The Economic Survey 2025–26, has identified rising digital addiction and screen-related mental health disorders as a major emerging public health challenge, particularly affecting children and adolescents.
What is Digital Addiction?
- Definition: According to the Economic Survey, Digital addiction refers to compulsive and excessive engagement with digital devices such as smartphones, gaming platforms, and social media.
- Behavioural nature: It is recognised as a behavioural addiction characterised by loss of control, psychological distress, and functional impairment rather than substance dependence.
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) recognised online gaming addiction as a mental health condition in ICD-11 under ‘Gaming Disorder,’ defined by impaired control over gaming, prioritisation of gaming over other activities, and continued play despite negative consequences.
Key Trends
- Expanding digital economy: India’s digital economy contributed 11.74% of national income in FY23 and is projected to reach 13.42% in FY25, reflecting large-scale digital adoption.
- Rapid connectivity growth: Internet connections increased from 25.15 crore in 2014 to 96.96 crore in 2024, driven by nationwide 5G rollout and BharatNet connectivity to 2.18 lakh Gram Panchayats.
- Near-universal access: 85.5% of Indian households own at least one smartphone (2025), indicating near-ubiquitous digital access across social groups.
- High-intensity usage patterns: In 2024, 48% of users consumed online video, 43% accessed social media, 40% used email and online music, and 26% used digital payments.
- Large absolute user base: These usage shares translate into around 40 crore OTT users and nearly 35 crore social media users, intensifying exposure risks.
- Youth dominance: Internet and smartphone usage is near-universal among 15–29-year-olds, placing youth at the centre of digital addiction concerns.
The scale, intensity, and youth-centric nature of digital engagement have transformed digital addiction from an individual behavioural concern into a systemic public health, education, and human capital challenge.
Key Causes of Digital Addiction
- Easy Accessibility: Digital addiction increases because smartphones, affordable data, and 24×7 internet access make digital engagement constant and unavoidable
- Algorithm-driven engagement: Auto-play features, infinite scrolling, short-video loops, and personalised recommendations promote compulsive consumption by exploiting reward mechanisms of the brain.
- Social Validation and Comparison: Likes, shares, follower counts, and online validation drive repetitive checking behaviour and anxiety, particularly among adolescents and young adults.
- Fear of Missing Out (FoMO): Digital addiction grows because users experience anxiety about missing updates, social interactions, or trends, leading to compulsive checking
- Academic and Social Pressures: Students facing academic competition increasingly use digital platforms as coping mechanisms, which often escalate into compulsive use.
- Real-Money Gaming and Online Gambling: Easy access to wagering-based platforms and skill-based gaming monetisation increases addiction risk, debt, and psychological stress.
- Pandemic-Induced Behavioural Shifts: COVID-19 expanded reliance on online education, entertainment, and socialisation, reinforcing excessive screen-time habits leading to normalisation of screen dependence.
Impacts of Digital Addiction
- Cognitive and Mental Health Impacts:
- Psychological disorders: Digital addiction is strongly associated with anxiety, depression, stress, and low self-esteem, particularly among youth.
- Sleep disruption: Late-night screen exposure leads to sleep debt, circadian rhythm disruption, and reduced cognitive functioning.
- Educational and Productivity Losses:
- Academic decline: Excessive screen use reduces attention span, concentration, and study hours, negatively affecting academic outcomes.
- Workplace inefficiency: Constant digital distractions lower productivity, focus, and task completion in professional settings
- Social Capital Erosion:
- Weakening offline bonds: Compulsive digital engagement reduces face-to-face interaction, community participation, and interpersonal skills.
- Isolation paradox: Despite high connectivity, digital addiction often results in loneliness and social withdrawal
- Economic and Financial Costs:
- Direct financial losses: Online purchases, gaming expenditure, and cyber fraud impose direct monetary costs.
- Long-term earnings impact: Reduced employability, productivity, and skill development affect lifetime income potential.
Constitutional and Human Capital Dimensions
- Right to life and mental health (Article 21): Mental well-being is integral to a dignified life; widespread digital addiction poses a public health challenge.
- Child rights perspective: Under Constitutional morality and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the State has a duty to protect children from exploitative and addictive digital environments.
- Right to education (Article 21A): Attention fragmentation, learning losses, and screen dependence undermine educational outcomes and cognitive development.
- Demographic dividend at risk: Unchecked digital addiction threatens to erode India’s demographic dividend, potentially converting it into a demographic liability through reduced productivity and labour force participation.
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India-Specific Policy and Governance Challenges
- Data deficit: India lacks comprehensive national-level data on the prevalence and severity of digital addiction, limiting targeted policy responses.
- Youth demographic pressure: India’s large youth population increases the scale and complexity of digital addiction impacts.
- Urban – rural exposure gap: Rapid digital penetration in rural areas is not matched by mental health infrastructure and awareness.
- Regulatory lag: Technological innovation and platform monetisation models evolve faster than behavioural health regulation.
- Mental health stigma: Social stigma continues to deter early help-seeking and counselling, particularly among adolescents.
Global Initiatives
- WHO recognition: The WHO’s ICD-11 formally recognises Gaming Disorder as a mental health condition.
- Australia: Introduced a nationwide ban on social media accounts for children below 16 years.
- China: Enforced strict gaming limits, allowing only one hour of online gaming per day on weekends and holidays, using real-name authentication.
- South Korea: Implemented the ‘Cinderella Law’ restricting night gaming for minors, later replaced by parental control mechanisms.
- Singapore: Adopted a community-based approach through its Media Literacy Council, promoting cyber wellness and responsible digital citizenship.
- United Kingdom: Developed a Digital Resilience Framework integrating digital well-being into education and technology design.
- School-level restrictions: Countries such as France, Spain, Finland, Japan, Australia, and parts of the U.S. restrict smartphone use in schools.
- Counselling infrastructure: Seoul Metropolitan Government’s ‘I Will Centres’ provide addiction prevention and recovery counselling for youth.
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Initiatives in India
- Educational guidelines: CBSE has issued guidelines on safe internet use in schools and school buses.
- Digital education framework: The Pragyatah framework under the Ministry of Education integrates screen-time considerations into digital learning.
- Child protection norms: The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has prescribed screen-time limits and online safety guidelines.
- Tele-MANAS: Launched in 2022, it provides a 24×7 toll-free mental health helpline (14416) and has handled over 32 lakh calls, with an app launched in 2024.
- SHUT Clinic, NIMHANS: Offers specialised treatment for excessive technology use and conducts parental awareness programmes.
- Online Gaming (Regulation) Act, 2025: Bans wagering-based online money games, regulates advertising, and licenses permissible skill-based games to curb addiction and financial harm.
- Digital detox initiatives: Karnataka’s ‘Digital Detox Centre – Beyond Screens’ supports individuals facing severe digital addiction.
Way Forward
- Evidence-based policymaking: The Second National Mental Health Survey (NMHS) should be leveraged to generate reliable data on digital addiction prevalence and impacts.
- Outcome-based indicators: Policies must track screen-time patterns, sleep quality, anxiety levels, academic performance, productivity, and cyber safety risks.
- School-centric intervention: Schools should introduce a Digital Wellness Curriculum covering screen-time literacy, cyber safety, and mental health awareness.
- Schools should ensure compulsory physical activity to counter sedentary lifestyles caused by screen overuse
- Offline engagement spaces: Governments should establish offline youth hubs in urban slums and rural areas to promote healthy social interaction.
- Family capacity building: Parents should be trained to recognise addiction symptoms, enforce device-free hours, and use parental control tools effectively.
- Platform accountability: Digital platforms must enforce age verification, age-appropriate defaults, and restrictions on auto-play, gambling content, and targeted advertising.
- Ethical technology design: Adoption of “time-well-spent” principles, friction-based design, and algorithmic transparency should be encouraged.
- Technological safeguards: ISP-level content filtering, differentiated data plans, and simpler devices for children such as education-only Tablets can reduce exposure to harmful digital content.
- Expanded mental health access: Tele-MANAS should be expanded with specialised counsellors for digital addiction and integrated with schools and colleges for early intervention.
Conclusion
Addressing digital addiction requires a balanced approach combining awareness, regulation, ethical technology design, mental health support, community participation, and responsible individual behaviour to safeguard India’s human capital and social well-being.
31 Jan 2026
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