A trend that is hard to ignore

October, 2026

More and more countries are rethinking the role of screens in childhood: they are taking mobile phones out of classrooms, bringing back paper books and delaying access to social media. To mark Financial Education Day, the Plataforma Denaria Observatory looks at this trend and raises a question that is usually left out of the debate: what happens when the first money a child encounters is no longer physical either?

Recent years have brought a series of studies, policy decisions and court cases showing that the impact of digitalisation on children is starting to be reconsidered:

2018 — France: phones leave the classroom

In August 2018 France passed a law banning the use of mobile phones in primary schools and collèges (ages 11 to 15), both in class and anywhere else on school premises, except for teaching purposes. The law extended a restriction that since 2010 had applied only to lesson time, with the aim of supporting attention, concentration and a better school environment. France thus became one of the first European countries to suggest that certain digital devices might be interfering with education.

2021 — Facebook and Instagram: doubts about their impact on teenagers

In September 2021, The Wall Street Journal revealed, on the basis of internal documents leaked by former employee Frances Haugen, that Facebook had spent years studying the effects of Instagram on teenagers’ well-being, with particular attention to girls’ body image. The company replied that the research was being presented in a misleading way. The case opened a debate on how far technology companies themselves were aware of certain risks associated with the use of their products.

2023 — UNESCO: going digital does not necessarily mean learning better

UNESCO’s report Technology in education: A tool on whose terms? challenged the idea that bringing more technology into classrooms automatically leads to better educational outcomes. The organisation points out that there is little robust evidence of the added value of some educational technologies, and that excessive or inappropriate use can harm learning.

2023 — Sweden: textbooks are back

Sweden, one of the countries that had gone furthest in replacing printed material with devices, changed course in 2023. That year the government allocated SEK 685 million to textbooks and printed teaching materials, and more than SEK 500 million a year from 2024 onwards, with the aim of ensuring that every pupil has a printed textbook for each subject. The decision followed a decline in international reading scores, although researchers warn that this decline has several causes and cannot be attributed to screens alone.

14 February 2024 — New York: lawsuit against the major platforms

New York City filed a lawsuit against TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube, alleging that certain features of these platforms were contributing to mental health problems among children and teenagers. The lawsuit does not in itself prove a causal link, but it shows the extent to which the debate on social media design and its impact on minors has also reached the courts.

2024 — Denmark: DKK 540 million to bring back physical books

In March 2024, the Danish government and a broad parliamentary majority agreed on a quality programme for state schools that allocates DKK 540 million (around €72 million) between 2025 and 2034 to increasing the availability of physical books in schools. The measure seeks a better balance between screen-based teaching and printed materials, particularly because of their link with concentration and reading. The first titles were made available to schools in June 2025.

2024 — Finland: back to paper after years of digitalisation

Some Finnish schools began bringing back books, paper and pens after years of heavy investment in computers and other digital devices. Teachers and families pointed to problems with distraction and concentration, and some pupils said they concentrated better when they spent less time in front of screens.

10 December 2025 — Australia: no social media for under-16s

On that day one of the strictest measures adopted to date came into force in Australia: the platforms covered by the regulation must take reasonable steps to prevent under-16s from holding an account. The measure applies to Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, YouTube and X, among others. In its first assessment, published in January 2026, Australia’s online safety regulator (the eSafety Commissioner) reported that platforms had restricted access to around 4.7 million accounts belonging to under-16s during the first month.

June 2026 — China: AI homework, worse exams

A study by David Strömberg (Stockholm University) and Victor Lei and Yanhui Wu (University of Hong Kong), published by the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), analysed 30 months of data on 26,811 Chinese students in grades 7 to 12 (roughly ages 12 to 18). Students who started using generative AI for their homework spent 30% less time on it and their homework marks rose by 18%; however, their results in monthly exams, taken without assistance, fell by around 20% within six months. The authors attribute most of that decline to students who used AI to outsource the work rather than as an aid to learning.

8 September 2026 — PISA: how are educational outcomes evolving in Spain?

The PISA 2025 results place Spain below the OECD average in all three subjects: 457 points in mathematics (OECD: 463), 451 in reading (461) and 477 in science (482). Compared with 2022, Spain’s results fell in mathematics and reading and held steady in science. The decline is not unique to Spain: the OECD average also recorded the lowest results in its history. And 86% of Spanish pupils already attend schools that ban mobile phones, compared with an OECD average of 49%, a reminder that performance depends on many factors.

These figures alone do not allow performance to be attributed to digitalisation, but they do raise a relevant question at a time when technology is taking up more and more space in education: does more technology necessarily mean better results?

17 September 2026 — European Commission: proposal to delay access to social media

The European Commission presented its proposal for an EU KIDS Act, which sets out gradual access to social media: under-13s would not be allowed an account; 13- and 14-year-olds could only use a limited account managed by their parents or guardians, with a maximum of one hour a day; and from 15 they could open their own account. The proposal would also require social media, online video games and AI assistants and chatbots to be safe by design. It is not yet a ban in force: the text must be examined and adopted by the European Parliament and the Council.

Money is going digital from childhood too

Children’s relationship with money is also becoming digital. Financial apps aimed at children and teenagers are a good example: according to the company itself, more than 6.5 million parents and children used Greenlight in 2024, and its young users together managed around USD 2 billion in saving, spending and investing.

The change is also visible in Spain. According to PISA 2022, 85% of 15-year-old students had bought something online in the previous year and 58% had paid with a mobile phone at least once, although only 24% had a debit card, compared with an OECD average of 62%.

Yet this very trend raises a different question: what does a child really learn when the money they receive, save and spend is never something they can actually see?

What research says about physical money

Research on child development suggests that timing matters. A review carried out at the University of Cambridge by David Whitebread and Sue Bingham for the UK Money Advice Service (2013) concluded that by around the age of seven a child is typically able to represent value mentally, and that by then several basic concepts relating to later financial behaviour have already developed. The foundations are laid long before financial education reaches the classroom.

The Deutsche Bundesbank drew the practical conclusion in its April 2025 Monthly Report: banknotes and coins are often children’s first contact with money, and their physical nature helps them understand its value and that purchasing power is limited, before they learn, as teenagers, to find their way in a payment world that combines cash and digital means.

The idea that tangible objects help children learn abstract concepts has an empirical basis. A meta-analysis by Carbonneau, Marley and Selig (2013), covering 55 studies and more than 7,000 students, found that teaching mathematics with concrete manipulatives improves learning, especially retention, although the benefit depends on how and when they are used. Coins and banknotes are, in practice, the most everyday manipulatives a child will ever use.

A University of Edinburgh study with families in Scotland (Andries et al., 2025) points in the same direction: for parents and children, one of the advantages of cash is that it makes visible that money runs out. Once spent, it is physically gone; digital money, by contrast, can seem limitless.

From the screen to the piggy bank

A number on a screen can tell you that you have 20 euros. An app can show you that you have saved 5. But for a child, that money is still a balance, a number on a screen. There may be a difference between watching an amount grow digitally and holding a coin or a banknote, putting it into a piggy bank and seeing for yourself how your savings grow.

A piggy bank, a banknote or coins turn an abstract concept into something that can be seen and touched: how much I have, how much I spend, how much I have left and how much I need to save to get something. And not everything that can be done through an app is necessarily the easiest way to teach it to a child.

PISA 2022 data show that saving and everyday decisions about money are already part of Spanish teenagers’ experience: 94% said they had saved money at least once in the previous year and 78% said they could decide for themselves what to spend their money on. However, Spain scored 486 points in financial literacy, compared with an OECD average of 498, and only 5% reached the highest level. And the OECD itself finds that top performers in financial literacy are 72% more likely to save than low performers.

The question, then, is not whether financial apps can teach. It is whether, at certain stages, some things are easier to understand when money stops being a number on a screen and becomes, once again, something that can be seen, touched, kept and counted.

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