Phones, games and social media by age: what the national survey shows and what schools allow

Every year the Children and Families Agency, こども家庭庁 (kodomo katei-chō), asks thousands of families how children go online. The survey is the 青少年のインターネット利用環境実態調査 (seishōnen no intānetto riyō kankyō jittai chōsa). Its FY2025 round ran from 1 November to 18 December 2025 and was published in March 2026. Children aged 10 to 17 answered for themselves. For children under 10, a parent answered. The survey itself warns that the two groups cannot be compared directly.

Use it as a map of what is normal at your child's age, not as a target.

By school stage: use, time and family rules

"Time online" is the average for a school day (平日, heijitsu), added up across every device the child uses: phone, game console, TV, home computer and the school tablet (GIGA端末).

Stage (FY2025)	Goes online	Average weekday time online	Family has rules (child says / parent says)
Attending nursery or kindergarten (0–6)	68.8%	about 1 h 49 min	79.5% of parents of under-10s who go online
Elementary, ages 6–9 (parent answers)	91.0%	about 2 h 36 min	rises with age, to 89.0% at age 9
Elementary, age 10 and over	98.5%	about 3 h 54 min	83.8% / 88.4%
Junior high (中学生)	99.2%	about 5 h 24 min	74.5% / 81.9%
High school (高校生)	99.3%	about 6 h 44 min	44.3% / 58.3%

Among children aged 10 to 17, average time rose by about 25 minutes on the year before. In high school, 63.3% spent five hours or more a day online. In both age groups the largest block of time was hobbies and entertainment, and watching video was common at every age.

From upper elementary school on, two things move together. The time goes up, and the share of families with rules goes down. The gap also grows: in high school 58.3% of parents say there are rules, but only 44.3% of their children say so.

By age: when the phone becomes the child's own

Age (FY2025)	Goes online with a smartphone (with a contract)	Average weekday time online
6	15.3%	about 2 h 9 min
8	28.1%	about 2 h 40 min
10	39.9%	about 3 h 26 min
11	50.8%	about 4 h 2 min
12	66.3%	about 4 h 39 min
13	84.4%	about 5 h 17 min
15	91.7%	about 6 h 2 min
17	96.8%	about 7 h 7 min

The jump is between 11 and 13, roughly the years of 小6 and 中1. Under 10, most smartphone use is on a parent's phone: 67.4% of young children who use one share it with a parent. The survey says the child's own phone overtakes the shared one at age 9. Among children aged 10 and over who use a smartphone, it is their own for 74.9% in elementary school, 95.4% in junior high and 99.1% in high school.

What children run into online

The survey asked children aged 10 to 17 what had happened to them online.

Experience (FY2025)	Elementary (10+)	Junior high	High school
Got spam messages or mail	8.4%	26.2%	39.6%
Got messages from strangers or shops	9.8%	21.5%	28.3%
So absorbed they lost study focus or sleep	14.5%	24.5%	26.2%
Messaged someone they met online	6.7%	14.6%	21.7%
Received abusive or harassing messages	4.0%	5.9%	6.3%
Spent too much money in a game or app	2.2%	4.5%	4.6%

Losing sleep or study time to the internet already affects about one in seven elementary children aged 10 and over.

What schools allow: bringing a phone to school

The ministry's notice of 31 July 2020, 学校における携帯電話の取扱い等について（通知）, sets the national line. The local board of education turns it into a policy for its schools, and each school tells families.

School	The rule in the notice
Elementary (小学校)	In principle no phones at school. A parent may apply to the principal in special cases, for example safety on the way to school, a long commute or travel by public transport.
Junior high (中学校)	In principle no phones. Exceptions as for elementary, or the school or board may allow phones under four conditions agreed with students and parents.
High school (高等学校)	Use at school is restricted, for example banned in class or banned on site; a school may also ban bringing phones.

The four junior-high conditions are: students and parents help make rules students can keep; the school says how phones are stored and who is responsible if one is lost; フィルタリングが保護者の責任のもとで適切に設定されていること (filtering, firutaringu, set by the parent); and safe use is taught at school and at home. Even where phones are allowed, the notice expects the school to collect them or ban use during the day.

The same notice calls online-safety teaching, 情報モラル教育 (jōhō moraru kyōiku), "extremely important". In the survey, 85.2% of children aged 10 to 17 said they had been taught about the internet, and 96.5% of those were taught at school.

What parents do

Among parents of 10-to-17-year-olds who use a smartphone, 85.8% manage their child's use in some way. The top methods were filtering (49.2%), apps and services suited to the child's age (42.1%) and set times or places to use the phone (38.4%). Only 54.3% had signed up for filtering when they took out or changed the phone contract. Asked about filtering at all, 62.4% of parents of 10-to-17-year-olds said they knew what it was. Parents of under-10s most often let the child use the phone only in front of them (58.6%) or set times and places (57.0%).

What to do now

• Before a first phone (the survey's jump is at 11 to 13): decide the rules with your child before the phone arrives, and ask the shop to set filtering at the contract, not later.
• Read your school's phone rule in the 入学 (nyūgaku, enrolment) papers or the 学校だより (gakkō dayori, school newsletter). If your child needs a phone for the commute, ask the school how to apply and where the phone is kept during the day.
• In junior high, check the rules again each April. The survey shows children and parents drift apart on whether rules exist at all.
• Watch sleep, not only minutes. If schoolwork or bedtime is slipping, raise it at the 個人面談 (kojin mendan, the one-to-one teacher meeting); the school sees the same child.
• If something goes wrong online (harassing messages, a stranger asking to meet, an overspent account), tell the class teacher. The 2020 notice tells schools to deal with ネット上のいじめ (online bullying) under the national anti-bullying law.