Children, Smartphones and Social Media: Is Britain Falling Behind?
Danna Brown, May 2026
This report examines how France, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia are addressing children’s social media and smartphone use. It considers what lessons, if any, Britain might draw from these five countries as it develops its own policy response.
No single country has a complete solution to this problem, nor has any single country sufficiently resolved the tensions among the protection of children online, statutory guidance, parental responsibility and children’s autonomy. Together, however, the five countries analysed illustrate a range of tools that Britain could consider as it debates what further measures to implement to protect children in the digital age.
All five countries compared have moved, at varying paces, toward tackling children’s increased use of social media and smartphones. Australia became the first country in the world to adopt a law prohibiting children under 16 from creating their own social media accounts, with the law taking effect in December 2025. The French government commissioned an independent expert panel in 2024, drawing on specialists in addiction medicine, developmental psychology, neurology, and digital technology. The panel’s report produced age-specific guidance that parents could implement to regulate children’s screen time. Denmark established a cross-disciplinary body to understand why children’s wellbeing had declined. Finland ensured that digital literacy was integrated across the national curriculum rather than siloed into a single subject. In the Netherlands, the Smartphone-Free Childhood movement secured voluntary pledges from parents across tens of thousands of households, co-ordinating behavioural change through social expectations rather than legal mandates. Across all five countries, governments have pursued children’s digital regulation through different instruments, ranging from laws prohibiting social media accounts to expert-led guidance, institutional inquiry, curriculum reform and voluntary social coordination.
About the Author
Danna Brown is a researcher for Civitas. She is a former corporate lawyer, practising in both London and her home city of New York.
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