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Should smartphones be treated as a public health emergency for children?

Should smartphones be treated as a public health emergency for children?

Poor sleep, worsening eyesight, developmental concerns and exposure to harmful content — some child health experts believe smartphones pose such serious risks that they should be treated as a public health emergency. We asked them why.

Young boy concentrating on mobile phone screen in bedroom

Serafina Kenny

Published: June 17, 2026 at 2:28 PM

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We all know that spending hours a day on screens isn’t good for us. But despite new government guidance on screen time for children aged 5-16, some experts in children’s health and development believe smartphones pose such significant risks that they should be considered a public health emergency.

Knowing how to use technology and having good media literacy is vital to thrive in today’s world, but many children’s health and rights campaigners say that we shouldn’t be throwing children into the deep end by giving them smartphones so young.

Smartphones are by far the worst element because they're in your pocket constantly.

Arabella Skinner, policy director at Health Professionals for Safer Screens

Dr. Katharine Smales, a senior research fellow at UCL in young people’s critical digital literacy, says we need social change.

“When we buy a toy for our children, that toy will have undergone rigorous safety checks to ensure it’s safe to be used by a child,” she says. Equally, “we need legislation and regulation to push for change for our children” when it comes to smartphones, too.

Lots of children spend time on other devices, like tablets and gaming consoles, too, but “smartphones are by far the worst element because they're in your pocket constantly,” says Arabella Skinner, policy director at Health Professionals for Safer Screens.

Dr. Katharine and Arabella explain why smartphones are so damaging for kids’ physical and mental health — and give their tips to parents for reducing the time that children spend on screens while we they wait for more concrete legislation.

How smartphones may affect children's health

Development and learning

Spending lots of time on screens can impact young children's development, particularly their speech and language skills, Arabella says.

With younger children, the more time they spend on screens, the worse their language is, the worse their interpretation, their ability to pay attention, their ability to self-regulate, their emotional skills, literally every type of skill.

Arabella Skinner

Research has shown that children don't learn as effectively from screens as they do from people. This is known as the 'video deficit', and it's thought to happen because videos lack the physical and verbal cues children receive during real-life interactions, according to a 2020 study.

Higher screen time has also been linked to less developed motor skills in children. A 2020 study found that children who spend more time on screens may miss out on activities that help develop gross motor skills, such as walking, jumping and balancing, as well as fine motor skills like catching, tracing and hand-eye coordination.

Physical health

Eyesight: Myopia, or short-sightedness, is “an epidemic” in children at the moment, Arabella says, with one in three children being myopic according to a study from 2025.

A 9-10 year old school boy with glasses using digital tablet on bed in children room at home

Getty/Galina Zhigalova

Children whose parents are myopic are more likely to be short-sighted, but it can also be caused by repeatedly focusing on things that are a short distance away — like books and screens.

Experts say that being outside can help prevent short-sightedness. They aren’t sure whether this is because of the physical exercise, exposure to sunlight, or focusing on things further away that make being outside so beneficial for eyes.

Girls and young women, who are less likely to spend their time doing physical activity than their male peers, are more likely to be myopic.

The NHS recommends that 3- to 4-year-olds spend three hours a day doing physical activity, which should include outdoor play.

Exercise: Being on screens means children are more likely to be spending less time doing physical activity, meaning they are living much more sedentary lifestyles than kids did in the past.

Arabella says she has seen this lead to poor core strength and muscular-skeletal issues in children.

And sedentariness in childhood has been linked to health problems later on in life, according to a 2024 study, including increased risks of obesity, heart problems, and vascular damage or arterial stiffness.

“I don’t think devices should be in bedrooms, because we know that they affect young people’s sleep,” Dr. Katharine says.

Sleep: Higher screen time has been linked to a shorter time spent asleep, worse quality of sleep, and feeling sleepy during the daytime in children, a 2024 article finds — especially when devices are used near bedtime.

How smartphones may affect children's mental wellbeing

As well as having negatives outcomes for physical health, smartphone use can also have a detrimental affect on children’s mental health.

Attention, behaviour and emotions

A meta-review published in Developmental Review earlier this year found that excessive screen time is associated with deficits in executive functioning — the mental skills that help us focus, remember information, plan ahead and regulate our emotions.

Researchers from the University of Auckland found that children who spent more time on screens tended to have poorer memory, focus, planning skills and emotional regulation, as well as weaker language skills.

The researchers say executive functioning plays an important role in academic achievement, wellbeing, resilience and vulnerability to mental health disorders later in life.

Arabella is particularly concerned about the rise of fast-paced short-form video content.

child holds smartphone in his hands, on the display of which a play sign appears

"It's just too fast for a child's brain. Children's brains work more slowly. So, if you think back to In the Night Garden or Thomas the Tank Engine, they're slow, they're repetitive and they're very simplistic — and that's how a very young child's brain works."

There is evidence to support these concerns. A 2011 study found that fast-paced television programmes had a negative effect on children's executive function — including memory, attention, self-regulation and problem-solving skills — compared with watching educational cartoons or drawing.

More recent studies have linked short-form video consumption with poorer attention spans, cognitive skills and emotional regulation.

Comparison and anxiety

"Children and young people are consuming large quantities of inappropriate material as a matter of course," says Dr. Katherine Smales. "We know from research that this includes violent content, pornography, self-harm, eating disorder content and misogyny. There is a growing consensus that this is having a major impact on young people’s mental health and wellbeing."

Now you aren't just comparing yourself to the 20 other girls in your class, you’re comparing yourself to the hundreds of thousands of people across social media.

Arabella Skinner

“Either they end up being really traumatised by what they are seeing online and having knock on issues from it, or they become completely desensitised and they just can't rationalise what is normal and not, because they're just used to seeing it,” Arabella says, referring to content about eating disorders, looksmaxxing, incel content, and skincare/beauty standards.

Teenage girl looking sadly at mobile screen by a window

Getty/Halfpoint Images

“Then you've got the insidious content of comparative culture,” she says. “When I was growing up, obviously you compared yourself to other people, but now you're not just comparing yourself to the 20 other girls in your class, you’re comparing yourself to the hundreds of thousands of people across social media. And the algorithm forces you to see more and more and more of the same thing.”

And this is on top of risks of grooming, online bullying, and dangerous challenges children are encouraged to do, Arabella says.

Tips to help you cut down your children's screen time - and help their health

Despite, all the risks, “parents shouldn't be panicking,” Arabella says. “There are some really easy things you can do to manage screen time. It's about managing your own behaviour as well as your child’s.” Arabella's tips include:

Keep phones out of bedrooms
Keep certain times phone-free — e.g. mealtimes, an hour before bed and after waking up
Parents should role model healthy relationships with their phones, so not be on their phones all the time around their children
Have conversations about online safety and the health impacts of smartphones. Most children will have some understanding of why you are laying down rules that are perhaps different to what their friends’ parents say if you explain your reasoning!
Reading is a “magic bullet” — it gets children’s imaginations going and settles them to bed
Don’t allow your children to have social media until the legal minimum age of 13 (this may be going up to 16 depending on UK government policy changes)
If you absolutely need to give your child a device for safety/tracking, think about giving them devices without access to the internet such as a ‘brick’ or ‘dumbphone’ or specialty phones from brands like Xplora, Pinwheel, and Balance Phone.
Use time bound limits for device use — so they can have an hour of time on a device between certain hours, for example.
Don’t be afraid of letting them be bored without a smartphone!

Dr. Katherine also shared a few tips:

Agree a set of ground rules as a family about device usage. This helps children feel included in the decision making and you can explain your reasoning for rules here.
Use parental controls to their fullest capabilities. MadeForMums has a guide on the parental controls available on some of the biggest operating systems, social media, and games kids use.
Co-viewing with your children can be a good way to combine screentime with social contact and interpersonal interactions, especially if you discuss what you watched afterwards.
“Bigger screens are generally better than smaller ones,” she says.

It’d be hard for a child to grow up without ever being on a smartphone, and you shouldn’t feel guilty if your child does spend time on screens — they’ve become an integral part of our lives. Arabella and Dr. Katharine both say that top-level policy is needed to help parents and children have healthy relationships with phones, so it isn’t all on the shoulders of busy, stressed parents.

But if you can reduce the amount of time your kids are spending on phones, it’s only a good thing. Arabella says: “In order to be a rounded human being, we need to spend time with other human beings. We need to make mistakes, we need to learn, we need to do all these things. We need to get outside, we need to have independence. And you just don't get that if you are if you're just on a computer all the time.”

Authors

Serafina Kenny journalist headshot

Serafina KennyDigital Journalist

Serafina Kenny is a Digital Journalist at MadeForMums. She writes news and features and has expertise in health, nutrition, relationships, and history. She has previously written for Business Insider, Women's Health, Stylist, Men's Health US, The i Paper, Dazed, and more. You can contact her with tips and story ideas (or compliments!) at serafina.kenny@immediate.co.uk.