Ought to we wait till age 13 earlier than giving our children a smartphone?

I gave all three of my youngsters their first smartphone after they had been 10 years previous. The twins are 13 subsequent month, and my youngest is 11 subsequent month (Goodness me – July is dear for birthdays!). Likelihood is, all three of them are at present sat someplace with their telephone of their hand or close-by. I wouldn’t say they’re addicted, however I undoubtedly fear a good bit about their relationship with expertise. Don’t all twenty first century dad and mom!?

Right here in Bristol the place I dwell, it’s totally unremarkable that tweens have smartphones. The overwhelming majority of my youngsters’s mates acquired their first smartphone across the finish of major faculty, often at 10 or 11, within the run-up to the transfer to secondary faculty. From the conversations I’ve had on the faculty gate and on the touchline, that is the UK norm. Anecdotally, the age is at present happening, with a rising variety of 12 months 5 and 6 youngsters (youngsters aged 11th of September) now in possession of their very own telephone. I personally suppose this reducing of the ‘age of onset’ has occurred within the final 3-4 years, however that’s purely anecdote, not dependable proof.

This UK ‘actuality’ sits considerably awkwardly alongside the loudest worldwide voices on this query. The “Wait Till eighth” motion (a parent-led marketing campaign within the US) urges households to delay till not less than eighth grade (age 13 to 14). Jonathan Haidt’s “The Anxious Era” (Haidt, 2024) turned the concept smartphones have rewired childhood right into a publishing phenomenon, even when it was based mostly on lower than compelling proof.

Nearer to residence, the Smartphone Free Childhood marketing campaign (Greenwell and Ryrie, based 2024) has grown quickly via UK dad or mum WhatsApp teams, calling for delaying first smartphones till 14 and social media till 16. UK Authorities coverage has moved in the identical path. The Division for Schooling’s up to date steering on cell phones in faculties (DfE, 2026) units the expectation that each one faculties in England must be cellular phone-free environments by default, and from 29 June 2026 Part 36 of the Kids’s Wellbeing and Faculties Act 2026 provides this steering the power of regulation. Australia has legislated a social media ban for under-16s. The UK Chief Medical Officers’ 2019 commentary on display time and social media is overdue for revision, and a name for proof on under-5s display use opened in early 2026. Social media analysis is beginning to discover actually significant questions just like the thrilling ‘IRL Trial‘ led by Amy Orben and Dan Lewer in Bradford.

Into all of this drops two new items of proof from Ran Barzilay’s group on the Kids’s Hospital of Philadelphia, each drawing on the massive Adolescent Mind Cognitive Growth (ABCD) examine cohort. The primary paper (Barzilay et al, 2026) checked out smartphone possession and age of acquisition at age 12. The second paper (Bren et al, 2026), printed as we speak in JAMA Pediatrics, follows the children who held out past age 12 to see what occurs as soon as they lastly get a telephone at 13. With a median age of first acquisition of 11 within the ABCD cohort, that is proof that maps very intently onto the standard UK parenting trajectory, and I learn each papers with greater than the same old curiosity.

These latest papers by Barzilay and Bren counsel that the youthful a toddler is after they get their first smartphone, the upper their threat of melancholy, weight problems and inadequate sleep.

Strategies

Each papers analyse knowledge from the ABCD Examine, a multisite US cohort following greater than 10,000 youngsters yearly from age 9 or 10. Caregivers reported smartphone possession (iPhone or Android), age of first acquisition, and (within the newer paper) whole each day smartphone use, use by kind, and whether or not the telephone was positioned outdoors the bed room at night time.

Despair was assessed utilizing the validated Okay-SADS computerised diagnostic interview at age 12 and once more at age 14. At age 13 the primary paper used the self-reported Temporary Downside Monitor (medical threshold outlined as a T-score ≥65), which captures broader psychopathology reasonably than melancholy particularly. Physique mass index was objectively measured, with weight problems outlined as ≥ninety fifth centile. Sleep was youth-reported (inadequate sleep outlined as <9 hours within the first paper and <8 hours within the second, in keeping with American Academy of Sleep Medication suggestions).

Each research used mixed-effects logistic regression with nested random results for household and analysis website, adjusting for age, intercourse, race and ethnicity, family revenue, parental schooling, pubertal standing, parental monitoring, and possession of different gadgets (pill, laptop computer, iPod, smartwatch). The authors managed for pre-smartphone publicity for smartphone acquisition at age 12 and at age 13. The analyses that examined influence of acquisition at age 12 (paper 1) and age 13 (paper 2) moreover adjusted for pre-smartphone melancholy, weight problems and sleep one 12 months earlier than acquisition. Paper 2’s evaluation was pre-registered on OSF earlier than the evaluation was run.

Outcomes

Paper 1 (Barzilay et al, 2026): smartphones at age 12

Of 10,588 youngsters assessed on the 2-year follow-up (imply age 12), 6,739 (63.6%) already owned a smartphone. The median age of first acquisition was 11 years (vary 4 to 13). The group ran three analyses: a cross-sectional have a look at possession at age 12, a cross-sectional have a look at age of first acquisition, and a one-year potential have a look at the subgroup who had been smartphone-free at 12 and purchased a telephone within the following 12 months.

Desk 1. Adjusted odds ratios from Barzilay et al, 2026 (Pediatrics)

Daring rows are statistically important. All fashions adjusted for age, intercourse, race and ethnicity, revenue, parental schooling, pubertal standing, parental monitoring, and possession of different gadgets.

• In plain English: proudly owning a smartphone at age 12 was related to worse psychological well being, extra weight problems, and worse sleep.
• Every earlier 12 months of acquisition was related to a small enhance within the odds of weight problems and inadequate sleep, however not melancholy.
• Amongst youngsters who waited past 12 after which acquired a telephone, each psychopathology and sleep issues rose over the next 12 months, even after adjusting for his or her pre-phone ranges.

Paper 2 (Bren et al, 2026): smartphones at age 13

The second paper zooms in on 1,959 youth from the identical cohort who had been nonetheless smartphone-free on the age 13 evaluation, then follows them to age 14. Between the 2 waves, 1,230 acquired a smartphone and 729 didn’t. Outcomes had been measured at age 14, with every mannequin adjusting for a similar final result measured at age 13 (so the comparability is genuinely potential).

Desk 2. Adjusted odds ratios from Bren et al, 2026 (JAMA Pediatrics)

Daring rows are statistically important. All fashions adjusted for pre-exposure measures of the identical final result, plus age, intercourse, race and ethnicity, revenue, parental schooling, pubertal standing, parental monitoring, and possession of different gadgets.

• The headline discovering right here is the distinction between acquisition and use. Merely getting a smartphone at 13 was not related to melancholy or weight problems at age 14, although it was related to worse sleep.
• Among the many youngsters who did get a telephone, depth of use was related to all three outcomes, and the hole between heavy and lightweight customers was substantial:
  • youngsters utilizing their telephones for greater than 5 hours a day had greater than double the chances of melancholy and weight problems, and double the chances of inadequate sleep, in contrast with youngsters utilizing their telephones for underneath 2 hours a day.
• Essentially the most clinically helpful discovering, although, is the only one. Youngsters who saved their telephones outdoors the bed room at night time had a roughly one-third discount within the odds of inadequate sleep, from a single behavioural change.

This analysis means that later acquisition of smartphones is persistently safer, however do these potential harms outweigh the advantages?

Conclusions

Taken collectively, these two well-conducted analysis research level in a constant path. The youthful a toddler is after they get their first smartphone, the upper their threat of melancholy, weight problems and inadequate sleep over the next 12 months.

Barzilay et al (2026) discovered that proudly owning a smartphone at 12 was related to all three outcomes, that every earlier 12 months of first acquisition was related to larger odds of weight problems and inadequate sleep, and that acquisition of smartphone at age 12 was related to better psychopathology and worse sleep the next 12 months, even when adjusting for pre-smartphone psychological well being and sleep. Bren et al (2026) discovered that delaying acquisition till 13 eliminated the affiliation with melancholy and weight problems at age 14, though the affiliation with inadequate sleep remained. The authors of the newer paper conclude:

Outcomes counsel that merely buying a smartphone at age 13 just isn’t related to melancholy or with weight problems, however is related to inadequate sleep, at age 14. Nonetheless, the quantity of smartphone use is related to larger odds of all three outcomes. Behavioral interventions like limiting smartphone-time and maintaining smartphones out of bedrooms at night time might shield adolescents from potential hostile well being outcomes.

For folks studying this, the headline is easy. The older a toddler is after they get a smartphone, the higher their odds. No age is risk-free, however the case for ready is getting stronger.

Strengths and limitations

There’s a lot to love in each papers. The ABCD Examine is likely one of the greatest adolescent cohorts on the planet, with a big, multisite, demographically various US pattern, objectively measured BMI, and validated Okay-SADS interviews for melancholy. Each papers embrace genuinely potential analyses that alter for pre-exposure melancholy, weight problems and sleep, so the comparability teams share a standard start line.

That is the strongest design both group may run with observational knowledge, and it’s the foundation for probably the most causally interpretable findings in every paper. Paper 2 went additional by pre-registering its hypotheses and evaluation plan on OSF earlier than the information had been inspected. Each papers included E-value sensitivity analyses to check how robust an unmeasured confounder would have to be to clarify away the findings, used mixed-effects fashions that account for household and website clustering, and shared their analytical code overtly on GitHub. The group are additionally commendably trustworthy about what they might not do.

There are a number of limitations price flagging:

• Smartphone possession, age of first acquisition, and each day time of use had been all measured by single self-report or dad or mum report questions. We all know from prior ABCD work utilizing passive sensing that self-reported smartphone time is solely modestly correlated with objectively logged use. Your complete “depth” story due to this fact rests on a measurement instrument with identified accuracy issues.
• The pre-registered social media speculation (that social media use particularly would drive the hostile outcomes) couldn’t be formally examined, as a result of knowledge on use-type had been lacking for too many members (35.5% of members had no knowledge on social media use, 58.5% had no knowledge on video chatting, and 32.3% had no knowledge on video gaming). That is the query most dad and mom, clinicians and policymakers care about, and the paper can not reply it.
• The possible analyses in each papers, that are the strongest items of proof both group experiences, had been essentially restricted to youngsters who had been nonetheless smartphone-free on the prior evaluation (age 12 in Paper 1, age 13 in Paper 2). These subgroups skewed in the direction of larger socioeconomic standing, as a result of the kids who managed to delay first acquisition got here disproportionately from higher-income, more-educated households. The authors argue this seemingly underestimates the true inhabitants impact dimension, citing European proof that hostile results could also be bigger in lower-SES youth, however that’s believable reasonably than demonstrated.
• Each papers come from a single cohort with no replication. The melancholy discovering for acquisition at 13 (OR 1.45, 95% CI 0.98 to 2.14) is true on the boundary and will transfer in both path with extra energy. There may be additionally some assemble slippage within the first paper, the place the age-13 final result is broad psychopathology reasonably than melancholy particularly.
• Lastly, the disclosures. Dr Barzilay holds inventory in Taliaz Well being and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Kids and Screens (an advocacy organisation with a transparent place on this challenge). Dr Visoki’s partner has pursuits in Kidas. The authors state these usually are not related to the work. Readers can resolve for themselves.

The social media query that the general public most desires answered, these research couldn’t formally check.

Implications for observe

For almost all of UK dad and mom, the query just isn’t whether or not to provide a toddler a smartphone earlier than 13. By the point most youngsters are beginning secondary faculty on this nation, the choice has successfully already been made for us by peer norms, faculty communication channels, the varsity run, and the peerlessly cheap want for our kids to have the ability to contact us. The dialog has to begin from that actuality.

Completely different readers will need various things from this proof, so the suggestions beneath are break up by viewers. They’re drawn from throughout each papers.

For younger individuals

The proof in these papers is about you, however it’s hardly ever directed at you. Here’s what it really says:

• Get your telephone out of your bed room at night time. Youngsters on this examine who did, had roughly one-third decrease odds of being quick on sleep. That is the one most helpful factor you are able to do.
• Watch the heaviest finish of use. Self-reported use of greater than 5 hours a day was linked to roughly double the chances of melancholy, weight problems and inadequate sleep, in contrast with lower than 2 hours a day.
• You may be the one who decides to place it down, earlier than another person decides for you.
• In case your dad and mom (or your faculty) put limits in your telephone, this isn’t a punishment. The proof in these papers is actual science about actual our bodies and actual minds, together with yours. Closing dates and the bed room rule are about defending the way you sleep, how you are feeling and the way you develop, not about controlling you.

For folks and caregivers

In case your little one already has a smartphone (which is almost all of UK households by the beginning of secondary faculty), the levers that matter most are time and bed room entry. In case your little one doesn’t but have one, you continue to have the choice to attend.

• Take telephones out of bedrooms at night time. A basket on the kitchen counter, or a charging level within the hallway, works. That is the strongest behavioural discovering in both paper. Holding telephones in bedrooms in a single day is linked with inadequate sleep.
• Mannequin the behaviour your self. Your youngsters discover your telephone habits greater than they discover your guidelines.
• Set an agreed each day time restrict and be constant. Use built-in iOS or Android controls if it helps. The danger gradient will get steep above 2 hours a day and steeper nonetheless above 5.
• Should you can nonetheless wait, wait. The proof helps delaying first-smartphone acquisition. There may be nothing magic in regards to the quantity 13, however later is usually safer than earlier.
• Use the AAP PhoneReady Questionnaire to construction a readiness dialog, specializing in judgement, impulsiveness and accountability reasonably than peer stress.
• Have an actual dialog along with your little one in regards to the findings. These two papers present smartphone use instantly affecting sleep, weight and temper, so selections about when to amass a telephone and the way a lot to make use of it are selections about well being. Youngsters are way more more likely to settle for a rule after they perceive the science behind it.

For clinicians

Smartphones now want their very own medical dialog, separate from the older “display time” assemble.

• Add smartphone use to routine adolescent wellbeing assessments. “Do you sleep along with your telephone in your bed room?” and “What number of hours a day are you on it?” are helpful beginning questions in GP, paediatric and college nurse consultations. Additionally ask what they do on their telephones.
• Flag the >5 hours a day threshold as a concrete warning signal for psychological well being, weight and sleep threat.
• The place sleep is the presenting concern, the bedroom-phone rule has probably the most direct proof behind it. It’s price a selected suggestion, not a basic one.
• Don’t conflate smartphone use with social media use. This proof can not communicate to the social media query; deal with them as separate medical conversations.

For policymakers

The timing of this proof is hanging. The brand new statutory mobile-phone-free faculties regime underneath the Kids’s Wellbeing and Faculties Act 2026 comes into power on 29 June 2026, simply three weeks after Bren et al was printed. The federal government’s ongoing work on proscribing under-16s’ social media entry continues.

• Sit behavioural steering alongside age-based laws, not after it. Every day cut-off dates and bedroom-free guidelines are the levers dad and mom can really use, no matter acquisition age.
• Replace the 2019 UK CMOs’ display time commentary. It pre-dates virtually the entire smartphone-specific proof, and these papers are causes to revisit it.
• Put money into goal measurement. Self-report has taken this discipline so far as it could go. The following wave of analysis wants passive sensing and greater, extra socioeconomically various samples.
• Deal with the social media query as open. The pre-registered speculation in Bren et al couldn’t be examined. Future laws must be grounded in proof that doesn’t but exist.

Have a dialog along with your youngsters about this new analysis. What influence does it have in your selections about expertise?

Private reflection

As for me, I’m not going to fake that the smartphone-at-10 choice goes to be unwound, and pretending in any other case wouldn’t be trustworthy to the place most UK households really are. My youngsters have skilled many advantages from utilizing smartphones to this point, together with speaking with family and friends, studying languages, creating artwork and music, and customarily having enjoyable.

Are these constructive experiences well worth the threat and potential hurt by way of influence on their well being? That’s a query that every of us as dad and mom has to reply for our personal youngsters, and certainly for ourselves. I’m definitely going to be speaking with my youngsters about this new analysis and deciding as a household what influence it has on us.

They could all be messaging Ran Barzilay in Philadelphia and inspiring him to do much less analysis on smartphones and youngsters in future!

All of the household telephones charging downstairs at bedtime could be the one most evidence-based intervention I can implement tonight.

Assertion of pursuits

I’m a dad or mum of three youngsters, aged 10, 12 and 12, all of whom acquired their first smartphone at age 10, across the typical UK transition from major to secondary faculty. This lived expertise as a dad or mum of smartphone-owning youngsters will inevitably form how I learn this proof, and I’ve flagged it so readers can take that under consideration.

I’ve no skilled or monetary relationships with any industrial occasion with a stake in adolescent smartphone use. I do know one of many authors of those analysis papers, however I had no involvement within the analysis.

I’m a Trustee on the Centre for Psychological Well being and an Honorary Analysis Fellow on the College of Bristol. I’m additionally the Co-Founder and Co-Director of The Psychological Elf and it’s sister firm Minervation Ltd. I’ve lived expertise of melancholy and nervousness which is properly documented elsewhere on this website.

I used AI (Claude) to edit and enhance this weblog, however the concepts in it and the appraisal of each analysis papers was accomplished by me.

Hyperlinks

Main papers

Bren Z, Tran KT, Visoki E, Waasdorp TE, Moore TM, Pimentel SD, Barzilay R. (2026) Smartphone Acquisition and Use at Age 13 and Their Associations with Well being Outcomes at Age 14. JAMA Pediatrics. Printed on-line June 8, 2026. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2026.2118

Barzilay R, Pimentel SD, Tran KT, Visoki E, Pagliaccio D, Auerbach RP. (2026) Smartphone Possession, Age of Smartphone Acquisition, and Well being Outcomes in Early Adolescence. Pediatrics 157(1):e2025072941. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2025-072941

Different references

Division for Schooling (2026) Cell phones in faculties (up to date 19 January 2026). London: DfE.

Kids’s Wellbeing and Faculties Act 2026, Part 36. UK Parliament.

Smartphone Free Childhood. UK parent-led marketing campaign (Greenwell D, Ryrie J). https://smartphonefreechildhood.co.uk

UK Chief Medical Officers (2019) Commentary on screen-based actions and youngsters and younger individuals’s psychological well being and psychosocial wellbeing. Division of Well being and Social Care.

Haidt J. (2024) The Anxious Era: How the Nice Rewiring of Childhood Is Inflicting an Epidemic of Psychological Sickness. Penguin.

Paruthi S, Brooks LJ, D’Ambrosio C, et al. (2016) Consensus Assertion of the American Academy of Sleep Medication on the Really useful Quantity of Sleep for Wholesome Kids. Journal of Medical Sleep Medication 12(11):1549-1561. 10.5664/jcsm.6288

Wait Till eighth. https://www.waituntil8th.org/

American Academy of Pediatrics PhoneReady Questionnaire.