Screens, smartphones and social media are now an integral part of childhood and governments around the world are scrambling to respond. The U.S. surgeon general has warned about social media’s effects on the mental health of young people, Australia has banned younger teens from social media, and the EU is weighing similar rules. 

Policymakers often act to curb children’s use of social media with little evidence that these measures actually reduce a child’s screen use—or an understanding of how cutting back affects their health and well-being.

With the support of a Stanford Impact Labs grant, SHP’s Petra Persson, PhD, MSc, and  Maya Rossin-Slater, PhD, intend to address these issues by studying the effects of social media and screens on the sleep, mental health and school performance of children. Using Swedish data——linked, population-wide records covering more than 2.5 million children—the researchers intend to measure these outcomes at a large scale.

“The need is stark: 92% of Swedish 9–12-year-olds own a smartphone, this age group spends over four hours a day on screens outside school, and children’s prescriptions for melatonin, a sleep aid, have risen ninefold in a decade,” said Rossin-Slater, an associate professor of health policy, and Persson, an assistant professor of economics and SHP courtesy faculty member. 

These stats have prompted Sweden to roll out one of the world’s broadest sets of digital media policies, which will take effect in 2028.

“By pairing rigorous, large-scale evidence with a government partner ready to act on it, our project aims to show what works—and for whom—giving policymakers, funders, and families everywhere a sounder basis for protecting children’s well-being in a digital age.”

Learn More about their project and partnership with the Public Health Agency of Sweden.