Are We Protecting Our Children from Social Media, or Leaving Them Alone and Then Fearing for Them?

By Tahani Elghazaly

The question today is no longer whether social media is good or bad. That question is too old and too simple for the scale of the danger now surrounding our children. The real question knocking on every family’s door is this: are we truly protecting our children, or are we only frightening them? Are we raising them with awareness, or throwing warnings at them and then leaving them alone in a world that never sleeps, never softens, and never stops hunting their attention, emotions, and vulnerabilities?

Canada’s growing debate over banning social media for those under 16 did not come from nowhere. A March 2026 Angus Reid survey of 4,005 Canadian adults found that 75 per cent support a full ban on social media for children under 16. The same polling showed deep concern about the harms linked to these platforms: 94 per cent worried about mental health effects, 94 per cent about addiction, 92 per cent about misinformation, 90 per cent about cyberbullying, and 85 per cent about explicit content.

But a ban, however decisive it may sound, is not a complete answer. Children do not enter these platforms only for entertainment. Many go there because of loneliness, emotional emptiness, boredom, the need for recognition, or the quiet anxiety they do not yet know how to name. A child who does not find enough warmth, conversation, or thoughtful guidance at home will not necessarily be saved by fear. They may simply become more secretive, more isolated, and more skilled at opening the same digital door away from our eyes.

The numbers are already alarming. Public Health Agency of Canada reporting says nearly 100 per cent of adolescents had used the internet in the previous three months and 92 per cent regularly used social media. In grades 9 and 10, 54 per cent of cisgender girls reported intensive social media use, and 15 per cent reported problematic use. The same report says problematic social media use was associated with poorer life satisfaction and worse mental health indicators for youth overall.

The mental health trend is just as troubling. Statistics Canada reported that the share of youth who rated their mental health as fair or poor rose from 12 per cent in 2019 to 26 per cent in 2023. Among girls, that figure rose from 16 per cent to 33 per cent, compared with 19 per cent for boys in 2023. These are not just numbers about screen habits. They are signs of growing fragility inside young lives still being formed.

Then comes cyberbullying, the kind of violence that enters a child’s room without knocking. Statistics Canada found that 1 in 4 youth aged 12 to 17 reported being cyberbullied in the previous year. The risk was far higher among those who constantly used social networking platforms, 34 per cent compared with 12 per cent among those who never used them. It was also lower when parents were always or often aware of what their children were doing online, 22 per cent compared with 29 per cent when parental awareness was limited. That matters. It tells us that supervision is not oppression. It is protection.

That is why I worry when the conversation is reduced to one word: ban. Yes, we may need stronger laws. Yes, we may need real age verification and greater accountability for companies whose systems are designed to maximize dependence and expose children to harmful content. The Canadian Paediatric Society has called for stronger public action, including family media plans and screen-free times, because the warning signs are already serious enough.

But none of this removes our own responsibility. The problem is not only the phone in a child’s hand. Sometimes it is the distance that has grown between that child and the adults who are supposed to be closest.

We are not meant to raise our children in fear of the world. We are meant to raise them with the strength to face it. They need to know that their worth is not measured by likes, that they are not required to perform for strangers, and that their bodies, thoughts, and emotions are not open material for endless comparison. We need to speak to them before the algorithm does. We need to give them real safety before they start searching for it in strangers, trends, and platforms designed to keep them captive.

Real protection does not begin with the word no. It begins with the words come, sit, talk to me. It does not begin when we confiscate a phone. It begins when we rebuild trust. It does not begin by teaching our children to fear everything. It begins by making them less emotionally hungry, less psychologically fragile, and less easy to consume.

So the question is not only whether social media should be banned for those under 16. The deeper question is this: what have we done, as parents, schools, communities, and governments, to make sure our children do not walk into this digital world emotionally starved, psychologically vulnerable, and ready to believe anything that briefly makes them feel seen?

Because our children do not only need digital limits.

Before that, they need warmer homes, listening ears, and real human presence that no screen can replace.