A bipartisan bill introduced in the Italian Senate proposes to prohibit smartphone and tablet use for children under the age of three, backed by the Italian Society of Paediatrics (SIP) and the Terre des Hommes Foundation. The draft law, tabled by Senator Simona Malpezzi, would mandate national guidelines that frame early digital exposure as a harmful practice to be avoided entirely in the first 36 months of life. It also calls for training for health and education professionals, along with screen‑free early childhood services. The proposal cites a SIP‑commissioned review of 78 studies, which found that each additional 30 minutes of daily screen time can double the risk of language delay by age two, and that negative effects extend to attention, executive function, emotional regulation, sleep, and the adult–child relationship.

Across the Atlantic, in Argentina, neuropaediatrician Claudio Waisburg told TN that social media exposure can impair adolescents’ executive functions, memory, behaviour and sleep, noting that the prefrontal cortex — which governs impulse control — remains under development during the teenage years. He described a “dopaminergic rollercoaster” of brief, instantly rewarding content that accustoms young users to three‑second stimuli, undermining sustained attention. In Mexico, specialists at a recent Meet Point event called for legislation to raise the minimum age for social media to 16, emulating France’s recent ban. They argued that platforms employ “addiction engineering” and noted that Meta was recently found liable in that regard; the group Restart Centro has already received an invitation from the presidential palace to begin discussions.

Meanwhile, in the United States, a Florida teenager withdrew a personal‑injury suit against Meta days before its Los Angeles trial, having earlier reached confidential settlements with YouTube, TikTok and Snap. His legal team said the broader litigation had achieved its goals, while Meta stressed it paid nothing. A separate Los Angeles case ended with Meta and Google being ordered to pay $6 million in damages. Thousands of similar lawsuits are pending, yet legal observers note the difficulty of establishing causation when individual usage is light. In Colombia, a bill to bar under‑16s from social networks has spotlighted a structural challenge: schools are required to document cyberbullying but lack legal access to the algorithmic feeds that shape students’ online experience, a gap that, according to the analysis published by La Silla Vacía, leaves educators responsible for producing due process without the evidentiary tools to do so.

Broader societal concerns also surface in the European and Latin American debates. A reader letter in the Italian weekly Internazionale underlines the contradiction of parents who struggle with their own phone dependence while trying to limit their children’s screen time — a dynamic experts say undermines household rules. Paediatricians and child psychologists consistently stress that adult modelling is essential and that prohibition alone, without education, is insufficient. The Italian bill therefore includes parental support from pregnancy onward, reflecting a prevention‑oriented approach. Mexican specialists similarly warned that early screen dependency may lay down neural pathways that later increase vulnerability to substance use.

The dossier is advancing on several tracks. The Italian proposal, endorsed by all political groups, moves to committee hearings, with a Senate debate expected before the autumn recess. The Colombian bill is under legislative scrutiny, while Mexico’s government has begun informal consultations with advocacy groups. In the US, the withdrawal of the Florida case leaves a mixed legal landscape, but the underlying scientific consensus — compiled by paediatric bodies and independent researchers — continues to drive regulatory and judicial action across multiple continents.