Society-Wide Effort Needed for Kids’ Social Media Addiction, Not Just Class Bans: Study

A 12-year-old boy uses a phone outside school in a file photo. Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo

A new study on social media addiction among children says classroom cellphone bans are only temporary fixes and a broader approach is needed to tackle the issue.

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute (MLI) study comes as seven provinces have adopted or are considering policies to limit cellphone use in classrooms, including Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Quebec.

Paul Bennett, director of the Schoolhouse Institute and author of the study published on July 11, said school-based restrictions to address mobile device attachment and social media addiction have a limited effect.

“Banning cellphones in classrooms is turning out to be a short-term fix,” Mr. Bennett wrote. “Social media addiction and the fixation with mobile devices is now ingrained in contemporary life and next-to-impossible to stamp out [through] school-based bans.”

The study noted that with the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, a new “smartphone generation” emerged. As of January 2024, nearly one in five Canadians are part of that demographic.

One concern about that generation is the rapid displacement of television by mobile phones and tablets as tools for entertaining young children. The MLI cited a study showing mobile device use among children up to age 8 rose from 38 percent in 2011 to 72 percent by 2013.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, children’s screen time in Canada, the United States, and globally saw dramatic increases. Screen time for children between the ages of 6 and 12 reached a record of 13 hours a day in the early months of the pandemic, and while usage has dropped slightly since then, it remains higher than pre-pandemic levels, the study said.

While mental health authorities have not classified social media dependence as a clinical addiction, it is increasingly recognized as a significant generational issue, the MLI study said. Excessive social media use has been identified as an “area of emerging research” by the Canadian Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, indicating the need for further investigation and intervention.

Policy Recommendations

Public opinion in Canada has toughened on the use of smartphones at school, with a recent Leger survey suggesting that more than 90 percent of Canadians support classroom restrictions.

Mr. Bennett wants those concerns integrated into a national child and youth mental health strategy with a comprehensive public health study commissioned to investigate social media addiction among Canadian school-age children.

He is urging Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer and Health Canada to work with provincial public health authorities to identify social media addiction as an urgent mental health problem and consider putting “warning labels” on social media platforms. The strategy also supports a pan-Canadian initiative to mount a legal case against social media conglomerates for the harm caused to children and teens.

The study also provides age-specific guidelines for smartphone use and says children should be encouraged to play in unsupervised settings indoors and outdoors. It recommends keeping schools phone-free until Grade 6, teaching online safety, and developing evidence-based curricula promoting positive behaviour. Parents are encouraged to restrict social media during leisure time and use safer communication devices as well as tools to block harmful online content.

Adolescents aged 13 to 17 should have phone-free classrooms and strict limits on cellphone use on school premises. Other suggested measures for this age group include a system-wide phone lock-up system, increased physical education, integrated mental health programs, expanded counselling, and cellphone reduction programs to address excessive mobile device use and social media addiction.

For those beyond adolescence, aged 18 to 24, the study calls for responsible use guidelines on using mobile devices in educational settings, research on the impact of excessive social media use on post-secondary students, new social norms for mobile phone etiquette, and support programs for social media addiction.