Dr Rangan Chatterjee urges social media age 18 over screen harms

A 16-year-old boy and his mother visited GP Dr Rangan Chatterjee after the teenager had been to A&E following an attempt at self-harm. The hospital notes recommended antidepressants, but Chatterjee probed other factors and found heavy evening screen use. He helped the family introduce a routine that cut devices an hour before bed and extended the screen-free period over six weeks; after two months the boy no longer needed appointments, and his mother later wrote to say he had been transformed.

Chatterjee describes the widespread adoption of screens into children’s lives as “the most urgent public health issue of our time” and has joined campaign work opposing the growth of ed tech in schools. He argues the legal age for social media should be 18, comparable to gambling and access to pornography, and points to moves such as Australia’s ban for under-16s and Spain’s recent plans.

Tech companies’ commercial incentives, he says, make them a poor arbiter of what is best for children.

rangan chatterjee, social media, age 18, screen time, screen harms, self harm, antidepressants, bedtime routine, ed tech, australia