Is a social media ban for teens a good idea?

Such initiatives deserve our support. Safeguarding children and holding technology companies to account are essential. At the same time, governments cannot shoulder this responsibility alone. Parents, educators and society all have a role in helping the next generation develop healthy habits.

More than 25 years ago, Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe offered a profound insight into child development in his classic work Planting and Building. He explains that these two complementary processes underpin genuine growth.

Planting is natural. We sow the seeds, nurture them and allow them to grow organically. Building is deliberate: foundations are laid and each brick carefully placed until the construction is complete.

Rav Wolbe argues that successful education requires both. We must build our children by providing boundaries and guidance; we cannot simply hope they will develop the right values on their own. But if we only build, imposing behaviour without leaving room for independent growth, we risk producing children who merely follow instructions but lack initiative, resilience and the ability to make wise choices for themselves.

A smartphone ban is, in Rav Wolbe’s terms, an act of building. It establishes clear boundaries that protect children from harm. But on its own it is not enough. Alongside external restrictions there must also be planting: nurturing the inner discipline, wisdom and maturity that enable young people eventually to regulate themselves.

No law can accompany someone throughout life. Sooner or later, every teenager becomes an adult who must decide how to use technology when nobody else is watching.

The same balance lies at the heart of Judaism. The Torah provides the framework for life, while the mitzvot guide us towards what is spiritually beneficial and away from what is harmful. Yet the Midrash teaches that “the mitzvot were given only to refine people”. Their purpose is not merely outward compliance but to cultivate inward character.

The greatest achievement is not simply obeying rules because they exist, but becoming the kind of person who chooses wisely even when no one is enforcing those rules.

The debate over smartphones, then, should not be framed as a choice between bans and personal responsibility. We need both. Wise societies build protective boundaries while simultaneously planting the values and habits that enable the next generation to flourish. The ban may protect today’s children, but only character will protect tomorrow’s adults.

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Alex Chapper is senior rabbi of Borehamwood and Elstree (United) Synagogue

A Progressive view: Rabbi Romain

We ban children from smoking and buying alcohol under certain ages, why not ban them from social media when there is much evidence that shows its harmful effects?

This is even to the extent of some taking their own lives, but at a lower level there is the lived experience of so many of them feeling bullied, shamed or diminished.

In addition, we know that up to a few years ago they, and previous generations, managed perfectly well without having access to social media. Just because something exists does not mean it has to be freely available.

This is not “turning the clock back” but trying to be sensible, which is why we seek to stop the access of nations to nuclear weapons, while we are currently having conversations about trying to limit the development of AI.

Mitigating the dangers in areas that apply to adults should also happen with the dangers that apply to children. Should the social media ban prove to be a mistake – as happened in the US with prohibition (of alcohol in the 1920s) – we can always reverse the policy.

However, there is a particular Jewish angle: we do not rely on self-restraint but specialise in sanctioned limitations. We forbid the eating of many types of delicious food that others enjoy. We edit activities permitted on the Sabbath while everyone else goes about them.

When I was studying in a yeshivah in Jerusalem many years ago, I was amazed at how those who smoked constantly six days a week seemed to have little problem abstaining on the Sabbath. I strongly doubt self-restraint would have achieved such a break, whereas being commanded made it happen.

The ban is also a wake-up call for society – Jewish and general – to reinstate many of the youth activities that have fallen away in recent years so as to provide positive activities and encourage social inter-action.

If we do not want the explosion of the mental health epidemic among our youth to continue, now is the time to act.

What about adults? Do we need protections from the harmful effects, with the focus being more on the tech companies and limiting what they are providing, such as deliberately addictive material.

Leviticus 19.14 – “You shall not put a stumbling block before the blind” – might well apply in this respect. Why blame users, when it is the dealers who are the real culprits.

Jonathan Romain is convenor of the Reform Beit Din

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