"In the State of Israel, the age of purchasing the first smartphone is the lowest in the world"
In Israel, children are getting their first mobile phone as early as age 6-7, the youngest in the world, according to the "Attention Revolution" movement, which is expanding its activities this year to dozens of schools, communities, and kibbutzim, promoting parental agreements to delay the purchase. In the background: a massive settlement by Meta in the US to restrict minors on social networks, which is defined by Asaf Bener, the movement's founder, as a "PR stunt" that is easy to bypass and does not solve the addiction problem.
The age of purchasing the first smartphone in Israel is the lowest in the world and currently stands at an average of 6-7, explains Asaf Bener, founder of the "Attention Revolution" movement. According to him, this means that children in the first grade are already arriving at school with a smartphone, partly due to social pressure and the "domino effect" — one parent who buys a device for their child creates pressure on the rest of the class. Against this background, the movement will begin operating in the coming school year in dozens of new schools and communities across the country, including Ra'anana, Givatayim, Ganei Tikva, Sderot, Yokneam, Emek HaYarden, Gan Yavne, and Petah Tikva. The goal of the movement's activity is to delay the age of purchasing the first smartphone and to forge agreements between parents, schools, and communities regarding more controlled screen usage.
"We are not against technological progress and we are not against the use of smartphones, but we are against the tens of thousands of engineers and programmers of the platforms, social networks, and online games, who are rewarded in direct proportion to the attention they manage to take from our children," Bener tells mako. According to him, the movement seeks to return to our children their childhood, attention, and the ability to create real human connections.
The movement began operating in 2021, after, according to Bener, it became clear that individual solutions of a single parent facing their child simply do not work against the mechanisms of the tech giants. He adds that the movement concluded that waiting for legislation and regulation in Israel and the world would be a mistake and a waste of precious time. Today, according to him, the activity takes place nationwide, in local authorities, cities, regional councils, kibbutzim, and community settlements.
The movement's main emphasis is on elementary schools, but it also operates in middle and high schools. According to Bener, in some places, it involves accompanying authorities and schools that choose to have smartphones deposited for part or all of the school day, and in other places, it involves advocacy, workshops, and consulting on digital literacy and usage habits. In the coming year, according to him, the movement will also begin operating in early childhood frameworks.
In schools, the movement connects parents, educational staff, school administrations, and students. The main move is the drafting and signing by parents of a grade-level charter to delay smartphone purchase and transition to protected or "dumb" devices, alongside codes of conduct for technology use. In addition, the movement runs advocacy programs for students and assists educational staff in defining boundaries in communication with parents, for example, reducing WhatsApp groups and defining response hours. "Teachers are not police officers who enforce discipline," says Bener. "Parents are the ones who actually lead and manage the project."
In the last year, the movement also began operating in kibbutzim. Among the kibbutzim where the move is taking place are Afikim, Beit Zera, Degania Bet, Ein Gev, Ruhama, and Bror Hayil. The process includes parent attitude surveys, lectures, and workshops, and ultimately the formation of community charters which, according to Bener, receive the support of more than 85% of parents.
The kibbutz charters include, among other things, delaying the age of receiving the first smartphone, for example to the sixth grade, a ban on using mobile phones in public and community spaces such as transport, parks, playgrounds, and social events, defining fixed days without screens, and encouraging a return to using landline phones to develop basic conversation skills. In kibbutzim, the emphasis is not only on schools but also on the afternoon hours and the non-formal social education systems.
The movement's headquarters includes, according to Bener, a leading team of educators, content experts, and community leaders. Alongside this, he says that its core is thousands of parents and community activists who work as volunteers in classrooms and schools. In this context, it should be noted that a survey recently conducted by the Brandeis Institute showed that in Israel there is a rare consensus: 81.6% of the public demand legislation to regulate social networks, and about half of the citizens place the protection of children at the top of the priority list.
In the background of these things is also the Meta settlement in the US that was signed last week. Meta reached a settlement with 47 states in the United States, alongside Washington D.C. and three American territories, intended to end a series of lawsuits and investigations around the harm of Facebook and Instagram to children and teenagers. As part of the settlement, the company will pay about 16.7 billion dollars over ten years, and will commit to changing the way its platforms operate for users under the age of 18.
Among other things, Meta will be required to limit the use of minors on Facebook and Instagram to two hours a day, block by default their use between midnight and 6:00 AM, remove the number of likes, cancel aesthetic filters for minors, and operate stricter mechanisms for checking user age. Private messages and watching long videos will not be included in the calculation of the two-hour limit.
The blocking between midnight and 6:00 AM can be canceled by parents or responsible adults. Teenagers will also be able to switch to a feed that is not based on the algorithmic recommendation system and cancel automatic video playback. In addition, a user who refuses to verify their age will be considered a minor by default, and the age assessment and verification system will be checked by an independent party.
According to the details of the settlement provided, the maximum error rate of the age assessment system in identifying users aged 16 to 17 will be 10%, and among those aged 13 to 15, only 3%. Any experiment that Meta wants to conduct among users under the age of 18 will have to be registered in advance with a party appointed by the court, and an independent auditor will monitor the company's compliance with the terms of the agreement for ten years.
The settlement allows Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to avoid a trial. The company continues to deny that it acted illegally, while the plaintiffs argued that if the process had continued, Meta's financial exposure could have reached 200 billion dollars.
Not all states in the US joined the settlement. Florida will continue to conduct the legal process against Meta separately, and New Mexico is not part of it after it conducted an independent case against the company and won a judgment of 375 million dollars. Texas reached a separate settlement with Meta, which includes a payment of more than a billion dollars and additional safety measures. Combined with the main settlement and other payments related to proceedings against the company, the total amount approaches 18 billion dollars.
Bener defines the Meta settlement mainly as a PR stunt. According to him, 18 billion dollars over 10 years, meaning 1.8 billion dollars a year, is an amount that Meta earns in about 8 days. "Meta did not admit any guilt and thus managed to prevent the creation of a legal precedent, and the technical changes it offers are very easy to bypass," he said. However, this settlement has one huge importance: finally, there is a de facto admission that Meta's products are defective and dangerous for children, just like in the tobacco industry in the past.
According to Bener, these settlements and regulations are currently valid only for part of the US states, and therefore will probably not enter Israel in the near future, if at all. He added that point-treatment of Instagram will not be enough as long as there is TikTok, YouTube, and WhatsApp: "When there are available and no less addictive alternatives, point-treatment of one platform is like putting a bandage on a broken dam. The children simply move to the next platform."
Bener said that Meta is trying to include in the compromise agreement an incentive according to which it will pay another 6 billion dollars if the restrictions imposed on it are also imposed on YouTube and TikTok. In his view, the solution is not point-technological but social and community-based - changing the norm of using the devices themselves.
When asked what is the most severe addiction of children to screens, Bener pointed to the infinite feed algorithm and the need for social validation through likes, views, and messages. According to him, the main damage is the infinite interruption of the thought sequence and the replacement of a childhood based on meeting and playing with a childhood based on a screen. He claims that this harms the ability to concentrate, create inner silence, think deeply, and develop social skills face-to-face, and creates an overly high threshold of stimulation, anxiety, loneliness, and damage to mental and cognitive health.
