Childhood was never meant to be scrolled

There was a time when summer meant boredom, imagination, slow afternoons and children learning what to do with themselves.

Now, summer has become the season where the structure of school disappears and the screen quietly replaces it instead. The device becomes the babysitter, entertainer, comforter, reward and emotional regulator.

Oman’s current discussion around children and social media reflects this. The Telecommunications Regulatory Authority is not enforcing a general blanket ban on screens.

Screens are a part of modern life. What is being evaluated is more specific: draft regulations around children’s use of social media platforms, including whether children under 16 should have access to them.

Some people will think, “Children need to learn how to live in the real world.” I agree, however we need to question whether social media is the real world, or a highly engineered version of it. These platforms are not neutral playgrounds. They are designed to hold attention, trigger emotional reactions and keep the nervous system coming back for more. Adults struggle to regulate themselves around them, so why do we expect children to do what grown-ups cannot?

Childhood is not meant to be lived under constant performance. A child should not grow up measuring their face, body, friendships and popularity against an endless scroll or edited lives. Their identity is still forming. Their impulse control is still developing. Their brain is still learning how to pause, choose, tolerate discomfort, be bored, and be with themselves. When we hand over too much too soon, we give a developing nervous system access to a world built to overstimulate it.

Summer makes this even more important. When school is on, there is at least some rhythm around the day. During the holidays, time stretches.

In Oman, the heat means families spend more time indoors, and without intention, the easiest solution becomes the quickest one. A few minutes turn into an hour. An hour turns into the afternoon. The child who was bored becomes quiet, and quiet can easily be mistaken for regulated.

This is not about blaming parents or pretending technology has no value. Many parents are exhausted, working, overstimulated themselves and trying to survive long summer days.

The deeper issue is that we have outsourced boredom, imagination, discomfort and connection to devices. We are asking screens to do work that relationships, boundaries and presence are meant to do.

The regulation being explored in Oman could help because it gives families something many parents are desperate for: support. It is much harder to hold a boundary when every other child seems to have full access. It is easier when society begins to say, 'Children need protecting here.'

Good policy does not replace parenting, but it can strengthen it. It can create clearer norms, demand more responsibility from platforms and remind us that children’s wellbeing should not be left to algorithms.

Adults also need to hear this. We cannot ask children to look up from their screens while we are emotionally absent behind ours. Children notice when we half-listen, scroll at the table, answer messages during conversation, or reach for the phone the moment there is silence. If we want them to return to real life, we have to return too.

Perhaps this summer is an invitation. Not to panic, punish, nor declare war on technology. An invitation to reclaim the spaces where childhood is built: eye contact, boredom, movement, conversation, creativity and moments where children discover that life does not need to be instantly entertaining to be meaningful.

A screen can occupy a child, but it cannot raise one. A platform can hold their attention, but it cannot hold their heart. Happy holidays!