OECD: Children's well-being in the digital age – highly individualized

Contents

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has published a new report on children's lives in the digital age. While the organization clarifies that the digital transformation offers “valuable opportunities for learning, play and social interaction”, it also underlines that intensive use can affect children's development and mental health. The OECD includes negative effects on sleep patterns, physical development and an increase in anxiety and depression. However, whether children and young people are actually negatively impacted depends heavily on very individual factors such as education, monitoring of use and the actual usage profiles.

In the report, the OECD repeatedly points out that the existing study situation gives rise to greater uncertainties for assessments – for example regarding effective measures to limit risks and increase the general well-being of children in the digital age. Accordingly, she calls for more robust studies to be able to make more evidence-based statements about the influence of certain digital services. Nevertheless, the report can present some meaningful results and also contains recommendations for schools, parents, and politicians.

Tasks of teachers and the role of smartphone bans

According to the OECD report, teachers, schools, and education systems play a crucial role in teaching children digital skills and social responsibility. They can help to understand digital risks and deal with problematic online situations. They are also in a position to sensitize parents to the risks of excessive screen time, video games and intensive use of social media. This support is particularly important for children without appropriate support in their core family. Teachers therefore need appropriate training to close the gaps in their knowledge of digital tools and services.

At the same time, schools face the challenge of preventing cell phones from disrupting lessons. A ban on cell phones in class could reduce distractions and improve concentration, but enforcing these bans outside the classroom is difficult. Evidence on the effects of cell phone bans in schools on students' academic performance and well-being also remains mixed, according to the report. Some studies suggest that restricting smartphone use can improve academic performance, particularly among disadvantaged students. However, others showed no benefits or even negative effects due to increased anxiety caused by cell phone restrictions. The findings on the effects of cell phone bans on well-being, mental health and bullying are also inconsistent. The fact that there are no more precise assessments here is due to the limited number of studies to date. However, these are important to determine which measures are most effective in promoting the general well-being of pupils or considering the needs of children of different age groups.

According to the report, the role of parents remains an important one, but not all parents have enough experience, knowledge, or time to constantly guide children in their use of digital services. Younger children require strict rules and supervision, while teenagers could benefit from more flexible guidelines and open conversations. Parents also need to model healthy habits.

Age-based parental control features implemented by manufacturers could help parents to set boundaries and guide their children's online activities. However, these offers could also convey a false sense of security, lead to excessive control or encourage the avoidance of responsibility. Family media usage plans – could help both parents and adolescents – to reflect on and better manage their own media usage. If media usage plans were to include the whole family and not just focus on children, they would also be more likely to be accepted and respected by adolescents.

Demands on politicians

At a policy level, the report highlights the need for evidence-based regulation and cross-sectoral government action in response to the widespread use of digital media by children. Effective measures to protect adolescents in the digital and school environment are needed to ensure that the responsibility to protect and promote healthy digital practices does not overburden parents and children. In addition, clear guidelines are needed to support educators, parents and caregivers in helping children manage their use of digital technologies, develop digital skills, set appropriate boundaries and recommendations, and meet children's expressed desire for protection and support without excluding them from important areas of the digital environment, such as social media.

Study results on availability and use

- Internet penetration has increased significantly since 2005. At that time, around half of households in OECD countries had Internet access; by 2023, this figure had risen to 92%.

- By the age of around ten, around 70% of children already have their smartphone, although there are major differences between countries: Only 29 percent in Turkey and 40 percent in France, but more than 90 percent of 10-year-olds in Latvia, Poland, and the Nordic countries of Europe (data from 2021).

- Children are introduced to screens at a relatively young age and their screen time increases rapidly as they get older. Although data on young children's exposure to digital devices is quite limited, a European survey estimates that children typically start interacting with digital technology at the age of two.

- According to a survey from France in 2024, it is estimated that the average screen time for 7 to 12-year-olds is 2:03 hours per day, rising to 2:55 hours for 13 to 15-year-olds and 5:10 hours for 16 to 19-year-olds.

- In most OECD countries, at least 50 percent of 15-year-olds spend 30 hours or more per week using digital devices. Japan stands out with a much lower proportion (31%) of 15-year-olds and a much higher proportion of just 10 hours per week. A significant minority of these young people – from 10 percent in Japan to 43 percent in Latvia – spent 60 hours or more on digital devices (PISA data 2022).

- In OECD countries, 95% of 15-year-olds surf the internet and social networks for fun. Most use digital devices to communicate and share content (88%), search for practical information (84%) and play video games (83%). A smaller but still high percentage (69%) create or edit their own digital content, although there are significant differences between countries (PISA data 2022).

- Around 35% of young people aged 11 to 15 state that they are almost constantly in contact with friends and/or relatives online. The likelihood of constant online interaction increases with age, from 29% among 11-year-olds to 38% among 15-year-olds. Girls (38%) are more likely to maintain constant contact than boys (31%), and young people from single-parent families (37%) are slightly more likely to do so than young people from two-parent families (33%).

- Around 27 percent of 15-year-olds in the OECD state that they play video games for at least three hours on a weekday. 8 percent of boys (compared to 3 percent of girls) spend at least seven hours playing video games on a typical weekday, and 12 percent on weekends. Young people from low socio-economic families are more than twice as likely to play seven hours or more on a typical day than their most affluent peers (PISA data 2022).

- On a typical weekday, 66% of 15-year-old girls and 61% of boys spend three hours or more on social media. This high usage is widespread among 15-year-olds across all socio-economic groups, but is more common among young people of lower socio-economic status (61%) than those of higher socio-economic status (54%) (PISA data 2022).

Experiences and well-being

- A 2022 survey of 1,000 British children (aged 9 to 15) confirmed the inverse U-shaped relationship between time spent on digital devices and subjective wellbeing: Children who used digital devices the least had lower scores on the positive emotional and social dimensions, while those who used them the most had higher scores on all negative dimensions. It is thought that children who spend less time online have fewer opportunities for positive and negative outcomes, while children who spend the most time online appear to be most exposed to negative outcomes. However, the well-being of children and young people is also strongly dependent on what they do online. For example, greater use of social media was associated with lower social wellbeing, particularly among girls. If more time was spent playing games, this was associated with a greater sense of loss of control and a lack of physical activity, particularly among boys.

- Social media, where young people are very active, often promote and normalize idealized and stereotypical ideals of beauty. This trend is reinforced by filters and image editing software. Exposure to such images can promote a negative self-perception and lead to dissatisfaction and despair. Results from the EU Kids Online Survey (2020) showed that an average of 12% of 12 to 16-year-olds in ten European countries have seen online content or discussions about how to be very slim.

- In terms of social media use, evidence also points to an inverted U-shaped relationship between children's social media use and their socioemotional well-being: both low and high use are associated with lower well-being, while moderate use is associated with higher well-being (various studies between 2017 and 2022).

- Young people who are active in the digital space often have negative experiences: Over a third of 15-year-olds (36 percent) said they had been annoyed by age-inappropriate online content, 42 percent had been annoyed by offensive messages, over half (53 percent) by discriminatory content, and almost 40 percent of young people have been affected by information about them being shared without their consent. In OECD countries, girls report such experiences much more frequently than boys.

- Around 16 percent of 11-year-olds and 20 percent of 15-year-olds who use social media stated that they regularly neglected other activities (e.g., hobbies, sports) because they wanted to use social media. And around 17 percent of 15-year-old teenagers say they feel anxious or nervous at least half of the time when they are not using their digital devices. In almost all OECD countries, girls (22 percent) are significantly more likely to experience this anxiety than boys (13 percent).

- The exposure of young people to cyberbullying is increasing in all OECD countries: On average, one in six 11- to 15-year-olds reported experiencing cyberbullying in 2021/22, with significant differences between countries. Girls and young people from single-parent families are more likely to be victims of cyberbullying in most countries. However, in Slovenia, Israel, Lithuania and Turkey, boys report cyberbullying more frequently than girls. A significant minority of younger children (around 5 percent of 10-year-olds) also report having been victims of cyberbullying. In countries such as Belgium and Brazil, this risk is twice as high. Cyberbullying is also more common among children from families with a low socio-economic status (7 percent) than among children from families with a high socio-economic status. Just over 10 percent of young people aged 11 to 15 state that they have already been the victim of cyberbullying. Boys (13%) are more frequently affected than girls (8%). This behavior is also slightly less common among children from two-parent families (10 percent) than among others (14 percent).

- Family problems such as abuse or conflicts with parents increase the risk of problematic use of the internet, as young people use online spaces as an escape. In 2022, around 46% of young people aged 11, 13 and 15 across the OECD said they frequently used social media to escape negative feelings (36% of boys and 55% of girls).

- The network of friends and relationships with peers influence the use of the internet and online social networks. Positive peer relationships and strong bonds with friends are associated with using social media and the internet to stay in touch. In contrast, weak ties with peers increase the risk of problematic internet or social media use. Globally, young people who experience less social support from parents, peers, and teachers are more likely to engage in problematic behavior such as cyberbullying and problematic social media use (various studies between 2017 and 2024).

- Children and young people without media skills are particularly at risk of being exposed to misinformation and disinformation without being able to recognize it (OECD 2024).

- Online inequalities tend to mirror offline inequalities (Holmarsdottir, 2024).

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