Jakob Forssmed
Government & Regulators · Swedish Public Health Agency
Backed Sweden's 2024 national screen-time guidance, framing children's health as the cost of tech companies' profits.
Jakob Forssmed is tied to Sweden's 2024 national guidance on age-capped screen use, issued through the Swedish Public Health Agency. The guidance set recommended limits by age band, part of a wider Nordic push to move screen policy from parental advice into formal public-health recommendation. Forssmed was quoted framing the issue bluntly: children's health, he said, is paying the price for technology companies' profits. That framing — a government voice naming a business-model problem rather than only a parenting problem — is part of why Sweden's approach sits alongside Australia's and France's in this library's government lane.
WORKS IN THE LIBRARY (10)
STUDIES
Vi måste börja prata om barnens skärmtid
In this June 2023 opinion piece for Aftonbladet, Sweden's newly appointed Social Minister Jakob Forssmed argues that a decade of rapidly rising screen use has reshaped children's lives without a serious public reckoning with the consequences. He cites survey figures showing the share of 14-year-olds online more than three hours on an average day climbing from about 30 percent in 2010 to 76 percent in 2020, and a national health survey finding roughly three in ten teenagers spend five or more hours a day sitting in front of screens outside school hours. Forssmed associates heavy digital-media use with less time for sleep, physical activity, reading, and in-person connection, and announces that his government has commissioned public-health guidance on reasonable screen use and asked agencies to examine how attention-holding platform design affects children. TechKids Foundation cites this as Forssmed's own early framing of screen time as a governing priority, not an independent research finding.
Kunskapslägesrapport bekräftar negativa hälsoeffekter av omfattande skärmtid för barn och unga
On June 17, 2024, Sweden's Public Health Agency handed Social Minister Jakob Forssmed a knowledge-status report on digital media and children's health that his ministry had commissioned the year before. The compilation associates heavy screen and social-media use among children and teenagers with poorer sleep and more depressive symptoms, and links greater social-media use among 10-to-18-year-olds with body dissatisfaction. It also associates high parental phone use during interaction with young children with reduced parental responsiveness and, in some cited studies, more outward-directed behavior in preschoolers, plus links between heavy use and overweight, headaches, and spinal complaints, and notes children diagnosed with ADHD or autism show elevated rates of problematic digital-media use. Receiving the report, Forssmed called screen use one of the era's largest public-health challenges. TechKids Foundation cites this as the evidence base the Swedish government pointed to ahead of the national recommendations issued three months later.
Rekommendationer för en balanserad skärmanvändning bland barn
On September 2, 2024, Sweden's Public Health Agency published the country's first national age-banded recommendations on children's screen use, developed on assignment from the government led by Social Minister Jakob Forssmed. The guidance recommends no digital-media use for children under 2, up to one hour a day for ages 2 to 5, one to two hours for ages 6 to 12, and two to three hours for teenagers 13 to 18, alongside qualitative advice such as keeping phones out of bedrooms and staying engaged with children's digital lives. The agency associates high screen use with poorer sleep, more depressive symptoms, and body dissatisfaction, and reports that many young people themselves say they feel anxious about their own digital habits and want to change them. TechKids Foundation cites the recommendations as a concrete public-health policy outcome of the government initiative Forssmed's ministry commissioned, not as proof that any specific amount of screen time itself causes harm.
Forssmed: Mobilförbud i skolan ett historiskt steg för trygghet och hälsa
This September 2025 Epoch Times Sweden report covers Social Minister Jakob Forssmed's response to Sweden's incoming national ban on mobile phones during the school day in all compulsory schools, set to take effect July 1, 2026. The piece describes the reform as a long-standing priority for Forssmed within the governing coalition and quotes him extensively crediting the policy with creating calmer classrooms, reducing bullying, helping students sleep better, and — as a reported side effect — reducing phone use outside school hours as well. It cites government data showing Swedish 13-to-16-year-olds spend an average of about six and a half hours a day on mobile devices. TechKids Foundation includes this as a documented policy outcome directly credited to Forssmed's advocacy within the government, distinct from the separate screen-time guidance his own ministry issues to families.
Folkhälsomyndigheten ska utreda vuxnas skärmtid - påverkar barn
In this October 2025 Ny Teknik wire report, Social Minister Jakob Forssmed announces that he has directed Sweden's Public Health Agency to study how adults' own phone and screen use around children affects child development, ahead of future guidance. Forssmed associates parents' in-the-moment phone use with disrupted attachment interactions and possible effects on children's language development and behavior, while explicitly saying he personally cannot evaluate the underlying science and is relying on the agency's forthcoming review. He notes many adults already describe their own screen habits as a problem, and expects resulting guidance to focus on raising awareness rather than setting fixed time limits for parents. TechKids Foundation cites this as a documented example of the minister directing public-health guidance work in progress, not a finished, evidence-backed recommendation.
Rekommendationer om skärmtid för barn skickas hem till hushåll
This October 2025 Swedish government press release announces that the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, under Social Minister Jakob Forssmed, is mailing a printed brochure with the Public Health Agency's screen-time recommendations directly to households with children ages 6 to 13, including a template 'screen plan' families can fill out together. Forssmed frames the mailing as giving parents a practical, concrete tool rather than leaving them to work out reasonable limits alone, and links extensive screen use in general terms to children's mental-health difficulties without naming a single cause. TechKids Foundation cites this as a distribution step in Sweden's national screen-time guidance program that followed the September 2024 recommendations, not as new research.
Regeringen tillsätter utredning om åldersgräns för sociala medier
On October 10, 2025, Sweden's government formally launched a special government inquiry to examine how a strict minimum age for children's social-media use could be designed and enforced, appointing Supreme Administrative Court chief legal adviser Lisa Englund Krafft to lead it. Announcing the inquiry, Social Minister Jakob Forssmed said the hold social media has taken over children's time and reality 'must be broken,' and that harmful content and habit-forming algorithms need to be pushed back to protect children's health, safety, and wellbeing. Background material accompanying the announcement cited survey findings that roughly half of Swedish teenagers report their mobile use interferes with homework or sleep. The inquiry was directed to deliver an interim report by June 2026 and a final report by November 2026. TechKids Foundation cites this as a documented, government-credited policy process, not as enacted law.
Vi håller med S om skärmtiden
In this October 2025 Expressen opinion piece, Social Minister Jakob Forssmed responds to a Social Democrat proposal for a social-media age limit by recapping his own record on screen-time policy since taking office. He states that no screen-time-related policy work was underway when he became minister, and credits his tenure with commissioning the Public Health Agency's national screen-time recommendations, introducing the incoming national school phone ban, pushing the EU Commission to act on platforms' algorithms, meeting repeatedly with technology companies about children's social-media use, and opening the government's new age-limit inquiry. He associates heavy digital-media use in general terms with concentration difficulties, sleep problems, reduced physical activity, and children's exposure to hateful or extreme content, grooming, and gang recruitment. TechKids Foundation cites the piece as Forssmed's own account of his record, not as an independent evaluation of its results.
Förslaget: 15-årsgräns för sociala medier
On June 2, 2026, the special government investigator Sweden's cabinet appointed in October 2025 delivered an interim report to Social Minister Jakob Forssmed proposing a minimum age of 15 for holding a logged-in social-media account, with enforcement responsibility placed on the platforms rather than families, and a proposed start date of January 1, 2028. The proposal would exempt video-only viewing services and gaming-oriented platforms such as Roblox. Receiving the report, Forssmed said Sweden risks 'losing an entire generation to endless scrolling' without stronger limits on children's access. TechKids Foundation cites this as a mid-process government policy proposal directly tied to the inquiry Forssmed's ministry commissioned, not as a law that has taken effect.
Forssmeds varning: Utan mobilen hade barnen inte nåtts av gängen
In this June 2026 SVT interview, Social Minister Jakob Forssmed argues that smartphones have given criminal gangs a direct channel into children's bedrooms, saying children would not have been as reachable for gang recruitment without them, and that technology companies have gained 'direct access to children's lives' and taken a tight grip on their time. The piece ties this to the Public Health Agency's advice to delay a child's first smartphone until around age 13, framed as reducing exposure to violent or extreme content and disrupted sleep, and notes the agency is developing further national screen-time guidance under a broader government assignment. TechKids Foundation cites this as a documented public warning connecting phone access to a specific child-safety risk — gang recruitment — in association terms, not as a claim that phones cause criminal recruitment on their own.