Good morning, respected judges, my worthy opponents, and my dear friends in the audience. Today, I stand before you to say one thing with absolute conviction: Yes! Screen time must be legally regulated for minors.
Let me start with a little story. Imagine a 12-year-old boy. Once cheerful, playful, full of life. Slowly, he becomes irritable. He sleeps at 2 AM. He hides his phone under the blanket, fingers racing over the screen. His grades? Dropping. His health? Weakening. His smile? Disappearing. Ladies and gentlemen, that boy isn’t a stranger — he’s in every school, every home today. And you and I both know him. That is the reality that brings me here today.
We don’t need research to tell us what we see every day — but the research is there. The World Health Organisation warns that more than 2 hours of screen use daily for children leads to obesity and developmental problems.
A paediatric study in the US has shown that children glued to screens for 7+ hours a day had thinning in their brain’s cortex — the very seat of critical thinking. And mental health? A ticking time bomb. Anxiety. Depression. Shorter attention spans. A generation hooked — not on cigarettes, not on alcohol — but on a glowing screen.
And let’s not fool ourselves that this is “innocent entertainment.” My friends, apps and games are not created by accident. They are engineered — engineered to make addicts. The endless scroll, the ‘like’ button, the next gaming level — they are designed to keep kids hooked like gamblers in a casino. Can a 13-year-old resist billion-dollar algorithms? No. That is why the law must step in. When the vulnerable are exploited, protection is a duty.
And this isn’t theory. Look at China! They cap gaming time for children to just 3 hours a week — and reports show gaming addiction cases have dropped dramatically. The UK’s Online Safety Bill already puts the onus on platforms to protect kids. So when other nations see the red flashing signs, why are we pretending it’s all fine here?
Now I know my opponents will thunder — “Let parents handle it! Don’t bring the law into the home!” But let me ask you this. Do we say the same about seatbelts? Do we say “Oh, let parents decide if kids wear it or not”? No! We legislate because the risk is too high. Do we say “Let parents decide if kids need to work in factories”? No. We legislate against child labour. Because certain risks require not just guidance, but the force of law. Seatbelts protect bodies. Child labour laws protect dignity. Screen time limits? They protect minds.
I urge the panel to look at the bigger picture here. This isn’t just about one addicted child in one home. This is an entire generation. A generation losing sleep. Losing focus. Losing the ability to connect face-to-face, to think deeply, to live healthily. What happens 20 years from now, when this distracted generation is running our workplaces, our hospitals, our governments? If we don’t regulate now… we don’t just risk children. We risk the future strength of our nation.
Respected judges, friends — freedom is precious. But freedom without boundaries can be dangerous. When children are up against trillion-dollar industries that manipulate their brains, that freedom becomes a trap. The law exists to protect those who cannot protect themselves. And today, that means our minors — our future. So yes. Let’s regulate. Let’s protect. Let’s not raise addicts. Let’s raise a generation capable of living beyond the screen.
Thank you!
AGAINST:
Good morning, respected judges, my worthy opponents, and my dear friends. Today, I rise not to deny the problems of screen addiction… but to boldly say: No. Screen time should NOT be legally regulated for minors.
Let me begin with a story. A 15-year-old girl in rural India. She has no good school nearby. No extra classes. But she finds YouTube lessons. She watches hours every day — English, math, coding. That girl? She ends up building an app and winning a tech scholarship. Now, tell me, if there had been a law — “Sorry, child, only 2 hours of screen time allowed” — would she have achieved that? Or would her dreams have been killed by some bureaucrat’s stopwatch?
Friends, the law is a blunt instrument. It paints in black and white, where children live in colour. One child’s 6 hours of online study is another child’s 6 hours of silly reels. Can a law tell the difference? No! That is the danger. Law reduces every screen, every click, every learning moment into the same rigid rule. And that is not protection — it is destruction.
And what about parents? Are we saying parents don’t know their children? That a minister in Delhi, or a committee in some office, knows better than a mother sitting beside her child? My opponents run parallels with other controversial topics like seatbelts and child labour. But these topics have no nuances. They apply the same way for everyone. Screen time is not like that. Education apps, storytelling, family video calls — do we punish these the same way as late-night gaming? Parents can tell the difference. Politicians cannot.
And let’s be realistic. How would this even be enforced? Government surveillance of every device? Spy apps in every phone? Officers knocking at homes to count hours? Such a law would explode into invasion of privacy. Children will simply find loopholes, use VPNs, borrow devices, create secret accounts. What then? Punish parents for children being smart? It is an unworkable dream.
Think of COVID-19. Think of the two years when 250 million Indian students depended entirely on screens for school. If a law had limited their access, learning would have died for two years! And don’t forget our booming EdTech industry. By 2023, more than 120 million students were enrolled in online learning platforms. Do we cripple this industry just to pass a feel-good law?
Friends, in trying to protect children, we may end up chaining their very opportunities. And here is the greater danger: If the state begins ruling children’s screen hours by law, what’s next? Bedtimes? Junk food quantities? Exercise quotas? The list is endless. Where do we draw the line between guidance — and dictatorship of daily life?
Every good argument requires the person arguing to try to understand the other person’s viewpoint. And I agree that screen addiction is real. But the answer isn’t punishment. The answer is education. Teach digital literacy in schools. Equip parents with tools to monitor and guide. Run awareness campaigns, like we’ve done against smoking and drunk driving. Because problems of human behaviour — they’re not solved by law. They’re solved by culture, by family, by trust.
My opponents want a law that sees children as weak, as helpless. I disagree. Children are learners, explorers, creators. Yes, they need guidance. But not chains. So I ask you, what kind of nation do we want? One where opportunities are cut short by rigid rules? Or one where families are trusted, innovation is encouraged, and learning is limitless? I choose the second. And that is why I stand firmly against the motion.
Thank you.
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