Sweden screen time recommendations now ask parents to put away mobile phones when spending time with children, as the Public Health Agency of Sweden (Folkhälsomyndigheten) moves the debate on digital habits from children’s devices to adults’ behaviour at home.
The new guidance, released on Monday, urges parents and guardians to create phone-free zones in the household, such as bedrooms and dining tables, and to use mobile phones around children only when necessary or when the device is part of a shared activity. The agency says the recommendations follow a government-commissioned review of the relationship between adults’ screen use and children’s health.
Sweden screen time guidance shifts attention to adults
The Public Health Agency’s updated advice is built around a simple message: children are shaped not only by what adults tell them, but also by what adults do.
The agency asks parents to develop healthy screen habits for themselves, because those habits can influence their children’s own use of digital devices. It also advises adults to put phones away when they are with their children, unless the phone is needed or being used together with the child.
A third recommendation focuses on children’s privacy online. Parents are asked to think carefully before posting pictures or videos of their children, linking screen habits not only to attention and family interaction, but also to digital rights and consent.
Helena Frielingsdorf, a psychiatrist and investigator at the Public Health Agency, said the aim is to support more conscious routines in everyday family life. In the agency’s framing, the issue is not whether digital devices should disappear from households, but whether adults can set boundaries that protect attention, sleep, interaction and privacy.
Phone-free zones bring public health advice into the home
One of the most practical parts of the new guidance is the recommendation to introduce mobile-free areas at home. The agency mentions the bedroom and the dining table as examples of spaces where screens can be set aside.
The advice reflects a broader Nordic approach to digital wellbeing: rather than presenting technology only as a risk, Swedish authorities are increasingly trying to define concrete routines that families, schools and institutions can apply.
In this case, the home becomes the central setting. Meals, bedtime and shared activities are treated as moments where adult phone use can interrupt communication or make children feel that attention is divided.
The agency does not propose a maximum number of screen-time hours for adults. This marks an important difference from earlier guidance on children and teenagers, where Swedish authorities issued age-based recommendations for leisure screen use. For parents, the emphasis is instead on context, modelling and interaction.
Research links parents’ phone habits to children’s behaviour
The recommendations follow research suggesting that parental screen use can have negative effects on interaction with children. According to the Public Health Agency, experimental studies have found that young children may react with more crying and irritation, and with fewer smiles and laughs, when a parent interrupts interaction to use a mobile phone.
Researchers have also found links between parents’ and children’s screen habits. Children of adults with high levels of screen use tend to use screens more themselves, according to the evidence cited by the agency.
Social Affairs Minister (socialminister) Jakob Forssmed said in an interview with SVT that many adults may not realise the extent to which their own digital habits affect children. The political context is significant: the Swedish government had asked the Public Health Agency last autumn to examine the connection between guardians’ screen time and children’s health.
The message is therefore both personal and institutional. It addresses individual households, but it also forms part of a wider Swedish policy agenda on children, health and digital media.
A wider Swedish push on children and digital media
The new guidance adds another layer to Sweden’s growing regulation and public-health debate on screens. In 2024, the Public Health Agency published recommendations for children’s and adolescents’ digital media use, including no independent screen use for children under two and age-based limits for older children.
Those earlier recommendations also advised families to turn off screens before bedtime and to keep mobile phones, tablets and similar devices outside bedrooms during the night. For younger children, the agency stressed the importance of play, movement, reading, singing and direct interaction with adults.
The government has also moved in the same direction in schools. Sweden has proposed making schools mobile-free by collecting pupils’ phones at the start of the school day and returning them afterwards. In April, the government gave the Public Health Agency a further assignment: to assess when children should first have their own smartphone, with an interim report due by 30 June 2026 and a final report by 18 December 2026.
Together, these measures show that Sweden is treating digital media as a public-health issue, not only a matter of private family preference. The focus is expanding from children’s time online to the broader environment around them, including parents, schools and platforms.
