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Crossfire

Should families use firm age rules for smartphones and social media?

What the experts say

Jonathan HaidtPhD · social psychologist, author, and youth digital-wellbeing advocate

Use shared norms: no smartphone before high school and no social media before 16.

What it rests onCollective rules reduce the social penalty borne by any one family.

Source: anxiousgeneration.com ↗
Amy OrbenPhD · digital mental-health researcher and MRC programme leader

Target the specific use, context, child, and displaced need rather than assume one universal threshold.

What it rests onAverage associations conceal heterogeneity and simple time measures are weak intervention targets.

Source: cam.ac.uk ↗

Overview

Age, developmental stage, disability, safety needs, family circumstances, platform design, and type of use can change the balance.

Where they agree

Protect sleep, reduce compulsive and disruptive use, involve families, and evaluate real-world outcomes rather than treating technology as neutral.

What would settle it

Large, transparent natural experiments and trials comparing age-based restrictions with targeted, context-specific interventions.

Practice does not pick a winner here

You do, and your call is dated, kept, and yours to change. Follow the people you already trust and what they publish turns into a short daily practice.

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