Europe is finally waking up to the dangers of techno-liberalism after sacrificing its children at the altar of the technology gods. Techno-liberalism promised a world of globalised connectivity and equal access to digital technology for all, but the devil is in the detail. Rather than empowering a generation, a child mental health crisis ensued as a consequence of smartphone use. Now, the tide is slowly turning as Sweden’s public health agency made strong recommendations against screen exposure for children. It comes at a pivotal time, as the European family unit may be the last bastion of hope for conservatism in a world dominated by tech worship.
While Europe is waking up, we are still blind to the amnesia that led us there in the first place. You see this when you walk through any major European city. While the techno liberal agenda promotes decentralization, complete digital freedom and lack of controls, we suffer from a fundamental inability to govern our own ability to exercise restraint. People are glued to smartphones everywhere, from crossing the street to shopping centres to cafes and trains. In the past, this gaze would be fixated onto the surreal imagery of European cathedrals, the human attention is almost universally absorbed by an addiction to these devices. Ultimately, tech worship left no victims in its path. Smartphones first became available in Europe in 2007. By 2014, one study estimated that over 80% of European children already possessed a smartphone, and children were given a device that even adults struggle to handle.
With little resistance, technoliberalism won a key victory in the battleground of ideas. Traditionally, social conservatism promoted a strand of being that is deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian tradition. It embraced marriage, family and duty as sacred cultural artefacts that ought to be protected through a continuity that safeguards a healthy society by placing a necessary “restraint on the passions” that Burke spoke about. It’s a strain of conservatism that, when delicately balanced, acts as an essential buffer against radical left-wing ideas that threaten to destabilize institutions that have maintained the integrity of our Western civilisation.
At one time in our distant past, technology was, and indeed still is, a useful aid. Dating back to prehistoric stone tool findings in Kenya dating back to over 3.3 million years ago, tools aided man in his quest to survive and thrive. Today, technology endows man with a mastery of nature; it helps us live longer and enhances communication. But the 21st century and its unapologetic move away from conservative traditions transformed technology from being a worthy tool to something worthy of being worshipped.
But this kind of tech worship affected children the most. It is a basic tenet of human psychology and legal frameworks that in order to have rights, one must have the impulse control to exercise responsibilities that go along with rights. This is precisely why handing children smartphones was so problematic. Children lack impulse control, and this move undermined a foundation of Western thought: that children’s innocence ought to be protected. French Romantic philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau got it right when he said:
“Nature wants children to be children before men… childhood has its own seeing, thinking and feeling.”
When smartphones were being handed to children by the millions, not only could children use the internet, cameras and instant messaging, but they could also create social media accounts and spend hours engaged with devices that invited them into the world of online predators and rapid oscillations of images and videos which included violence and pornography.
Sacrificing children to the technology Gods gave big tech a seat at the table of raising children. Christian Lous Lange was right when he said that “technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.”Things changed for the worse the moment that parents substituted their guidance, instruction and voice for screen time. The unholy exchange created the mental health crisis we see today.In a 2021 study from the Frontiers in Psychiatry journal, excessive smartphone use in children was “associated with difficulties in cognitive-emotion regulation, impulsivity, impaired cognitive function, addiction to social networking, shyness and low self-esteem”. In another study, over 53% of European children were found to have mobile phones by the age of 12, and researchers believe that screen time is related to the anxiety and depression epidemic sweeping Europe. In its 2024 study, the World Health Organisation studied 280,000 children from Europe, Asia and Canada and found that 11% of adolescents displayed ‘problematic’ behaviours with social media, and over 36% reported ‘constant contact’ with friends online. In a German study, researchers found 81% of German children had smartphones by the ages of 12-13. In another finding by the European Commission, 77% of 13-16-year-olds and 38% of 9-12-year-olds had a social networking profile.
But Sweden’s public health agency, Folkhälsomyndigheten, is finally taking action. In late 2024, the agency raised concerns about the dangers of smartphones for children and recommended specific tech hygiene measures for parents to adopt. Most notably, it advised against any screen time for children under the age of 2 and recommended no more than an hour for children aged 2-5 and no more than three hours for teenagers. The findings give social conservatives fertile ground to advocate for a new legal and moral discourse around child protection in the EU.
The old quip that ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ has never been more true. Left-wing Europe’s insistence on the liberties of decriminalising drugs, open migration and support for the LGBT movement have swayed against the moral interests of the younger generations to the degree that messaging, advertising and propaganda have all undermined the wellbeing of European children. While many would argue that parents have the final moral responsibility for the mental health crisis among European children. Big tech, markets and the EU also have their share of virtue, legal, moral and causal responsibility.
Child protection does not begin with just parents; it starts upstream in the institutions and markets that proliferate within society. There is a dire need to re-establish the moral fibre of institutions and move away from the dangerous allure of liberal thinking. At the heart of this battle is the need to reframe our understanding of who is responsible for raising a life. Society as a whole functions at its best when institutions, markets and government policies maintain the sacrosanct status of the family. For instance, Bulgaria, Sweden and Norway offer the most generous maternity leave of most European states. The result is mothers and fathers being able to raise and nurture their newborn without the undue pressures of returning back to the workforce.
The smartphone addiction crisis must also lead to a new discourse around children’s rights. If definitions mean anything at all, then the EU’s definition of children’s rights as set out in the European Parliament’s 2024 report on violence against children in the European Union must be considered:
“In this context, one of the primary rights that must be ensured is children’s right to life, survival and development.”
But if the right to development and survival is undermined by smartphone use, then something in the free market needs to be rectified. As it stands, European laws do not limit children’s purchasing powers at any time, and without adult presence required, a child in Europe is free to purchase a smartphone. By regulating the purchases of phones by minors, we would begin to discourage a liberal culture of market freedom for minors that neglects parental oversight.
Children are not equal to their parents, and European parents need to reclaim this core conservative value. The reason why traditional family structure works is because parents have the wisdom, life experience, forethought and impulse control to limit, discipline and teach their children. But parents are competing with an immoral force that seeks to neutralise traditional parental authority. It was the Colombian philosopher Nicolas Gomez Davila who said, “Hierarchies are celestial. In hell, all are equal.” The ease of access to technology does not mean equal access for all. In their book, ‘Digital Anthropology’, Heather Horst and Daniel Miller highlighted the techno-liberal belief that technology should be freely available to all people with minimum oversight. But putting principle into practice came at a heavy cost for the European family.
It is a well-established fact that family leisure time strengthens bonds, relationships, communication, and social skills, but the reality of children’s usage of smartphones in the home has reshaped the appearance of family social time in Italy. While the European nation has a rich tradition of being a tight-knit, family-orientated culture, a 2021 study found that 74% of children used their smartphones while in the company of other people.
Sweden’s Minister for Health and Social Affairs Jacob Forssmed asserted, “For far too long we have allowed screens and apps to steal time and attention at the cost of what we know is needed to feel well. We know that use of digital media can have negative health effects, including worsened sleep and symptoms of depression.” In its purest conservative essence, parents must set technological boundaries and resist the temptation to regard smartphones and tech devices as objects of egalitarian value. Sweden’s recommendations have paved the way for a necessary overhaul to its school laws. As of 2026, the Swedish government will move to implement a ban on the use of smartphones in primary and secondary schools after research pointed to issues with concentration, impulse control and phone addiction.
If we want to create a European society in which the next generation can get a grip on the dangers of techno-liberalism, we ought to start rethinking what role modelling means in the 21st century. Helena Frielingsdorf, a public health authority investigator, remarked. “As parents, you are a role model.” It is a kind of rolemodelling, however, that faces an uphill battle. In a liberal world that may promote casual sex, illicit drugs and gender confusion, parents must still demonstrate to their children that smartphone devices are not the heart and soul of human existence. The world may have an 18-year-old for the rest of their lives, but conservative role modelling in the home is the last protection a child may have in a digitised world that lacks digital restraint.
Sweden’s bold move will force the rest of Europe to reconsider the many harms of screentime for children as other European states are finally waking up. In France, a report made recommendations that children should not have phones until the age of 11. In Denmark, a study revealed that 94% of children under the age of 13 already had a social media profile, and in 2024, the Spanish government completely banned phones for elementary school students.
Europe must return to the values of social conservatism to heal from the mental health crisis of phone addiction. The solution is not theoretical but instinctual in the Scrutonian sense. The late Roger Scruton was right to argue that ‘conservatism is more an instinct than an idea’. All along, conservatives knew something was wrong with the global love affair with technology, and the reality is that techno-liberalism is not the saviour of mankind, and conservatives need to stop repressing the impulse to criticise it. The conservative instinct is a human instinct that is to be trusted, not ignored, and the rest of Europe must follow Sweden’s example and turn recommendations into policy and policy into a reflection of what is moral.
Conservative writer Russell Kirk was right when he said, “The conservative feels that the family is the natural source and core of any good society; that when the family decays, a dreary collectivism is sure to supplant it.” The family unit is perhaps the last moral filter remaining in a world where parents feel powerless to combat the toxicity of far-left-wing ideologies, and Sweden’s public health agency findings are a step in the right direction. Unless conservatives challenge the technological establishment driven by liberalism, we are in danger of a collective tech worship that will sacrifice children in the name of progress.
