidents in the past years. In June of 2024, a major ransomware attack targeted one of the country’s two temporary national data centers, causing nationwide disruptions to public services connected to it. The personal information of millions of Indonesians has also reportedly been stolen and sold online by hackers.
The 2022 Personal Data Protection law mandates the formation of a data protection oversight agency to impose sanctions on noncompliant data controllers and processors, but the government is moving at a snail’s pace in the agency’s formation. While we are waiting for the child online protection regulation to complete, it is better for the government to set up the agency first.
In addition, social media restriction should not become the only solution to the mental health crisis widely experienced by children in the digital age. In fact, it is just the beginning.
Just like all mammals do, humans, in this case children, need to play outside to wire up their brains and prepare for adulthood, Haidt further underlines in his work.
The question is, has Indonesia developed enough safe and adequate outdoor spaces for children to explore? The answer is easy and simple: No.
While open spaces or nature might be abundant and easily accessible in the country’s rural areas, that is not exactly the case with densely populated cities like Jakarta and its buffer zones. Take South Tangerang in Banten for example; the city of over 1.4 million people has less than 10 free open spaces, with dozens more located behind fences, forcing parents to pay for their children’s entertainment.
If the government is serious about protecting the younger generation’s wellbeing by limiting their access in the digital sphere, it should as well think of ways to encourage them to be active in the real world. And building accessible child-friendly facilities is one of them.