Behind the screen, curiosity can sometimes lead teens towards hidden digital risks.

Born between 1997 and 2010, Gen Z shows a global pattern of declining academic performance, with prolonged screen exposure and surface-level learning identified as key contributing factors.

The platform will use age estimation technology and identity checks to verify users’ ages, while stressing that privacy safeguards remain in place.

The challenge lies in protecting children online while ensuring that solutions remain fair, coordinated and realistic for the long term.

In some cases, parents are no longer able to work due to ill health; in others, they have been retrenched, retired on modest pensions, or face a combination of setbacks.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said platforms will be required to implement strict age verification systems, describing the current online ecosystem as a digital space where regulation has failed to keep children safe.

Many parents in Malaysia, although deeply invested in their children’s wellbeing, may have limited emotional bandwidth to consistently monitor subtle behavioural shifts.

Photo: Canva For young people, cybercrime often shows up as online grooming, harassment, pressure to share private images, or being threatened with exposure.

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Jennifer Garner and her daughter Violet Affleck