Economic survey flags digital addiction as quiet threat to growth
For the first time, the Economic Survey 2025-26 places excessive digital consumption alongside obesity and non-communicable diseases as a structural threat to human-capital formation. Past surveys treated technology primarily as an economic accelerator. This one warns that the same devices powering India’s digital economy may be undermining the cognitive foundations needed to sustain it.
The concern is not access, but behaviour. Unlike earlier policy debates focused on bringing smartphones to more people, the survey argues that digital platforms, engineered for instant gratification through short videos, endless scrolling, and algorithmic rewards, are eroding sustained attention, deep learning, and the capacity for delayed gratification.
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Millions of Indian gig workers are stuck in low-pay jobs, Economic Survey finds
By positioning the issue in the education and health chapter rather than in technology or industry sections, policymakers signal that this is fundamentally about human capability. The document even invokes classical Indian philosophy, drawing a distinction between preya (immediate comfort) and shreya (enduring good), a framework that the tension between short-term pleasure and long-term welfare.
The implicit message: an economy aspiring to global competitiveness cannot rely on a workforce shaped by constant distraction.
Global responses to digital overuse
India is not alone in grappling with the social costs of excessive screen time. Across Asia, Europe, and Australia, governments are deploying a widening array of interventions, from hard limits and curfews to education campaigns and clinical treatment.
In East Asia, where digital connectivity is highest, policy responses have been most aggressive. South Korea, one of the world’s most wired societies, has banned mobile phones in classrooms starting March 2026, citing widespread social-media dependency among students. The country also operates state-funded “digital detox” centers that combine device-free programmes with counselling and group activities.
China has taken a regulatory approach, imposing strict time limits on minors’ gaming and requiring real-name registration to enforce compliance. The country has expanded legal duties on online platforms to incorporate consumption caps and usage restrictions for young users.
Japan favours community-level interventions. Some municipalities have introduced ordinances recommending daily smartphone usage limits and encouraging family conversations around screen time. Specialist clinics treating conditions linked to excessive smartphone use have also opened.
In Europe and Australia, the focus has been on age-based restrictions and platform accountability. Australia pioneered a ban on social media accounts for children under 16. Greece has developed a national strategy emphasising parental controls, age verification systems, and platform cooperation to protect minors. Several European governments are debating similar restrictions.
These varied approaches, hard limits, educational campaigns, parental tools, and clinical interventions, reflect a growing international consensus: that digital access and economic opportunity must be balanced with safeguards for cognitive wellbeing, particularly among children and adolescents.
The attention economy and India’s demographic bet
For Indian policymakers, the Economic Survey’s diagnosis is clear: economic growth can no longer be separated from questions of behaviour, self-regulation, and cognitive resilience.
The concern is especially acute for a country banking its future on its young population. Weak attention spans, learning gaps, and reduced resilience don’t just affect individual outcomes, they threaten the demographic dividend India is counting on to power its rise over the coming decades.
What makes this challenge distinct from earlier development hurdles is its subtlety. Unlike malnutrition or illiteracy, digital addiction leaves no obvious physical markers. Its costs accumulate slowly: in classrooms where students struggle to focus, in workplaces where deep problem-solving gives way to fragmented multitasking, in societies where collective attention becomes harder to sustain.
In an era of hyper-stimulating digital ecosystems, attention itself has become a scarce national resource, and countries around the world are only beginning to reckon with what it means to protect it.
Edited by Megha Reddy
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