Supporting Kemkomdigi Limiting The Age Of Social Media Users, Minister Of Health Alludes To Mental Health Problems

Parents give gadgets or cellphones to early childhood. (Unsplash)

JAKARTA - Minister of Health (Menkes) Budi Gunadi Sadikin supports existing regulations and wants to be formed regarding the age limit for children in Indonesia to access social media (medsos) or surf the internet.

"Because of a mental health problem, the mental health we have seen," said Minister of Health Budi in Jakarta, Sunday, February 2, as reported by Antara.

The Minister of Health said mental disorders in children were caused by social media (medsos). Over-expression of social media and the internet, he continued, can affect children's mental and mental conditions.

He continued, things that are seen generally can be in the form of bullying or bullying, or a form of invitation to do something wrong.

"Well, the second is the issue of your health, ladies and gentlemen, is psychomotoric health, verbal health," he said.

The Minister of Health explained that currently many children are late in speaking, or generally known as speech delays, which causes Indonesia to require many speech therapy.

"After we screened, why was it late to talk? Because there were too many activities, they didn't play with their friends socially normally, but spent time looking at gadgets," he explained.

Therefore, to detect various mental disorders of children, Minister of Health Budi said that in the future the Free Health Examination program for Birthdays will also include screening children's mental health.

"In the future, the Ministry of Health will conduct a mental screening in the free health check program for children. We will start immediately," said Indonesian Minister of Health Budi Gunadi Sadikin.

In this regard, previously the Minister of Communication and Digital Affairs (Menkomdigi) Meutya Hafid revealed that restrictions on the use of social media were needed to protect children from the risk of exposure to negative content in the digital space.

The Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs (Kemkomdigi) also plans to limit access to social media users based on age to respond to this.

In addition, the Minister of Trade admitted that he had signed a Decree (SK) to form a special working team that would discuss studies on these restrictions, including other regulations related to child protection on the internet or digital space.

Based on the decree, said Meutya, the work team consisting of representatives of several ministries, academics, child education figures, child observer institutions Save The Children Indonesia, Psychologists, Child Protection Institutions represented by Kak Seto, and many other related institutions will work starting Monday, February 3.

The team, called the Child Protection Regulation Strengthening Team in the Digital realm, will work in three main focuses, first to strengthen regulation and monitoring mechanisms against digital platforms that provide access for children.

Then, they are also tasked with increasing digital literacy for children and parents to be more aware of cyber risks, as well as taking firm action against perpetrators and spreaders of harmful content that threatens the safety of children.

"Child security and protection in the digital world is very important," said the Minister of Communication and Industry.