Study shows 94% youngsters have social media profile before age 13

… Danish government urge tech firms to protect children from addictive, inappropriate content

About 94 percent of youngsters have social media profile before age 13, despite that being the minimum age for many social media platforms, besides, nine to 14-year-olds spent an average of three hours daily on TikTok and YouTube.

This is according to the report by the Danish wellbeing commission, which was set up in 2023 by Mette Frederiksen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, investigate growing dissatisfaction among children and young people.

“94 percent of young people had a social media profile before they turned 13, despite that being the minimum age for many social media platforms, and that nine to 14-year-olds spent an average of three hours a day on TikTok and YouTube,” the report shows.

“This increases the risk of children being exposed to, amongst other things, inappropriate comparison cultures, and pressure to be available and harmful content and features.

“At the same time it takes time and attention away from essential things in childhood and youth like leisure activities, physically spending time with friends and family, play and immersion in reading and other activities,” the report stated.

In addition, the commission states; “Tech companies, should be forced to protect children from “addictive” design and inappropriate content. Parents, meanwhile, should not give children a smartphone or tablet until they are at least 13.”

Consequent to the report, Mattias Tesfaye, the minister for children and education told Politiken, a Danish daily newspaper that the government need to reclaim the schools for learning and not otherwise.

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“There is a need to reclaim the school as an educational space, where there is room for reflection and where it is not an extension of the teenage bedroom.

“There will be scope for local authorities to make exceptions, including for children with special educational needs, but he said mobile phones and personal tablets “do not belong in school, neither during breaks nor during lessons.”

In view of the above, the government recently announced its plan to ban mobile phones in schools and after-school clubs on the recommendation of a government commission that also found that children under 13 should not have their own smartphone or tablet.

The government said it would change existing legislation to force all folkeskole, comprehensive primary and lower secondary schools, to become phone-free, meaning that almost all children aged between seven and 16-17 will be required by law not to bring their phones into school.

The announcement marks a u-turn by the government, which had previously refused to introduce such a law. It comes as governments across Europe are trying to impose tighter regulations on children’s access to phones and social media.

The Danish wellbeing commission was set up by the Prime Minister, Mette Frederiksen, in 2023 to investigate growing dissatisfaction among children and young people.

Its long-awaited report, published on Tuesday, raised the alarm over the digitisation of children and young people’s lives and called for a better balance between digital and analogue life.

Among its 35 recommendations was the need for government legislation banning phones from schools and after-school clubs.

Tesfaye explained that the government had started preparing a legislative amendment.

“Suddenly, screens were everywhere in school, and it was only afterwards that we started discussing the consequences.

“Both academic studies and commissions are starting to address the negative consequences. In the two years that I have been minister of education alone, we have become somewhat wiser,” he said.

Rasmus Meyer, the chair of the commission, compared the mobile phone ban to not allowing smoking in schools and said that the moment a child is given a smartphone “it will colonise the child’s entire life”.