A recent study in Nature reveals that children who start using social media earlier tend to perform worse academically, prompting calls for tighter regulation as France enacts Europe’s first age restriction for social media access for under-15s.
A new study published in Nature has found that children who begin using social media in lower secondary school tend to perform worse academically than peers who wait until later adolescence, adding weight to a growing debate over when access to these platforms should begin. The research, based on data from 5,227 students in Italy’s Lombardy region, linked earlier account creation with weaker results in mathematics and Italian, lower confidence and a greater chance of repeating a school year.
The findings were strongest among pupils who signed up in grades 6 and 7, and the effects appeared to increase the longer they had been using social media, according to the study. Researchers found no clear hit to English scores, which they said may reflect heavy exposure to English-language content online, though they stressed that remains only a hypothesis. The analysis combined survey responses on digital habits with long-term test data from Italy’s education agency, INVALSI, and used a difference-in-differences approach to isolate the likely effect of early use while accounting for family background and prior achievement.
The study also pointed to smartphones as part of the problem. Students who checked their phones at moments such as homework time, before bed or immediately after waking seemed to account for much of the decline in performance, suggesting that the issue may be driven less by social media alone than by broader patterns of compulsive phone use. The authors said the results support tighter age rules, stronger digital literacy teaching and better enforcement by online platforms.
The research lands as France moves ahead with a ban on social media access for children under 15, making it the first country in the European Union to do so. French lawmakers approved the measure in July, and reports from The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Le Monde said President Emmanuel Macron wants it enforced by September, alongside a separate ban on mobile phones in schools. The policy has turned France into a test case for whether governments can curb early exposure before the academic and social costs deepen.
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