The real challenge is forming digital citizens

THE EDITOR, Madam:
The call by Dr Christopher Tufton for greater protection of children online, and Termario Daniels’ article ‘Why blocking social media won’t protect children’, are both welcome. Together, they move Jamaica towards a necessary national conversation. Yet, the debate should advance one step further.
The question is how societies should govern technologies deliberately designed to shape children’s desires before their consciences have matured.
Societies have always possessed ‘social media’ in one form or another. Long before Facebook or TikTok, identity, values and belonging were formed through storytelling, public squares, newspapers, radio and television. Jamaican psychologists such as Professor Frederick Hickling and Dr Wendel Abel warned decades ago about identity instability, fractured families, violence, alienation, and emotional vulnerability among our youth. These challenges existed before the digital revolution. Social media did not create them; it has amplified them with unprecedented speed, scale and precision. 
Online platforms’ architecture is intentionally designed to maximise engagement. Recommendation algorithms, infinite scrolling, autoplay videos, notifications and variable reward systems continually learn what captures attention and then feed users more of the same. Without addressing that architecture, the system itself remains unchanged.
Daniels is right in saying that protection should not become exclusion. Equally, Dr Tufton is also right that unrestricted exposure poses genuine risks to children’s mental health and development. The challenge is to move beyond the false choice of either banning social media or leaving children unprotected.
A wiser response would rest on four complementary pillars: regulate platform design by limiting manipulative features directed at minors; restore friction by interrupting addictive engagement loops; form conscience by making digital literacy and algorithm awareness as fundamental as road safety and financial literacy; and build healthier digital alternatives that strengthen creativity, community, play and cultural identity.
The voices in this debate are correctly identifying mental health vulnerability, identity confusion and digital dependency. But the deeper issue lies in the interaction between developing human freedom and systems engineered to shape desire.
Children are still discovering who they are. Algorithms are designed to influence that discovery.
Our responsibility, therefore, is not merely to shield children from technology, but to ensure that the formation of their identities, values and aspirations does not become the unintended by-product of platforms built primarily to maximise attention.

DUDLEY MCLEAN II
dm15094@gmail.com