New Delhi, July 15 -- The UK government on Wednesday unveiled plans to introduce a voluntary overnight social media curfew for 16- and 17-year-olds, marking its latest effort to curb the harmful effects of excessive online activity among young people.

As part of the proposed measures, social media platforms will also be required to disable, by default, features that encourage prolonged use, such as autoplay videos and endless content feeds, for older teenagers.

However, critics have raised doubts about the proposals' effectiveness, noting that users can still manually override the default restrictions if they choose.

The announcement follows the government's decision last month to introduce a social media ban for children under 16. Sch...