Smartphones and social media use have many harmful effects on children and teens including compromised sleep.

Legislation in many countries is aimed at limiting social media use.

Tech companies have some solutions built into their devices, but they are not enough to solve the problem.

Battles between governments and tech companies have begun to emerge.

In my last post, I wrote about Australia’s bold experiment to ban social media use for children under sixteen. A few days ago, Spain announced a similar ban, the first country in Europe to do so. More than a dozen other countries are considering similar measures. Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, said “Social media has become a failed state, where laws are ignored, and crimes are tolerated.” He added “We will protect them from the digital Wild West.” Elon Musk responded on his social media platform X, “Dirty Sanchez is a tyrant and a traitor to the people of Spain,” and “Sanchez is the true fascist totalitarian.” Other media moguls may not be as blunt as Musk, but they are surely afraid of losing revenue from teens — one of their biggest demographics.

Many of the objections to social media use by children are concerns such as exposure to bullying, sexual predation, and violence. A less pernicious, but significant concern among sleep specialists is how smartphones can disrupt sleep in multiple ways.

Research on this topic has been going on for a long time. When Drs. Lauren Hale and Stanford Guan published a review in 2014, they reported 67 studies going back to the early 2000’s. Since then, many more studies have confirmed the deleterious effects on children and teenagers.

Blue light from screens can cause a delay in melatonin release, making it harder to go to sleep. Messaging before sleep and during the night can be arousing and anxiety inducing. Even if phones are not picked up, the dings from messages coming through can potentially disrupt sleep. A recent paper suggested that even a single ding during a deep sleep period could reduce memory consolidation and growth hormone secretion that occurs during deep sleep. Further, a ding late in the overall sleep period during early morning could make it hard to go back to sleep because the circadian pressure to sleep has gradually dissipated by then.

Many solutions to the problems caused by smartphones and social media use at night have been offered by sleep specialists and some by tech companies that market the devices. Parents have been urged, for example, to have their children’s smartphones outside of the bedroom after bedtime. Apple and Android phones have features that can disable messaging during the night but allow certain contacts to get through. These features are helpful, but they still would require parental supervision to make sure they are used.

Battle lines have been drawn between governments and tech companies. The conflicts will intensify over the rest of this year and beyond. I am hopeful for the sake of children, adolescents, and their parents that a good resolution is on the horizon

https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/australia-europe-countries-move-curb-childrens-social-media-access-2026-03-06/

https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/03/spain-teen-social-media-ban-tech-giants-australia.html

Hale, L. & Guan, S. Screen time and sleep among school-aged children and adolescents: A systematic literature review. Sleep Med. Rev. 2014, 21, 50–58.

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