On June 4, 2025, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) held a workshop titled The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families. The workshop examined how digital services—including social media, games, and other online platforms—are designed to capture and retain users’ attention, and how these practices may affect children and families.

    The discussion addressed “addictive design features,” exposure to harmful content, age assurance, and parental controls, as well as the role of the FTC in addressing potential harms to children in the digital environment. The workshop was a forum for discussion involving experts, parents, advocates, and government officials; it was not itself a regulatory ruling or a finding that particular services had violated the law.

Comment from GAME-F

Problems associated with children’s digital use can no longer be understood solely as a matter of children spending too much time online. Many digital services are designed to attract attention and encourage repeated engagement.

    At the same time, features designed to increase engagement should not automatically be equated with addiction. A child’s developmental characteristics, family and social environment, reasons for using a service, and—most importantly—the impact on everyday functioning all need to be considered.

    Rather than looking only at “screen time,” we should also ask why children keep using a service and how that service is designed to sustain their attention. This perspective closely aligns with GAME-F’s emphasis on functional impairment and the broader context of digital use.

References

FTC — The Attention Economy: How Big Tech Firms Exploit Children and Hurt Families

FTC — Attention Economy Workshop Agenda