Opinion Ghaziabad minors’ suicides point to an urgent need for policy to respond to loneliness
The deep sense of unease around social media and children has begun to crystallise into policy in Australia, the EU. In India, too, the conversation is happening. But is it enough?
In a report last year, the WHO estimated that globally, one in seven 10 to 19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder. Across countries, surveys tell stories of a thinning sense of belonging. In the fragments pieced together in the aftermath of the death by suicide of three minor sisters in Ghaziabad is a portrait of a constrained childhood: Economic precarity, fractured family relationships and an overarching immersion in the online world of Korean dramas and games that promised escape but deepened isolation. But the tragedy is far from being an outlier. It portends a broader rupture in the way adolescence is experienced now, where screens are both babysitters and battlegrounds, where the digital world is increasingly the organising principle of many youngsters’ lives, magnifying feelings of exclusion while offering little reprieve. A widening gap separates this first generation of true digital natives from their parents and teachers, who lack fluency in the online cultures their children inhabit. It makes monitoring onerous, often fragile.
In a report last year, the WHO estimated that globally, one in seven 10 to 19-year-olds experiences a mental disorder. Across countries, surveys tell stories of a thinning sense of belonging. In India, nearly one in four adolescents reports symptoms consistent with anxiety or depression, while the NCRB has documented a steady rise in students’ suicides over the past decade. There is growing evidence that early, unsupervised immersion in online social ecosystems carries psychological risks. The Ghaziabad sisters, aged 16, 14 and 12, had dropped out of school after Covid. In the eight-page note they left behind, they write, “Korean is our life, how did you even dare to make us leave our life?”
The deep sense of unease around social media and children has begun to crystallise in policy. Australia has legalised minimum-age thresholds for social-media use; European countries have tightened protections for minors. In India, too, there is growing discussion on safeguards. These conversations are necessary, but regulation alone cannot mend what has frayed. It also requires the patient work of connection and the creation of safe spaces that allow children to feel seen, heard and loved.
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