Forum: Go beyond school phone bans to protect children online
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Australia’s ban on social media accounts for children under 16 has reignited an important question for Singapore: Are our current measures enough? While Singapore has announced that from 2026, secondary school students will not be allowed to use smartphones or smartwatches during school hours, this step alone barely scratches the surface of the problem.
The reality is that most online harm does not happen between 7.30am and 1.30pm. It happens late at night, behind closed doors, when children are alone with their devices.
Cyberbullying, sexual grooming, harmful content, social comparison and algorithm-driven addiction occur outside school hours.
A school-time phone ban may reduce distractions in class, but it does little to address the psychological and social damage that continues at home.
Singapore’s students are among the most digitally connected in the world. Many receive smartphones in primary school, sometimes earlier. Social media is deeply woven into their social lives, identity formation and self-worth.
Expecting children to self-regulate against billion-dollar platforms designed to maximise attention is unrealistic. It places responsibility on the weakest party in the equation.
Australia’s approach shifts accountability to where it belongs: the platforms. By forcing companies to prevent under-16s from creating accounts and imposing heavy fines for failure, the law recognises that voluntary safeguards do not work.
Singapore has the regulatory capability to do something similar. It already regulates online harms through the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act and the Online Safety Code. Extending this to stronger age-based protections is not a radical leap.
Critically, such measures would support parents rather than replace them. Many parents want to limit social media use but face resistance, peer pressure and fear of social exclusion for their children.
A clear national standard would make boundaries easier to enforce at home. When everyone follows the same rule, no child is singled out.
If Singapore is serious about child well-being, policy must go beyond classrooms. This means looking at age verification, limiting algorithmic amplification for minors, mandating safer default settings, and holding platforms legally responsible for underage access.
Education, digital literacy and school bans are important, but without structural regulation, they are stopgaps.
Australia has shown that governments can act decisively. For Singapore, the question is not whether school phone bans help, but whether we are willing to address the deeper problem of unrestricted social media access in children’s everyday lives.
Choong Deng Xiang
