The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has proposed a draft set of measures to fight social media addiction among young people, including asking social networking service (SNS) operators to be stricter in verifying the ages of their users.

However, according to the draft, the ministry does not consider a uniform age restriction such as that implemented by Australia as desirable.

The communications ministry on Tuesday presented the draft to a meeting of a panel of experts with the hopes of coming up with a policy by the end of this year after discussing the issue with the Children and Families Agency as well as other related ministries.

The ministry said it is difficult to adopt a blanket age restriction, given social media¡¯s pervasiveness in society as a communication tool, and the fact that each service has its own design and features.

It pointed out that the government should work with related parties including mobile phone carriers to come up with ¡°methods of age verification based on feasible technologies and systems.¡±

To ensure a safe environment for users, the draft proposes asking social media platform operators to assess the risks for each of their services and release the results of such assessments.

It also proposes having parental controls ¡ª features provided by digital service operators for parents to manage their children¡¯s internet use ¡ª turned on by default for child accounts.

The draft stresses the importance of improving information and communication technology literacy of parents and teachers to protect children.

¡°It is necessary to balance access to information and usage restriction,¡± communications minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said ahead of the draft¡¯s presentation to the panel.

According to a survey conducted by NTT Docomo¡¯s Mobile Society Research Institute in November, more than 60% of elementary school students in upper grades and more than 90% of junior high school students use social media.

Girls spend more time on social media?than boys, with junior high school girls who spend four hours or more each day accounting for roughly 20% of those surveyed.

Such students spend a long time on short-form video-sharing services such as TikTok, the survey said.

¡°SNS has become essential in some children¡¯s lives,¡± an official of the institute said.

Concerns are growing worldwide over digital services with features such as automatic replays and frequent notifications, which can cause addiction, as well as the risk of exposure to harmful content online.

Australia made the unprecedented move of banning social media?for children under 16 in December last year. Malaysia followed suit on Monday with a ban of its own.

In Sweden, a government-appointed commission on Tuesday recommended the adoption of a minimum age of 15 for social media use. The...