Norwegian psychologists push for an 18-year-old limit on smartphone use

A coalition of 550 psychologists in Norway has formally requested that the government impose an 18-year age restriction on smartphone use, a move prompted by the recent PISA findings that reveal falling academic outcomes throughout the region. The campaign was initiated by specialist psychologist Kjersti Kjerschow Lohne, who started a petition after the data were published. Aida Bikic, a scholar of child wellbeing and screen time at Syddansk Universitet, highlighted research linking early social-media use to reduced attention spans and poorer results in mathematics and language.

She noted that children who join these platforms between ages 11 and 13 tend to underperform compared with peers who wait until 15 or older. The Norwegian psychologists argue that limiting access to devices could help reverse the downward trend, while also praising Denmark’s shift toward more analog teaching methods. In Denmark, Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has previously identified mobile phones as a major culprit, and the Ministry of Research, Education and Digitalisation plans to set a 15-year minimum age for social-media accounts.