Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs Chinmaya IAS Academy – Current Affairs
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The British government is drawing up guidelines to limit the number of hours children spend online on social media sites and apps, authorities announced on Sunday. U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock said he has ordered the plans to be drawn up and attacked social media giants, such as Facebook, for not policing their own rules on users’ age limits. “I am, as a father, very worried about the growing evidence of the impact of social media on children’s mental health. Unrestricted use (of social media) by younger children risks being very damaging to their mental health,” he said. Dame Sally Davies, the U.K.’s Chief Medical Officer, has been put in charge of drafting guidance on how much social media use should be deemed healthy. “As a parent you want to be able to say ‘The rules say you shouldn’t use social media for more than a certain period of time’. This is why we have a Chief Medical Officer: to set a norm in society, make judgments on behalf of society, so that individual schools or individual parents don’t have to decide,” he said. The Minister suggested turning phones off before bed would limit the damage.
