Sweden advises no digital media screen time for children under 2 to preserve childhood

By Amelia Nierenberg

New York Times·

6 Sep, 2024 02:00 AM5 mins to read

Sweden advises no digital media for children under 2, and an hour maximum for children age 2 to 5. Photo / 123rf

Swedish public health authorities recommended this week that children younger than 2 should not use any digital media, as parents, paediatricians and governments struggle to respond to the challenges of today’s tech-soaked world.

“We have to take back control,” said Jakob Forssmed, the Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, and give children “the ability to have a different kind of childhood”.

The intention of Sweden’s policy – and others like it – is to cut down on distractions, promote healthy development and help preserve the innocence of childhood. But some experts wonder if the guidance – however well-intentioned – may be too unrealistic and too judgemental to stick.

Here’s an overview of the debate.

What are Sweden’s recommendations?

There are four main categories to Sweden’s new screen-time recommendations:

Keep up with the latest in lifestyle and entertainment

Get the latest lifestyle & entertainment headlines straight to your inbox.

By signing up for this newsletter, you agree to NZME’s Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

Duration: no screens for children younger than 2, an hour maximum for children age 2 to 5, two hours for children age 6 to 12 and three hours for teens.

Control: Sweden recommends following the age limits provided by social media and game companies, and that parents keep tabs on what their children use.

Sleep: No screens before bedtime, or in the bedroom. (That’s probably also a good move for adults, sleep scientists say.)

Self-reflection: Parents should think about their own screen time, which can cut into their interactions with their children, and set the tone for a child.

Forssmed described the recommendations as an effort to help families balance physical activity, relationships, schoolwork and sleep, and set healthy habits. He also wants to address what he called a “sleep crisis” for older children, which he said could lead to mental health challenges.

What do other countries do?

Sweden’s guidance for toddlers and screens builds off similar recommendations elsewhere. Other countries suggest the youngest children use screens only to video chat with adults they know.

Paediatric health experts in the United States and Ireland recommend no screens before 18 months, save for video chats with adults they know. That jumps to 2 years old for experts in Canada and Australia, which, like Sweden, does not make exceptions for chats.

France may go further. President Emmanuel Macron commissioned a report, published in April, that recommended children younger than 3 have no exposure to screens – including television. (The report is titled “Children and Screens: In Search of Lost Time,” a nod to Marcel Proust.)

What is the rationale behind a no-screens approach?

Many experts doubt there is any educational benefit to screen use for children who are still learning to walk, talk, feel, socialise and navigate the world. Some also worry that too much passive screen time could make children less active during critical years.

“From a neurobiological point of view, there’s a massive amount going on in the first years of life,” said Sebastian Suggate, a professor of education at the University of Regensburg in Germany. “There’s just no substitute for the three-dimensional world for that.”

A study of about 7100 mother-child pairs published last year in JAMA Pediatrics found that more screen time at age 1 was associated with developmental delays in communication and problem-solving when the children were between 2 and 4.

“The most educational thing is another human being – who is not looking at a phone,” said Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of psychology at Temple University.

What are the criticisms?

Some researchers think the policy is simply unrealistic. What parent has not handed a fussy child a screen to keep them quiet in public, or to buy some much-needed alone time?

Suggate said longer working hours for parents, smaller family sizes, urbanisation and a general fear of letting children play alone outside mean that kids are often less able to amuse themselves.

Andrew K. Przybylski, professor of human behaviour and technology at the University of Oxford in Britain, said the bans could be “shaming” parents who have few other options to make a different choice. He also said the amount of time is less important than the type of activities on a phone.

“It has a flawed part, which is about raw hours, which probably don’t matter,” he said of Sweden’s recommendations. “But it has really good common sense parts to it, which, again, is about the balance of the online world, the screen world and the offline world.”

How about school-age children?

Sweden’s guidance comes as children begin the new academic year and efforts to restrict their access to screens take effect. In the United States, at least eight states this year have moved to cut down on students’ phone use during school.

Many such efforts were influenced by a report published by Unesco in 2023 that found that smartphone use can disrupt classroom learning. The report said about one in four countries had a phone ban. A year later, it is now 30%, Manos Antoninis, director of the report, said in a phone interview.

“Even just having a mobile phone nearby with notifications coming through is enough to result in students losing their attention from the task at hand,” Unesco said in a summary.