Paediatricians press for age-appropriate design
New guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics calls for systemic changes to platform design, with stronger defaults and protections for children.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has added its voice to a growing global consensus that online harms stem from product design choices, not just parental oversight and called for a more child-friendly digital environment.
In a new policy statement published in the February 2026 edition of Pediatrics, the AAP calls for a systems-wide approach, observing that most platforms are designed to boost engagement and profit — and not to support children’s health and development.
The policy statement is supported by a technical report, both authored by medical experts and approved by the AAP Board of Directors, following several rounds of peer review.
“When digital media are designed with children’s wellbeing as the north star, young people can experience benefits, such as learning and social connection. But many platforms are guided by an underlying business model to keep users engaged for as long as possible, which can disrupt child sleep, learning, physical health, and mood.
Our focus should be on designing high quality digital media while supporting families at multiple levels to address their digital media concerns and set kids up for success.”
Tiffany Munzer, MD, FAAP, lead author of the APP policy
The AAP calls for product manufacturers to:
- Create child-centered designs, such as a platform that nudges to disengage from use and incorporate children, teens, and families actively in the design process to center their experiences.
- Differentiate child users. Platforms used by minors should have child safety teams and a governance structure in which these teams have power and report directly to company leadership.
- Include safety and privacy features as the default setting, including turning off autoplay, not using targeted advertising on minors, providing options to turn off algorithmic feeds or content that has not undergone human review, preventing harmful content from being displayed to minors (such as suicide, self-harm, pornography, eating disorders), minimising designs that prolong engagement, and turning off the chat feature.
The AAP’s recommendations reinforce what the evidence has long shown: that children will not be protected and empowered online until their safety, privacy and wellbeing are built into digital products by design and by default.