Toddler development Own smartphone harmless for nine-year-old children?

OLG Frankfurt / Main tilts legal requirements for media use

When can and should children own a smartphone? When does the use of a mobile phone harm the development of the child? Or can the compact minicomputers even promote small children? As reported by the magazine "t3n", the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Frankfurt am Main dealt with this question in a resolution published on Monday (Ref .: 2 UF 41/18). The judges were of the opinion that a private smartphone with Internet access was not a "general risk to the child's well-being". The court order should provide some discussion.

A private smartphone with Internet access is for nine-year-old children is not a general child endangerment dar. A family court may set no conditions for media use without concrete clues, just because the children a smartphone is available, the Higher Regional Court (OLG) Frankfurt am Main decided in a Monday , July 9, 2018, published resolution (Ref .: 2 UF 41/18). The Frankfurt judges thus lifted conditions imposed by the district court of Bad Hersfeld.

In the specific case, separated parents were arguing over the right to reside for their now nine-year-old daughter.

At the family court hearing - at that time the child was still eight years old - it turned out that it already has its own smartphone and has free access to the Internet.

The district court awarded the mother the right to stay, but met with the media use of the child. It told the mother to "set firm rules, especially binding times and content regarding the use of household-available media (especially TV, computer, game console, tablet) for the child", implement them and communicate this to the court.

In addition, the child should not be provided with their own and freely accessible smartphone. Only from the twelfth birthday the child can be allowed this. The family court assumed that owning a smartphone until this birthday would be associated with general harm to the child.

In its decision of 15 June 2018, the OLG now tipped these conditions. In the protected in the Basic Law parental caring should be intervened only by a court, "if the physical, mental or emotional well-being of a child or his assets is endangered." But it is not the task of the state "to ensure the objective best kind of custody ...".

Here, the requirements for media use and the use of the smartphone "unjustifiably encroached on the rights of parent rights protected by the child's mother". Although media and Internet consumption by children and adolescents pose dangers that parents should not disregard.

For example, content harmful to minors on Youtube could have damaging effects, as could the use of "disturbing, harmful content" games not released for the current age group. The same applies to the use of WhatsApp, where children and adolescents as senders and recipients of "desired or unwanted messages could be affected".

But just because the children the media use is possible, no general harmfulness can be accepted, decided the Higher Regional Court. In order to be able to justify conditions, there would have to be indications of the risk of injury in a specific individual case. This is not the case here.

Already in the past, the District Court of Bad Hersfeld had made a very critical comment on the use of smartphones and the Internet, and in family court proceedings parents made demands on the WhatsApp use of their children. For example, on May 15, 2017, the court ordered a single mother to obtain written consent from WhatsApp for all smartphone contacts her eleven-year-old son had stored in his mobile device (Ref .: F 120/17 EASO, JurAgentur Message of 27 June 2017).

Since WhatsApp continues to read all contact data from the smartphone without permission, and thus in violation of data protection laws, warnings warned the persons concerned, the court said. This would endanger the well-being of the child. The district court also pointed out that the smartphone must also be put away. "There are no reasonable reasons for leaving a smartphone to a child during their intended bedtime."

In a July 22, 2016 ruling, the District Court ordered parents to remove whatsapp altogether from their children's smartphone to prevent adult sex messages being sent via WhatsApp (Ref: F 361/16 EASO; JurAgentur Report of 19 September 2016). sb, fle