Kids should be banned from smartphones until 13 and social media until 18, a major French study says

A schoolboy looking at an iPhone with apps including TikTok, Facebook, and X, on February 25, 2024. Matt Cardy/Getty Images

• Kids should be barred from using smartphones until 13 and social media until 18, a report said.
• The French government-backed report said social media should be limited to those with “ethical thinking.”
• It said the tech industry is making children “commodities” and “targets of endless notifications.”

Children should be barred from using smartphones until they turn 13 and social media until they are 18, according to a report commissioned by the French president.

The 142-page report was released on Tuesday, three months after President Emmanuel Macron asked a commission of experts to assess the impact of screen exposure on young people and to make recommendations.

The report, “Children and Screens: In Search of Lost Time,” said that children should not be allowed to have cellphones before the age of 11, should be barred from social media before they turn 13, and that between 15 and 18, social media access should be “limited” to those with “ethical thinking.”

As for toddlers, it recommended against exposing those under 3 and advised to move toward moderate, controlled exposure only after age 6.

The commission also “insisted” that the 29 proposals it issued must be taken as a whole and that it would be a “mistake” to consider only a few of them.

The Élysée Palace didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Policymakers around the world have tried to come to grips with technology usage by children, some by trying to impose bans on social media access or forcing kids to get parental consent.

Social media can have a strong impact on young people in particular, leading, in some cases, to suicide and exposure to dangerous content.

A recent study found that young people who owned smartphones in elementary school reported worse mental health in adulthood.

The 10-member French commission met with almost 150 youngsters and interviewed more than a hundred experts and professionals, including Google, Meta, TikTok, X, YouTube, Snapchat, and Samsung spokespeople.

The commission called on researchers to further their studies on the impact of screens on the neurodevelopment of children and addictive algorithms, saying the notion of “screen addiction” is not yet recognized by science.

It also said that kids need to be better protected from the tech industry’s tactics to grab their attention and exploit their cognitive biases.

“We cannot accept that children become commodities, targets of endless notifications, glued to reward systems designed by behavioral scientists to be irresistible, with free time becoming highly digitized,” the commission said.

It added: “Wherever children fall prey to enclosing mechanics, we must reject them.”

It also said that its findings are meant to be a first step toward the emergence of an “offensive” and “coherent” public policy.

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