No social media before 14 years old: Quebec’s Special Commission on the Impacts of Screens on youth

Children under 14 should be banned from accessing social media without parental consent — that’s the recommendation of Quebec’s Special Commission on the Impacts of Screens and Social Media.

It’s a cross-party parliamentary committee that has been studying the effects of screen time on young people over the past year.

The commission’s final report with 56 recommendations was submitted to the National Assembly on Thursday.

On April 22, it submitted an interim report calling for a ban on cell phones in all schools.

Education Minister Bernard Drainville welcomed this recommendation with “great openness and interest.” The government has already banned cell phones and other mobile devices in classrooms since January 2024.

Quebec Premier François Legault proposed the commission in May 2024, while under pressure from younger CAQ members who wanted to set the minimum age at 16 to access social networks and limit screen time at school.

The report is based on hearings from the Commission, which traveled across Quebec and heard from 70 experts and over 500 students.

“We asked all the kids: ‘Are you in social media?’ They said, ‘Yes, of course,'” said the Commission’s Vice-Chair, Enrico Ciccone, Liberal MNA for Marquette.

The Commission went a step further and found under 14 years old was appropriate for a social media ban.

“If you look at Australia, [it’s] 15 or 16. But us, we decided to stay at 14 because of our laws,” Ciccone said. “Our laws say you can start working at 14 and you have a lot of power as a 14-year-old here in Quebec.”

For Katherine Korakakis, the president of the English Parents’ Committee Association of Quebec (EPCA), these types of measures are hard to enforce.

“How are you enforcing that it should be banned to the age of 14?” she asked. “A child can take their parents’ cell phone and go on it, right? So then what are you doing? However, how about if you train and teach children on how to use the social media.”

“Even though it might be considered easy to circumvent the recommendation, it still sends a signal as a public health issue,” said Alexandre Leduc, member of the Commission’s committee and Québec solidaire MNA for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. “When we say that the speed limit on the highway is 100 kilometres per hour, we send a signal. A lot of people go over 100, obviously, but it sends a signal.”

We asked Montrealers if they think social media should be banned for those under 14:

“We should obviously limit some things but not ban it completely,” said Enea Dhaleh.

Her siste, Francesca, disagreed. “Now that like TikTok and everything — all the kids under 14 are getting so into it and they’re following all the trends,” she said. “It’s bad, when I was 14, I didn’t even know what social media was.”

“I think it should maybe be restricted but not totally banned,” said Philippe Mondor. “I think they could put regulations and stuff for children not to get access to it too quickly but maybe not banned.”

Marie-Michèle Veilleux said, “kids should play and like not have to worry about all social media.”

“We fulfilled the mission entrusted to us and submitted a comprehensive and detailed report on time,” said the Chair of the Commission, Amélie Dionne, CAQ MNA for Rivière-du-Loup–Témiscouata, in a press release.

“I am delighted with the cross-partisan approach with which we collaborated toward a common goal: ensuring a safe and healthy environment for the health and development of young people,” said Ciccone.

Ciccone said he was saddened to hear some responses from students at the hearings.

“I said, ‘Would you like to do more activities with your parents?’ and 100 percent of the kids raised their hand,” he said.

The report places significant emphasis on parents, who should, among other things, set an example when it comes to screen time, avoid exposing their children to screens before bedtime, and avoid using screens to calm or distract their children.

“Of course, we don’t point the fingers at anybody because it’s tough for single mothers and single dads and they cannot do activities all the time — they need to work,” Ciccone said. “We’re not pointing them, but there’s a message there.”

The Commission says they don’t want the report to sit on a shelf so it can serve for future generations.

“We want to put that in their schooling also to learn how to navigate, to learn the good and the bad about all the Internet and social media,” Ciccone said.

For the education sector, the Commission recommends integrating the concept of digital citizenship into school codes, restricting the use of digital educational tools in the classroom to ensure they meet clear educational objectives, and strengthening the supervision of e-sports programs.

“The Commission adopted a comprehensive approach focusing, in addition to prevention, awareness-raising, and education, on legal frameworks and intergovernmental collaboration,” said Leduc.

“Given the magnitude of the effects of screen exposure, it is imperative to provide appropriate responses. Our recommendations thus form a coherent and nuanced whole.”

The Commission also recommends banning paid random prizes and microtransactions in video games aimed at minors, the sale or any other form of alienation of personal information, and profiling (targeted advertising) of children under 14.

Other recommendations include:

• Initiating work within intergovernmental and multilateral bodies of which Quebec is a member to encourage the adoption of regulations on digital platforms;
• Updating applicable laws so that digital platforms take into account the risks to the physical and mental health of minors by requiring, for example, that they respect the principles of privacy by design or that they adopt effective moderation mechanisms to flag or block violent, hateful, sexual, or inappropriate content;
• Conducting analysis on the proliferation of images generated by artificial intelligence on social networks and on ways to facilitate their discernment by minors;
• Developing avenues for improvement in supporting influencers and content creators in advertising aimed at minors and conducts analyses aimed at further defining and regulating their work;
• Coordinating, in collaboration with the federal and state governments, to require platforms distributing sexually explicit content to establish reliable age verification mechanisms and that these mechanisms are only accessible after successful age verification;
• Promoting sex education content offered in schools by including concepts of consent, gender stereotypes, and the psychological impacts of early exposure to explicit content.

“The submission of our report marks the end of the Commission’s work, but our analyses will continue to resonate as they are so timely,” said Pascal Bérubé, member of the committee and PQ MNA for Matane-Matapédia. “We will follow with interest and attention the follow-up to the recommendations and hope to see the implementation of lasting measures to support and protect young people online.”

-With files from The Canadian Press