Parliamentary Health Committee Chair Kostadin Angelov posted on Facebook that he firmly stands against the idea of social media being banned for children under the age of 15.
We see every day how social media - TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and YouTube - not only take up time, but also change children's brains by creating dependency, wrote Angelov.
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 pathways are still forming, this leads to neural addiction to stimulation, anxiety, attention deficit, and disrupted sleep.
Kostadin Angelov quotes a documentary film in which former engineers from Google, Facebook, and Twitter admit that the platforms are designed to deliberately exploit this mechanism- to keep us constantly "in the system."
One of the creators of the "Like" button says, "We created a tool that rewards every second of attention."
The chairman of the health commission recalls data from various studies on the subject, showing that among children who spend over three hours a day on social media, the risk of depression and anxiety increases by over 60%, with a sharp decline in concentration and social empathy.
Kostadin Angelov adds that psychologists already talk about "digital abstinence" - the same symptoms observed in substance addicts.
"This is not freedom, this is a mass addiction dressed in digital form. We, as adults, have the responsibility to set boundaries. We should not leave children alone against algorithms that turn them into consumers before they even become their own personalities. I fully support the idea of introducing an age limit - a ban on social media until the age of 15. Not to restrict young people, but to give them back their childhood - a time for play, communication, books and real life," Angelov also writes.
The idea was announced yesterday by the Minister of Education Krasimir Vulchev in Silistra. According to him, the issue is particularly important as there is ample evidence of the harmful influence that social media have on children.
4796 | 14 Oct. 2025 | 10:17
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