In recent months, many countries have moved to restrict the use of social media for those under the age of sixteen. On the surface, the decision seemed procedural or technical, but in essence it is a global recognition that we are facing a profound human transformation that cannot be confronted with partial tools or isolated solutions. The issue is not so much a “ban,” but rather a comprehensive rethinking of our relationship to the world, to childhood, and to the public sphere.

Over the last two decades, the environment in which our children grow up has changed radically. Safe, open neighborhoods in major cities have turned into closed houses like boxes. Playgrounds, parks and nature have been replaced with digital screens, devices and boards. Children moved from movement, interaction and live experience to long, silent and isolated sitting. This transformation was not only technical; Rather, educationally, psychologically, and cognitively, it reshaped the child’s relationship with the body, with language, and with the other.

The grandmothers and grandfathers used to tell the story, so imagination was formed, values ​​were formed, and the relationship with meaning was built. Today the story is sold in fast clips, artificial rhythms, and directed algorithms. With this shift, attention time was not only shortened; Rather, the ability for deep learning, patience, imagination, and constructing meaning from direct experience diminished.

Recent neuroscience and educational studies indicate that excessive reliance on screens in early childhood alters neurodevelopmental pathways, impairs self-regulation skills, and increases the brain’s susceptibility to behavioral addiction. The brain, instead of developing through sensory, motor, and social interaction, begins to delegate its functions to external tools. This early delegation creates compulsive attachment patterns: to the screen, to silent consumption and all its forms, to isolation, etc. A child who grows up to receive rather than act, to consume rather than share, becomes more vulnerable in front of the world.

Hence, the debate on regulating digital space is not posed as a narrow moral debate or a traditional censorship practice, but rather as a structural question about redefining “borders”: borders that are formulated as conscious protection rather than disguised repression. Educational limits are not a derogation from the freedom of children and youth, but rather a value compass that teaches the individual that freedom without controls turns into chaos, and that when behavior escapes, it needs a rhythm that will return it to its sound human path.

We need smart educational boundaries, safe play spaces, and education that reconnects the body with the mind, liberates knowledge from the dominance of screens in childhood and identity formation, and returns it to the lived experience: sports, arts, nature, and volunteer work as basic formation tools and not complementary activities. We also need schools and universities that realize that mental health is neither an institutional luxury nor a circumstantial response to crises, but rather a pillar of national security and building a balanced human being capable of protecting himself and his community at the same time.

Jordan, despite economic challenges and accelerating transformations, has an important asset in approaching the human being as the essence of public policies. Historically, educational and social policies were not formulated in isolation from the societal fabric, but rather within a vision that sees humans as the center and meaning of development. Today, in a world that is changing at a rapid pace, there is a need to restore this complementary logic: from the home to the school, to the university, to the neighborhood, all the way to the planning of public spaces. The world is one system and an interconnected environment, and any defect in one of its components does not remain limited, but is reflected in the whole.

What we really need is to reopen youth centers not as silent buildings, but as living spaces: for sports, innovation, entrepreneurship, scientific experimentation, the arts, and character building. In Irbid, where I grew up, the Irbid Youth Center formed our early awareness; We learned table tennis, dabke, public speaking, and story writing, in an nurturing environment created by a leadership that believed in youth, embodied by the center’s director at the time, Nariman Al-Rousan. We have grown and developed, and many of us have reached positions of knowledge and influence. This is how societies are built: with intelligent investment in people, and with open spaces that restore meaning, belonging, and hope to youth.

It is true that small cities naturally transform into large cities with broader services and higher consumption patterns, and that the decline of small shops, playgrounds, and youth centers in favor of gas stations, cafes, and supermarkets is part of the general urban path. But global experiences confirm that successful cities are not built on consumption alone, but rather on a conscious balance between what we produce and what we consume, and between economic growth and the psychological and physical health of the population.

In these cities, lost playgrounds are being restored, youth centers are being revived, cycling and walking paths are being opened, and parks are being created with open playgrounds, innovation labs, arts workshops and live cultural incubators for children and young people.

When creative imagination and future thinking integrate with heritage and heritage, and sustainable planning is guided by values, cities grow without losing their spirit, and the meaning of the homeland is preserved as a space of belonging, work, and shared responsibility, not just an arena for consumption.

From this standpoint, regulating the use of social media for children in Jordan becomes a national and educational necessity: to protect collective awareness, protect young people from digital alienation, and ensure that public space, real and virtual, remains a space for building the Jordanian human being, not dismantling him.