Out of their depth

Jan Tomše

We are increasingly shielding children from the dangers of the outside world, while at the same time putting devices into their hands that give them almost unlimited access to the digital world. In playgrounds, on the streets and when they spend time with their peers, we try to protect them from risks. Yet online, we often leave them exposed to an environment over which we have far less control.

Since 2010, much of teenagers' social lives across Western countries has shifted onto smartphones. Young people have gained constant access to social media, video games and other online activities. Over the same period, many countries have witnessed a marked deterioration in young people's mental health, reflected in rising levels of anxiety, depression and self-harm. In his book The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt identifies the widespread adoption of smartphones as one of the key drivers of these changes.

Plenty of room at the deep end. The Adriatic

Generation Z, born between 1997 and 2012, is the first generation to have spent much of its childhood in a world dominated by smartphones. Generation Alpha, born into an already digital world, is now following the same path. Haidt warns of what he calls the "Great Rewiring": a shift away from a childhood centred on play, social interaction and real-world experiences towards one increasingly dominated by screens.

Young people today spend less time with their peers, less time outdoors and have fewer opportunities to develop social and physical skills. Smartphones are encroaching on the space once occupied by free play, exploring the world around them, forming friendships and learning to resolve conflicts with other children. Yet these are precisely the experiences that are essential to healthy development.

The years between the ages of 9 and 15 are particularly important for social learning and identity formation. Children need obstacles, setbacks, disappointments and the occasional fall. These experiences help them build confidence, independence and the ability to cope with life's challenges. Retreating into the world of smartphones deprives them of these opportunities.

Haidt identifies four fundamental harms arising from the Great Rewiring: social deprivation, sleep deprivation, fragmented attention and addiction. Alongside this apparent erosion of young people's mental health runs a second trend: overprotective parenting.

Parents increasingly monitor and restrict their children's movements and activities in the real world, while allowing them virtually unrestricted access to smartphones from an early age. Children are therefore losing freedom where they need it most for their development, while gaining it in an environment where they face risks they are not yet equipped to assess. Instead of developing resilience and independence through real-life experiences, they spend ever more time in front of screens.

How should we respond as a society? Last year, Slovenia tightened the rules governing the use of electronic devices in primary schools. Other countries are introducing restrictions too. In the Netherlands, mobile phones are generally prohibited during lessons, subject to certain exceptions, while Croatia has introduced similar restrictions in primary schools. Further measures are being discussed in Spain, Sweden and elsewhere.

Some schools are also bringing back more opportunities for free, unstructured play, allowing children to explore relationships, resolve conflicts and develop social skills. Across the European Union, calls are growing for a higher minimum age for access to social media.

Parents have an equally important role to play. One encouraging example is the Slovenian initiative Počakajmo skupaj (Let's Wait Together), launched by parents at a Slovenian primary school and supported by several thousand signatories. It is based on a voluntary agreement among parents to delay buying their children a smartphone until the end of primary school, and to postpone access to social media until at least the age of 16.

This helps reduce peer pressure. When children know that others in their class do not yet have smartphones either, waiting becomes easier. Parents, meanwhile, no longer feel they are making these decisions alone.

The choices we make today will help shape the mental health of tomorrow's adults — the entrepreneurs, farmers, cultural workers and public servants on whom our society will depend. The more widespread mental health difficulties become, the greater the demand for professional support, with consequences potentially extending into many other areas of life.

That is why, through initiatives such as these and through our own choices, we must help young people grow into healthy, confident and independent adults.

Technology is a force for good and has brought advances to our society that would once have been unimaginable. But not all its consequences are beneficial. Liberal thinking is one of the guiding principles of the Institute for Strategic Solutions, which publishes The Adriatic, so advocating restrictions may seem contradictory. Here, the great liberal philosopher John Stuart Mill offers a useful perspective. He accepted that individual liberty could be restricted to prevent harm to others and recognised the need for greater protection of children.

This raises a question worth asking: by granting children unlimited digital freedom, are we not, in fact, diminishing their chances of growing into truly free and independent adults?

Tete-a-Tete

The long game

Historian Dr Aleš Šafarič heads the Sports Museum, part of the Slovenian School Museum, and founded Zgodovinanadlani.si, a popular history website. His research explores politics and physical culture before the First World War and between the wars. His small team preserves Slovenia's sporting heritage, from Stanko Bloudek to basketball. Anyone with old medals, sports shirts or photographs is encouraged to get in touch.

Also on the site:

Who gets to be 'one of us'?

No problem a phone call can't solve

Who's asking

Asian investors are taking a closer look at Slovenia

The Adriatic

Foreign companies owned €24bn worth of Slovenian business at the end of 2025, according to figures Banka Slovenije published in June. That was 4 per cent more than a year earlier and almost half as much again as in 2019, when the stock stood at €16.2bn. Most of last year's increase came from owners putting fresh equity into their Slovenian subsidiaries, €0.8bn of it, and from €0.4bn in profits they chose to leave in the country rather than take home.

Who owns it has changed little. Austria is still the largest investor by a distance, with 20.9 per cent of the total, followed by Luxembourg, better known as a home for holding companies than for factories, and by Switzerland, whose share rose from 12 to 14.3 per cent in a single year. Germany, Croatia and Italy come next. The central bank counts the direct investor rather than the ultimate owner, so money routed through a holding company in Luxembourg is recorded as Luxembourgish wherever its owner is based.

Containers stacked at Koper, Slovenia's only cargo port. Matjaž Mirt / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0

SPIRIT Slovenia Business Development Agency, the public body that courts foreign investors, sees a different mix in what is coming through its door now. The strongest interest this year, it said, has come from Asia, Germany and Austria, and the two groups want different things from the country. "For Asian investors, Slovenia's strategic location is a key advantage, offering an attractive base for their European operations and manufacturing activities," the agency said.

Which Asian companies are already here, and what tends to surprise newcomers once they arrive, is in the full piece.

In Brief

Serbia's economy grew by 3.8 per cent year on year in the second quarter, up from 3.2 per cent in the first, as the country heads towards a parliamentary election. Much of it comes from cars. Exports of motor vehicles rose by 54.9 per cent in the first eight months, as Stellantis, a carmaker, stepped up production of electric vehicles at its plant in Kragujevac. China supplies 16.1 per cent of Serbia's imports but buys only 5.5 per cent of its exports.

Croatia sent other EU governments a list of conditions that Montenegro must meet before it joins the bloc. Several concern the war of the 1990s, including compensation for Croatians held at the Morinj camp, the fate of 14 missing Croatian citizens, and the return of Jadran, a training ship that was being overhauled in Montenegro when fighting broke out in 1991. Zagreb calls its demands "limited, clearly defined and achievable" and says none has yet been resolved. One is that Kotor rename its municipal swimming pool, which is named after a water-polo player Croatia says was a guard at the camp.

Albania's prime minister, Edi Rama, refused to resign after three days of student protests in Tirana over the rising cost of education and corruption. Protesters threw bricks and concrete blocks at the education ministry, and police answered with tear gas and water cannon. On Wednesday police arrested 65 people and hospitals treated 89, 61 of them police officers. Rama, who won a fourth term last year, said governments are changed at the ballot box, and that Albania had held elections last year, "not a revolution".