site.btaParliamentary Health Committee Chair Backs Ban on Social Media for Under-15s, Compares It to Drugs, Gambling

Parliamentary Health Committee Chair Kostadin Angelov (GERB-UDF) expressed firm support for the proposal to ban children under the age of 15 from using social media. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Angelov warned that social networks “are changing children’s brains every day, creating an addiction comparable to gambling or drugs.” 

The proposal was first announced on Monday by Education Minister Krasimir Valchev during a visit to Silistra. 

The Parliamentary Health Committee Chair said that for years neurologists have been warning that every notification, like or new comment triggers a dopamine cycle, a brief rush of pleasure that the brain begins to seek repeatedly. “In children, whose neural connections are still developing, this leads to neurological dependency on stimulation, anxiety, attention deficits and disturbed sleep,” Angelov wrote. 

He added that psychologists are already speaking of “digital withdrawal”, symptoms similar to those observed in substance addiction. 

“This is not freedom; it is mass addiction disguised in digital form. As adults, we have a duty to set boundaries – not to leave children alone against algorithms that turn them into consumers before they have even become individuals. I fully support the idea of introducing an age limit, a ban on social media use up to the age of 15. Not to restrict young people, but to give them back their childhood, time for play, conversation, books and real life,” Angelov wrote.