Expert: Smartphones Not Sole Cause of Declining Global Birth Rates

MOSCOW, May 19. /TASS/. Saying that smartphones alone are the cause of declining global birth rates is an "oversimplification," as that claim ignores important factors like urbanization, economic instability, and changing roles for women, Natalia Galkina, CEO of Neurotrend, a participant in the national technological initiative NeuroNet, told TASS.

Earlier, journalists from the Financial Times analyzed statistics on the widespread use of mobile phones in various countries and suggested that this trend is contributing to a decline in birth rates worldwide. They noted that falling birth rates in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and other countries coincide with rising smartphone sales in those regions.

"In my view, claiming that smartphones are directly reducing birth rates across all regions is a gross oversimplification. <…> Yes, birth rates often decline in places where smartphone usage is growing, but this is not the cause. These are just two global trends that have coincided. The real decline in birth rates stems from a complex set of factors: rising education levels, urbanization, economic instability, changing roles for women, and access to contraception. Amid all this, smartphones are more of a visible symbol of the modern era," Galkina said.

The authors of the Financial Times article also pointed to the negative impact of frequent social media use, which creates artificial standards for potential partners and affects young people’s capacity to build stable relationships. "Young people’s ability to form relationships through direct, face-to-face interaction is indeed declining, but it would be a mistake to call this a collapse of socialization. Socialization has not disappeared; it has changed. The paradox is that today’s youth communicate online far more actively and broadly than adults. They maintain dozens of contacts, quickly find like-minded people with niche interests, and coordinate projects via messaging apps. It is a different kind of socialization, a more hybrid form," the expert explained.

She also agreed that young people could have trouble building relationships, but not because of online communication itself, rather due to challenges in transitioning from online interaction to offline relationships.