The exposure of children and adolescents to harmful content is the main factor of concern that led to the approval of the new ECA Digital, in force since March 2026 after a vote in the Senate and a sanction from the Lula government in September.
The main measure is the obligation for digital platforms to adopt mechanisms to prevent children and young people from accessing criminal and violent content, in addition to establishing general rules for the use of virtual resources for children under 18 years of age, within the specifications provided for by the ECA (Digital Status of Children and Adolescents), of 1990.
According to Rodrigo Nejm, specialist in digital education at the Instituto Alana, the growing importance of social networks makes the digital environment overvalued by pre-teens and adolescents. “When these spaces become one of the main references for meetings, exchanges and inspiration, which includes models of body and behavior, this impacts the formation of the repertoire of these individuals,” he says.
According to the Tic Kids Brasil 2025 survey, 77% of users aged 9 to 17 reported owning their own cell phone; Of these, 80% said they used the device to watch videos from digital influencers and 58% watched this type of content more than once a day. WhatsApp is the platform most visited by this age group (68%), followed by YouTube (66%), Instagram (59%) and TikTok (57%).
The previous year’s survey shows that 49% of users aged 11-17 came into contact online with content about healthy eating and eating, and 33% about exercise, sports or fitness.
For Rodrigo Nejm, the reinforcement of a thin and white standard of beauty encourages social comparisons and self-esteem issues, and leads young people to make efforts to achieve them. The expert explains that while the resources offered by platforms, such as filters, can accentuate dissatisfaction with self-image, their algorithms present magical solutions to “repair” this body.
According to research data from Isaps (International Society of Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery), Brazil is the second country in the world ranking for aesthetic procedures, with 2,049,257 procedures in 2022. The most common practices were liposuction (13.4%) and breast augmentation (11.9%). The study also names Brazil as the second country in the ranking of breast augmentation operations in children under 17, behind Argentina.
“It is a spiral of promoting social comparison based on an inaccessible body model, fueled by solutions that reinforce the suffering of dissatisfaction with self-image,” he says.
The famous specialist ECA Digital. “Companies will have to improve their algorithms so as not to broadcast content that promotes anorexia, bulimia, self-diagnosis, self-medication or even ‘how to suppress hunger’. All of this is prohibited. Society must understand that it is not an option to neglect the laws that protect children and adolescents,” he says.
However, Rodrigo warns that the responsibility always lies with the parents: “Having a cell phone does not mean that the child must access all the available applications. The indicative classification of platforms is generally 12 to 16 years old, but reaching the minimum age does not mean that the child is mature enough to access the networks in question.
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