Three young sisters jumped to their deaths in Ghaziabad following parental restrictions on their phone use. Their suicides have been linked by investigators to their addiction to the task-based Korean Love Game. Hundreds of children across the world have lost their lives to similar online games, such as the Blue Whale challenge and the Momo challenge. The central concern here is a pattern of compulsive digital intoxication among minors and teenagers unfolding in a setting with limited mental health support. Evidence increasingly indicates that addiction-like patterns of technology use are associated with a higher suicide risk in adolescents. A study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, which followed more than 4,000 children from late childhood into early adolescence, found that those exhibiting compulsive or addictive use of mobile phones, social media, or video games were two to three times more likely to report suicidal ideation or behaviour than peers with low addictive use. Crucially, the total amount of screen time did not predict risk — loss of control, distress when access was restricted, and online dependence interfering with sleep, schooling, and social ties were the triggers. Compulsive phone use has also been found to disrupt sleep and attention spans, heighten anxiety and irritability, and increase exposure to online bullying, sexual exploitation, and self-harm content. It also constricts a child’s social world to digital interactions that reward extreme emotions. When access to the digital world is suddenly curtailed without therapeutic support, withdrawal distress coupled with family conflict may intensify underlying vulnerabilities.
Internationally, policymakers are beginning to address these harms at the level of governance. Australia has introduced a minimum age of 16 for accounts on major social media platforms and in the United States of America, lawsuits are being heard against the tech giants for creating products that cause addiction, depression and other trauma. India’s response has been more tentative. While authorities have issued advisories, sought content removal, and banned individual games, there has been limited progress on enforceable standards for age assurance on social media, default safety settings for games, and algorithmic accountability from tech companies. Effective action need not deny children access to useful technology. But it should be complemented by early identification of compulsive use, accessible counselling and family guidance along with proportionate regulation of platform design for the youth. The objective is to intervene early enough to prevent dependency and death.
