Developing minds in a digital world, a changing India

1. At a Glance

• Core issue: Children and adolescents now spend long hours on screens: chats, videos, social media, games, and AI platforms used even for homework. The worry is not technology as such. It is constant exposure during critical windows of brain development, when the systems behind cognition, emotion and behaviour are still maturing [1].
• Why India matters: India has about 65 crore people under the age of 25 and one of the world's largest and fastest-growing technology ecosystems. Education, recreation and social life keep moving online [1].
• Policy answer so far: India's main legal tool for protecting children online is the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, 2023 and the DPDP Rules, 2025. Together they require verifiable parental consent and bar the tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising of children [2][5][6].
• UPSC relevance: The topic links the demographic dividend, child rights, mental health, AI governance, data protection and digital public policy (GS-I, II, III and IV).

2. Why in the News

• 19 October 2026: An Op-Ed in The Hindu (p. 12, Chennai edition), "Developing minds in a digital world, a changing India", by Derick H. Lindquist, Dean of the Jindal School of Psychology and Counselling, O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana [1].
• Argument: Digital innovation must be balanced with children's cognitive, emotional and social development [1].

• It calls the digital environment a "powerful and largely unregulated force" in children's lives, one we are only beginning to understand [1].

• Wider context:

• The DPDP Rules, 2025 are being rolled out in phases, over 18 months [3].
• The OECD published work on age assurance for child online safety in June 2025 [7][8].

3. Background & Evolution

• Driving rationale: Digital tools bring wide access to information, education, communication and creativity. AI has widened these further. But exposure is constant and largely unregulated during developmental years [1].
• Milestones:
• 2023: The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (No. 22 of 2023) is enacted. It defines a "child" as a person who has not completed 18 years and requires verifiable parental consent before a child's personal data is processed [6][9].
• June 2025: The OECD publishes "The Legal and Policy Landscape of Age Assurance Online for Child Safety and Well-being" and a technical paper on the age assurance practices of 50 online services used by children [7][8].
• 13/14 November 2025: The DPDP Rules, 2025 are notified. PIB documents give different dates (13 Nov in one, 14 Nov in another) [2][3].
• 2025–27: An 18-month phased compliance period runs for Data Fiduciaries [3].

• 2026: PIB states that the Act and Rules prohibit tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children. It presents this as one of the legal safeguards against harms from AI [5].

• Predecessors (context): The Act grew out of the long privacy and data protection debate. PRS Legislative Research tracked it as the DPDP Bill, 2023 [9].

4. Core Static Facts

Item	Fact
Parent law	Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (Act No. 22 of 2023) [6]
Subordinate legislation	DPDP Rules, 2025 (notified November 2025) [2][3]
Nodal ministry	Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) [6]
Definition of "child"	A person who has not completed 18 years [6]
Key duty	The Data Fiduciary must obtain verifiable parental (or lawful guardian) consent before processing a child's data [6]
How consent is verified	Identity and age verification, including virtual tokens [5]
Exemptions	Processing for healthcare, education, real-time safety [4]
Prohibited practices	Tracking, behavioural monitoring, targeted advertising directed at children [5]
Compliance window	18 months, phased [3]
Demographic base	About 65 crore Indians under 25 [1]
International reference	OECD work on age assurance (June 2025), including a review of 50 online services [7][8]

5. Multi-Dimensional Analysis

Social

• About 65 crore people under 25 [1] means child digital well-being shapes the quality of India's demographic dividend.
• Risks fall unevenly:
• First-generation users and children in households with low digital literacy are less likely to have informed parents giving "verifiable consent".
• Shared devices are common in poorer households, which makes age verification harder.
• Parents may have less time to supervise or limit screen use.

Scientific / Technological

• The "brain under construction" argument: The systems behind cognition, emotion and behaviour are still maturing in childhood and adolescence. Constant digital stimulation in this window is the core concern [1].
• AI platforms used for homework raise questions about cognitive offloading, original thinking and the integrity of learning [1].
• Age assurance technology (verification, estimation, tokens) has to balance accuracy, privacy and inclusion. The OECD review of 50 services shows practice varies widely [5][8].

Legal / Constitutional

• The DPDP Act and Rules create child-specific duties: parental consent and a ban on profiling and targeted ads [5][6].
• The emphasis is on parental gatekeeping rather than design obligations (default settings, limits on addictive features). This leaves gaps on engagement-maximising design.
• The exemptions for healthcare, education and real-time safety [4] keep essential services available. But EdTech data practices need close watching.

Ethical / Governance

• Autonomy vs protection: Setting the age at 18 for all children [6] treats a 16-year-old like a 6-year-old. This raises proportionality and children's right to participate.
• Platform business models built on attention and data clash with the child's best interests. This ties to the GS-IV themes of corporate ethics and technology ethics.
• "Largely unregulated force" [1]: oversight is spread across ministries (MeitY, Education, Health, WCD).

Economic

• India's fast-growing technology ecosystem [1] has to balance innovation and ease of compliance against child safety. The 18-month phased timeline reflects this trade-off [3].
• Weak cognitive and mental health outcomes in young people would cut long-term human capital returns.

Administrative

• Enforcement depends on robust, privacy-preserving verification at scale (virtual tokens) [5].
• Schools, parents and counsellors need digital and mental-health literacy. Law alone is not enough [1].

6. Recent Developments (last 12–18 months)

• June 2025: OECD reports on the legal landscape of age assurance and on the practices of 50 online services used by children [7][8].
• 13/14 November 2025: The DPDP Rules, 2025 are notified, with an 18-month phased rollout [2][3].
• November 2025: PIB explains that parental consent is not needed for processing tied to healthcare, education and real-time safety [4].
• 2026: PIB lists the DPDP bans on tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children among India's legal safeguards against AI-related harms. Consent is to be verified through identity and age checks and virtual tokens [5].
• 19 October 2026: The Hindu Op-Ed calls for balancing digital innovation with child development [1].

7. Prelims Hooks

• Under the DPDP Act, 2023, a "child" is anyone who has not completed 18 years (not 13 or 16) [6].
• The DPDP Act, 2023 is Act No. 22 of 2023 [6].
• Verifiable parental consent is required before a child's personal data is processed [6].
• The DPDP Rules, 2025 allow virtual tokens and identity/age verification as ways to verify parental consent [5].
• Tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children are prohibited [5].
• Parental consent is not required for processing linked to healthcare, education or real-time safety [4].
• The DPDP Rules, 2025 were notified in November 2025 (PIB gives 13 or 14 Nov) [2][3].
• Compliance is phased over 18 months [3].
• Nodal ministry for DPDP: MeitY [6].
• India has about 65 crore people under 25 [1].
• In June 2025 the OECD reviewed the age assurance practices of 50 online services used by children [8].

8. The Law Guards a Child's Data, Not a Child's Time

• The harm the article worries about is the amount of use. The law mainly controls data.
• The Op-Ed's core concern is constant exposure while the brain is still developing [1].
• The DPDP framework bans tracking, behavioural monitoring and targeted advertising aimed at children [5].

• A feed with no ads and no tracking can still scroll forever, autoplay the next video, and send alerts late at night. None of these depends on using the child's personal data, so none of them is touched.

• Consent is given once. The exposure happens every day.

• Verifiable parental consent is a single check before data processing starts [6].
• After a parent clicks 'yes', the law does not ask how many hours the child spends, or at what time of day.

• So the tool is built for a privacy problem (who holds the data), not for a development problem (how much use, and when).

• The exemption for education is a big opening for screen time

• Processing for education does not need parental consent [4].
• Homework apps and AI study tools are exactly where children now spend many hours [1].
• The law treats 'educational' as safe by default. It never asks whether a given app actually helps learning.

9. Why an 18-Year Cut-Off Can Leave Teenagers Less Safe

• A rule that is too strict gets broken, and then the child loses all protection
• The Act calls everyone under 18 a 'child' and needs a parent's consent for all of them [6].
• A 16- or 17-year-old who does not want to ask a parent has a simple option: enter a false birth year.

• Once a platform believes the user is an adult, every child safeguard switches off, including the ban on targeted ads [5].

• Age checks are uneven across the industry

• The OECD looked at 50 online services used by children and found age-assurance practices (the methods used to check a user's age) vary widely [8].

• Where checking is weak, self-declared age decides everything. A high cut-off then pushes more teenagers to lie.

• What this means for an answer

• The trade-off is not 'protect or not protect'. It is one strict line that is easy to evade, versus graded rules by age that teenagers may actually follow.

10. To Find the Children, Platforms Must Check Everyone

• A privacy law can end up collecting more data
• A platform cannot know which user is under 18 without checking the age of every user.
• The DPDP Rules allow consent to be verified through identity and age verification, including virtual tokens [5].

• So, in practice, adults also have to prove their age or identity to use services. Platforms may end up holding more identity data, not less.

• Virtual tokens reduce this cost but do not remove it

• A token can confirm 'this person is an adult' without passing on the full identity document [5].

• But somebody still has to issue the token and link it to a real identity. That holder becomes a new store of sensitive data.

• Countries are still working this out

• The OECD's 2025 review of the legal landscape treats age assurance as a balance between child safety, privacy and access [7].
• India has chosen the strictest age line (18) while the technology for checking age is still unsettled [6][8].

11. The Case for Simply Banning Phones, and Why UNESCO Stops Short

• The strongest opposing argument: skip the fine rules and just ban
• UNESCO's 2023 Global Education Monitoring (GEM) Report cited research from 14 countries showing that just having a phone nearby harmed learning [10].
• Governments are acting on this. 114 education systems (58% of countries) now have a national ban on phones in schools, up from 79 (40%) at the end of 2024 [11][12].

• A ban is simple and cheap to enforce. It does not need consent forms or age tokens.

• What the ban argument gets right

• Distraction is real and measurable [10].

• Consent-based rules do not limit dose, as shown above [5][6]. A ban does.

• Why it is not the full answer

• UNESCO says limiting phones can reduce distraction in class, but children still have to learn how to handle digital spaces [11][13].
• Bans can shut out the children who need devices most. Saudi Arabia reversed its school phone ban after disability groups objected [11].

• A school ban covers only school hours. The Op-Ed's concern, constant exposure at home, through games, social media and AI, is untouched [1].

• The honest conclusion

• Bans work for one narrow setting (the classroom). They cannot replace design rules and digital literacy outside it. This fits the Op-Ed's call to balance innovation with development, not to reject technology [1].

12. Who Should Do What Next

• Ministry of Education: let tech into class only when it helps learning
• UNESCO's GEM 2023 Report says technology belongs in class only when it clearly improves learning [10][13].

• The Ministry could apply this test to EdTech and AI tools before they are endorsed for schools. This would close the 'education means safe' gap in the DPDP exemption [4].

• Ministry of Education and State boards: school-level phone policies, not one national order

• England asks each school to write its own phone policy instead of imposing a national ban [11].

• This lets schools make exceptions, for example for children with disabilities, and avoid the Saudi problem [11].

• MeitY: add design duties, not only data duties

• Present safeguards stop tracking and targeted ads [5]. They say nothing on autoplay, endless scroll or night-time alerts.

• MeitY could issue child-safe default settings under its rule-making power, with the OECD age-assurance work as the reference for checking age in a privacy-friendly way [7].

• MoHFW and MWCD: give parents a clear screen-time standard for young children

• WHO's 2019 guidelines for children under 5 set limits on screen-based sitting time [14].
• They say non-screen activities such as reading, storytelling, singing and puzzles help social and cognitive development [14].
• These could be shared through anganwadis and health workers, so 'verifiable consent' comes from parents who understand what they are agreeing to.

13. Anchors for Answers

• Data: About 65 crore Indians are under 25, so children's digital habits shape the demographic dividend [1]
• Data: 114 education systems (58% of countries) now ban phones in schools nationally, up from 79 (40%) at end-2024 [11][12]
• Data: A meta-analysis covering 14 countries found phones nearby harmed learning [10]
• Report/Committee: UNESCO GEM Report 2023, Technology in education: A tool on whose terms? [10]; OECD, Legal and Policy Landscape of Age Assurance Online (2025) [7]; WHO Guidelines on physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep for children under 5 (2019) [14]
• Law/Case: DPDP Act, 2023: child defined as under 18; verifiable parental consent; ban on tracking and targeted ads [5][6]; Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017): privacy is a fundamental right under Article 21
• Comparison: England leaves phone rules to each school rather than a national ban; Saudi Arabia reversed its school ban after disability groups objected [11]
• Scheme: DIKSHA / PM eVidya (screen-based learning that should pass the 'does it help learning' test); Tele-MANAS (mental-health support for digital harms)

14. Mains Relevance

• GS-I (Society): Effects of globalisation and technology on Indian society; youth; changing family dynamics.
• GS-II (Social Justice / Governance): Welfare of vulnerable sections (children); issues in health and education; government policies and interventions.
• GS-III (Science & Technology): Awareness in IT, AI and computers; cyber security; human resource development.
• GS-IV (Ethics): Ethics of technology; corporate responsibility; protecting the vulnerable.
• Question stems: 1. India's demographic dividend increasingly grows up online. Examine how unregulated digital exposure during critical developmental periods may affect the cognitive, emotional and social development of children, and suggest a balanced policy response. (250 words) 2. Critically evaluate whether the 'verifiable parental consent' model under the DPDP Act, 2023 and Rules, 2025 adequately protects children in the age of AI and attention-driven platforms. 3. Technology is not the problem; the design and dose are. Discuss with reference to children's use of social media and AI tools in India.

15. Related Topics to Study Next

• DPDP Act, 2023: the Data Protection Board and penalties. This is the enforcement machinery behind the child safeguards.
• IT Rules, 2021 (Intermediary Guidelines). They set platform liability and content moderation duties.
• India AI Mission / AI governance guidelines. Children and students are heavy users of AI tools, so this links to the AI regulation debate.
• National Education Policy 2020 and digital education (DIKSHA, PM eVidya). These cover screen-based learning and its balance with development.
• Tele-MANAS and adolescent mental health (RKSK). These are the public mental-health responses to digital harms.
• POCSO Act, 2012 and cyber crimes against children. These cover the safety side of children's digital exposure.
• UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, General Comment No. 25 (2021). This is the international framework for children's rights in the digital environment.
• Demographic dividend. About 65 crore people under 25 makes young people's digital well-being a question for the economy.

16. NCERT Concepts to Revise

• Digital Personal Data Protection Act 2023 (Polity): The main law protecting children online, requiring verifiable parental consent and defining a child as under 18.
• DPDP Rules 2025 (Polity): These rules put the Act into practice, with phased compliance, virtual-token consent checks and bans on tracking children.
• Data fiduciary (Polity): These are the platforms and firms that must obtain parental consent and avoid targeted advertising to children.
• Demographic dividend (Economy): With 65 crore people under 25, children's digital well-being decides whether India gains from its young population.
• IT Rules 2021 (Polity): Sets platform duties on content moderation and grievances, a related layer of online regulation for children's safety.
• POCSO Act 2012 (Polity): Protects children below 18 from sexual offences, including online abuse, and complements data-protection safeguards.

17. Common Errors / Trap Areas

• Child age threshold: The DPDP Act uses under 18, not 13 (as in the US COPPA) or 16 (as in the EU GDPR default) [6].
• Notification date: The DPDP Act is from 2023; the Rules were notified in November 2025. Do not mix them up [2][6].
• Exemptions: These cover healthcare, education and real-time safety only. They are not a blanket exemption for all EdTech or gaming services [4].
• Ministry: MeitY administers DPDP, not the Ministry of Education or MWCD [6].
• Framing: The argument is not that "technology is harmful." Rather, constant exposure during critical developmental windows is the concern [1]. Overstating this as a call for bans weakens a Mains answer.