If the advent of the affordable mobile phone has given parents a new way to stay in touch with their children, it has also prompted countless arguments about screen time, safety and social media.
As concerns over phone use grow – and the age at which children get their first mobile continues to fall – countries around the world are weighing up how to tackle the issue in schools and at home.
Nowhere has found the magic bullet, but action plans are being mooted and workarounds proposed, from stringent legislation to grassroots action.
As Australia and Spain prepare to pilot stringent laws to tackle the problem, our correspondents explore some of the most notable screen-time solutions.
Australia: ‘Making sure children have a childhood’
Australia made global headlines in November, when its parliament passed a law to ban under-16s from social media. But much of how it will work, and which services it will apply to, remains unclear.
While some states in Australia ban the use of mobile phones in school, the federal government’s new ban will restrict children under 16 from social media entirely by the end of this year. The legislation will empower the communications minister to determine which platforms will be restricted, but it is widely expected it will at least apply to Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.
YouTube is expected to be exempt on the grounds of the educational benefits it claims to offer.
The legislation places responsibility for checking ages on the platforms, and states they must take “reasonable steps” to check ages, or otherwise face fines of A$50m (£25m). A trial of the technology is under way, but it is believed the final version could include the use of facial age estimation, account behavioural checking to determine ages, and, potentially, the use of existing authentication services.
The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has said the ban is about making sure “children have a childhood”. The aim, he added, was to get them “playing outside with their friends – off their phones and on to the footie and cricket field, the tennis and netball courts, in the swimming pool trying every sport that grabs their interest”.
Josh Taylor, Melbourne
Spain: ‘You can use ours’
Spain’s socialist-led coalition government is preparing legislation that would raise the age for opening a social media account from 14 to 16 and calls for the tech companies to install age-verification systems.
It also proposes that parental controls be installed by default on smartphones and that a national education campaign be rolled out to help children and teenagers navigate social media.
An expert committee recently called on the government to consider adding a warning label to digital devices sold in Spain, informing consumers of the health risks that have been linked to social media and digital devices.
In autumn 2023, parents in the Barcelona neighbourhood of Poblenou started a WhatsApp group in which they agreed to delay the age at which they gave their children a phone. Their initiative, Adolescencia Libre de Móviles (mobile-free adolescence) quickly spread across Catalonia and other parts of Spain as families united around the idea of not giving their children phones until they are 16.
“Each year you can delay giving a phone is a big win because more than 72% of Spanish children have a smartphone by the age of 12,” said Núria González-Rojas, a spokesperson for the project.
A parents’ group in the Basque Country called Altxa Burua (lift your head up) has been trialling a scheme to delay the age at which children get mobile phones by enlisting the help of families, schools and local businesses. The project, which began in the town of Tolosa two years ago, aims to head off the familiar argument that children need phones for emergencies and to keep their parents informed of their movements. To that end, shops in Tolosa have been displaying window stickers inviting children to use their phones if they need to. The stickers, in both Basque and Spanish, read: “You can use ours.”
Sam Jones, Madrid
France: ‘Taking back control of screens’
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, commissioned a report into the issue, saying the country needed to “take back control of our screens”, which were closing children in on themselves rather than liberating them. He said “the future of our society and democracy” depended on a sensible approach.
The report, presented last April, said children should not be allowed to use smartphones until they are 13 and should be banned from accessing conventional social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat until they are 18. No child should have a phone before age 11, it said, and they should only have a handset without access to the internet before 13.
The experts said children needed to be protected from the tech industry’s profit-driven strategies, adding that screens had a negative impact on children’s eyesight, sleep, metabolism, physical health and concentration.
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Macron has said ministers should “examine the recommendations and translate them into action”.
Angelique Chrisafis, Paris
Italy: School bans
The use of smartphones and tablets in Italian classrooms in primary, elementary and lower secondary schools was banned completely from September, even for teaching purposes.
The education minister, Giuseppe Valditara, said a decision had been taken for educational reasons but also because of the tension the devices had provoked between students and teachers – including cases of teachers being hit with phones in response to a reprimand.
Valditara has also supported a petition calling for children under the age of 14 to be banned from owning a mobile phone and for under-16s to be prevented from having profiles on social media.
Angela Giuffrida, Rome
Germany: ‘The longer you can put off children using smartphones, the better’
Although German schools cannot bar pupils from bringing in mobile phones, they can ban them from using them in the classroom or during breaktimes.
Teachers routinely exercise the right to confiscate phones deemed to be a problem on a case-by-case basis, but experts note the legal footing for this is shaky. Some educators have embraced devices as part of teaching and encouraged efforts to build digital literacy among young people, including encouraging them to set limits on screen time for their wellbeing.
But political officials such as the Schleswig-Holstein education minister, Karin Prien, have called for mobile phones to be banished entirely from elementary schools, citing negative effects on learning and physical health.
Thomas Fischbach, the president of the German Association of Paediatricians, has said that no child under the age of 11 should be given a smartphone, calling the devices harmful for development.
He said young brains were too vulnerable to be exposed to social media “influencers” in particular, with doctors reporting their practices are full of young internet users who had begun to develop psychological problems such as chronic anxiety.
“The longer you can put off children using smartphones, the better it is for them,” said Fischbach.
Germany’s federalist system, however, has meant that while smartphones are a source of concern and debate for most parents, there have been no resonant calls for a countrywide policy.
Deborah Cole, Berlin
