Celebrity Parents' Technology Social Media Rules For Kids

With a new advisory being released by U.S. surgeon general Dr. Vivek H. Murthy concerning kids’ and teens’ social media use and its impacts on mental health, these celebrity parents are likely feeling relieved to have taken strict measures with their technology rules for their kids.

Dr. Murthy says the minimum age limit of 13 years old to join social platforms is “too early,” with ages 10-19 being a “time when kids are developing their identity, their sense of self,” thus causing them to be more heavily impacted by the social pressures and opinions that come with the use of Instagram, TikTok, and other popular apps and websites. In addition to Dr. Murthy, even a few mega names in the tech arena agree that social media shouldn’t be used by kids — especially their own.

Would you believe it if we told you even the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Kim Kardashian, and Bill Gates limit screen time for their kids? Some of the biggest tech titans, social media stars, famous figures, and celebrities are wary of technology’s effects on their kids — and all children in general — and they’ve gone as far as sharing their household rules and general thoughts on cell phones, television, and social media pertaining to their toddlers, kids, and teens.

While some famous parents, like Serena Williams and Alexis Ohanian, are on the same page about tech rules for their kids, other celebrity co-parents, like Nick Cannon and Mariah Carey, have opposing views that strain their relationship — a challenge that many non-famous separated couples face in deciding how to parent their children.

For certain celeb parents, social media is permitted as long as they can approve their kids’ posts. Take Heidi Klum, for example — when her daughter Leni was a teen, she was allowed to use a private Instagram account to keep up with her friends, but Heidi required her to show the photos she wanted to share prior to posting.

For other famous moms and dads, social media is a hard no for their kids. Penelope Cruz refuses to let her children join social media platforms until they’re at least 16 years old, and Madonna chooses to keep her younger kids off social apps after she let her eldest children join Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter at 13 — a choice she said vastly impacted her relationship with daughter Lourdes Leon and son Rocco Ritchie.

Read on for more on how famous parents navigate raising their children in an increasingly tech-centric world — we have a feeling some celebrities’ opinions may surprise you.

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Megan Fox

During her March 2024 appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast via People, Megan Fox revealed none of her kids have technology like iPads, and she’s trying to delay it for as long as possible.

“My oldest is 11, and my kids weren’t raised with screens, and they don’t have iPads or anything like that or phones,” she said. “I can’t keep that up forever. Eventually, that will happen. I’m trying to delay it as long as possible, but when they get a little bit older.”

Blake Lively

Blake Lively always checks her kids’ apps! She talked about this on her Instagram story, while promoting an app she loves called Tappity App. “That said, I’m always triple checking any kids app constantly for safety because that’s my responsibly not an app’s, but I do LOVE this one,” she said.

Penélope Cruz

In a recent interview with Elle, Penélope Cruz revealed that she hasn’t given phones to her kids, and won’t for a very long time. “It’s so easy to be manipulated, especially if you have a brain that is still forming,” she said. “And who pays the price? Not us, not our generation, who, maybe at 25, learned how a BlackBerry worked. It’s a cruel experiment on children, on teenagers.”

She also talked about this a separate time before this.

During a CBS Sunday Morning appearance, Penelope Cruz shared her opinion on technology and her two kids. “I really see that [banning phone use] is protecting mental health, but I seem to be part of a minority,” she said. “I feel really bad for the ones that are teenagers now. It’s almost [as] if the world was doing some kind of experiment on them. ‘Oh, let’s see what happens if you expose a 12-year-old to that much technology.'”

The actress continued, “There is no protection for them, for brains that are still developing and how that affects the way they see themselves, how everything related to bullying, so many things that are not the childhood that we had. [My kids] can [only] watch movies sometimes or some cartoons. How can I not let them watch movies? [Those have] been some incredible moments of happiness since I was a little girl. … [But no phones] until they are much older. And no social media until at least 16.”

Kelly Clarkson

Kelly Clarkson told People, Clarkson said that she stands firm on one major rule: no social media under her roof.

“That can be really hard on kids in general but especially kids with parents in the public eye,” she said. “So I have informed them they’re not allowed to, under my roof, ever have [it].”

Matthew McConaughey & Camila Alves-McConaughey

A few months after Matthew McConaughey and Camila Alves-McConaughey decided to allow their eldest son, Levi, to join social media for his 15th birthday, the Interstellar actor gave an update on how it was going — and how exactly he and his wife prepared their son for the digital universe.

During a conversation with Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush Hager for Today, McConaughey explained, “[We spent] two years trying to really define what social media is to him. … Let’s talk about what it is. Let’s talk about the upfalls. Let’s talk about the downfalls. Let’s talk about the assets. Let’s talk about the traps. Let’s talk about what you wanna tell.”

The movie star added, “We had him look at a lot of other people that he looked up to, their posts. We talked about, ‘Why do you like those?’ You saw certain people that had maybe more hits, and you go, ‘But why did they? Were they relevant for the right reasons? Were they relevant for reasons that actually spoke to being more of themselves, rather than acting like somebody else?’ The discussion is ongoing,” he concluded.

Erin & Ben Napier

HGTV’s Erin and Ben Napier made their stance on social media usage clear when they decided to launch their own nonprofit, Osprey. The platform is designed to help families who want their children to have a social media-free upbringing. The Napiers plan to keep their daughters — Helen and Mae — off social media through high school.

“Research tells us social media is as addictive and destructive for developing brains as any drug,” Erin wrote on Instagram. “My kindergartener doesn’t expect to drive a car before she’s old enough. She doesn’t expect to own a house of her own before she’s old enough. If we build a culture in our home and school now where she doesn’t expect access to the entire world in her pocket until she’s much older, we can set her up for success.”

Sarah Michelle Gellar & Freddie Prinze Jr.

Sarah Michelle Gellar revealed that she and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. don’t allow their two kids to use social media. The Buffy the Vampire Slayer icon told Yahoo Life’s “So Mini Ways” in October 2022, “Our rules are probably stricter than most. Our kids don’t have social media.”

She continued, “They’re allowed to look sometimes when it’s our phones [but] at that age, there’s nothing better than Paw Patrol. And now you’re 10 and [13], and you still have these tattoos on your face [from filters] and it’s not even who you are anymore. That’s a very hard concept for young kids to grasp,” Gellar opined.

Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner has a brilliant strategy for keeping her three children — Violet, Seraphina, and Samuel — off social media. The actress appeared on TODAY and told Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb that the key is research.

“I just said to my kids, ‘Show me the articles that prove that social media is good for teenagers, and then we’ll have the conversation,’” Garner said. “Find scientific evidence that matches what I have that says that it’s not good for teenagers, then we’ll chat.”

ICYMI: There’s a whole lot of research that says social media negatively impacts teens’ self-esteem, mental health, body image, and sleep patterns.

Garner’s daughter Violet must not have liked what she learned, because she’s taken a step away from social media platforms and supposedly appreciated that space. “My eldest is grateful,” Garner said. “It’s a long haul. I have a couple more to go, so just knock on wood. We’ll see if I really hang in there.”

Sofia Coppola & Thomas Mars

Sofia Coppola and Thomas Mars’ daughter Romy is in a lot of trouble. The 16-year-old made a viral TikTok about a recent grounding for the most outrageous reason (which has only seemed to garner even more attention after it was deleted).

“I tried to charter a helicopter from New York to Maryland on my dad’s credit card because I wanted to have dinner with my camp friend,” Romy said in the video, per Yahoo. Um… What? Can you imagine getting in trouble for casually stealing your dad’s helicopter so you can meet up with a friend from another state? Celebrity kids truly do live in another world.

But the kicker? Romy explains that she’s about to get in even more trouble because her parents’ “biggest rule” is that she doesn’t have any public social media accounts. Oops!

She holds up her dad’s Grammy Award and explains why. “They don’t want me to be a nepotism kid, but TikTok is not gonna make me famous, so it doesn’t matter,” she says in the video, per Jezebel. Oh sweet, naive Romy. Have less true words ever been spoken?

The teen’s video can be seen online HERE (because things on the Internet can never truly be deleted), but the actual video and her account have both been taken down. Chances are, Romy will be grounded for a long time after this.

Olivia Munn & John Mulaney

Olivia Munn recently shared that she and John Mulaney have decided on new technology rules for their 15-month-old son Malcolm. In a March 2023 Instagram post, they revealed that Malcolm said “no” for the first time ever when he learned about the rules.

“This is the first time Malcolm ever said no and even he couldn’t take himself seriously. 😆” Munn wrote in the caption. “He wanted the phone but we made a new rule: no more phones or tablets unless it’s a code red emergency like a long travel day. 📱🙅🏻‍♀️”

Dax Shepard & Kristen Bell

During a 2022 episode of The Endless Honeymoon podcast, Dax Shepard shared the reasons why he and his wife, Kristen Bell, don’t allow their daughters to have various tech devices.

“We don’t have a phone problem ’cause they’re not in the mix,” he said, adding, “And iPods aren’t, iPads aren’t in the mix, and video games. So there’s three things in my house that are not happening — those things. And they complain about it all the time: ‘So-and-so’s got it.’ And I go, ‘Yeah, but you got a swimming pool and you got a dirt bike.’”

“Look, you get to play with it at your friend’s house,” the actor explained. “I’m not saying you can’t play video games when you go out and about in the world. You do whatever you want to do, but doesn’t happen here.” He continued, “We have a bunch of other [stuff] that your friends are jealous of, So it’s like ‘no one gets everything’ and that.”

On allowing his kids to have phones or other devices once they reach a certain age, Shepard said,”I’m not committing to that. They want me to commit to that and then I just say, ‘Well, it’s not today, and I’m not a clairvoyant, so I’m not sure when that’ll be.'”

The concerned dad succinctly said the “world is enormous” and he and Bell don’t want to “reduce it to a seven-inch screen” by allowing their girls any sort of tech time.

Bill Gates

During a 2017 interview with the UK’s Mirror, Microsoft founder Bill Gates opened up about the way he approaches technology with his kids. “We often set a time after which there is no screen time, and in their case that helps them get to sleep at a reasonable hour,” he explained.

Gates continued, “You’re always looking at how it can be used in a great way – homework and staying in touch with friends – and also where it has gotten to excess. We don’t have cellphones at the table when we are having a meal, we didn’t give our kids cellphones until they were 14 and they complained other kids got them earlier.”

Michelle & Barack Obama

During a 2015 press conference for his “Connect Home” initiative, which provided Internet access to low-income communities, former President Barack Obama spoke about how he and former First Lady Michelle regulated tech usage with their daughters — especially at the dinner table. “There’s nothing wrong with every once in a while putting the technology down and actually having a conversation,” he said.

The dad of two continued, “I always tell young people when I meet them — sometimes they just have the phone up, I’m standing right in front of them — and I got to tell them, young man, put down that phone. Shake the hand of your president. Then you can maybe go back to taking pictures.”

Kim Kardashian

Even one of social media’s most savvy users has screen time rules for her four kids. Kim Kardashian explained her perspective at BeautyCon in 2018, saying, “I think, especially for kids in their minds — and they’re so fragile and so young — that there has to be rules of maybe not sleeping with the phone right next to you.”

At a Create & Cultivate conference the same year, Kardashian said, “I can’t imagine what it’s like growing up in a world with social media as a young teenager — it all came when we were in our thirties. I can’t imagine what that would be like and I want my kids to see the separation and feel the difference, and know that there’s a time and a place for that. I’m really cautious when I’m at home, with phones, and I’m super present.”

Pink

During an interview with Carson Daly for TODAY, Pink explained her stance on technology use for her daughter and son. “There’s a light side and a shadow side to technology in general for adults,” she said. “For kids, I’m not there yet. I have a 10-year-old who does not have a phone, although she pointed out to me yesterday, ‘You know most of the kids in my class, fifth grade, have a phone.’ That doesn’t move my needle. I don’t care.”

Although she’s firm on not allowing her kids to have cell phones just yet, the singer did add, “We can’t be dinosaurs ourselves as parents, we have to sort of embrace it and go with it.”

Serena Williams & Alexis Ohanian

Serena Williams and her Reddit co-founder husband, Alexis Ohanian, “want [their daughter Olympia] to be bored” for now. Ohanian told CNBC, “It’s really important that she gets time to just be with her thoughts and be with her blocks and be with her toys, so we’ll be regulating [tech use] pretty heavily.”

Nicole Kidman

While Nicole Kidman’s two kids with ex-husband Tom Cruise are now adults, she and husband Keith Urban are navigating the tech generation with their young daughters. “They don’t have a phone and I don’t allow them to have an Instagram,” the Big Little Lies star told Vanity Fair in 2019.

Chrissy Teigen & John Legend

During a 2019 Harper’s Bazaar interview, Chrissy Teigen shared her and husband John Legend’s strategies for moderating tech with their kids. “You have to keep them involved in things they love and be a master at distraction,” she explained.

Teigen continued, “Luna will beg to use my phone — like beg — in bed because there’s an app she loves. But there are certain situations, like when you’re on a plane or in a restaurant, where goddammit, it’s going to help those surrounding us. We are not those people that are like, ‘No screen time!’ So you try to download all the coolest learning activities so at least they’re learning something.”

The mom of four explained how TV time affects her kids’ sleep schedules, sharing, “Even if they just watch TV during the day, when they go to sleep they think back on it. Luna loves scary stuff and watching Hocus Pocus, and now she’s really into the old Mary Kate and Ashley movies. There’s a scary Halloween one, and even if she watches it during the day, she’ll be scared at night.”

She mused further, “The thing is, kids are only crazy about something for a minute. So if you can get through a minute of that screaming and begging while you think of something else like an art project, a book, or stickers, they forget they even wanted it in the first place. You have to get super amped about something else and they will match that excitement, and that’s how you deal with it.”

Nick Cannon

Nick Cannon revealed that his ex-wife, Mariah Carey, was not thrilled with him when he bought their 10-year-old twins cell phones in 2021.

During an episode of his Nick Cannon Show, the entertainment personality explained, “My oldest twins Roc and Roe wanted a cell phone at 8. I was all for it but Mariah was like, ‘Uh-uh they aren’t going to be Googling us, learning about all their new brothers and sisters, no we aren’t playing.'”

He continued, “I respected it at 8, but then we made a deal and said at 10 they can have it, [but the time came and] Mariah still said no.” Here comes trouble: “So at 10, I snuck and I still got them the cell phones for their birthday.”

Cannon explained, “We had this amazing party with jump jumps; their friends came [and] it was so amazing. Then it was time to open the gifts; I was like, ‘I’m going to leave these right here and tell your mama I’ll be back.'” With a laugh, he said, “Mariah is still mad at me to this day.”

Angelina Jolie

Angelina Jolie went as far as hiring a special security team to protect her kids online after being part of a hacking incident in 2014. The actress told People, “It’s a scary new world. It’s so beyond what we understand.”

Victoria & David Beckham

At the 2020 Kids Sports Awards, David Beckham explained that he and wife Victoria allow “no more than an hour” of screen time for their kids. The soccer legend said, “I know that sounds pretty harsh, but I want my boys to be outside playing. It’s so important to me that they’re involved in sports — for discipline and health.”

Madonna

Madonna told Vogue in 2019, “I made a mistake when I gave my older children phones when they were 13. It ended my relationship with [them], really. Not completely, but it became a very, very big part of their lives.”

She continued, “They became too inundated with imagery and started to compare themselves to other people, and that’s really bad for self-growth.” Because of how tech impacted her older kids, the music icon opted to hold out on granting privileges to her younger kids until they’re further into their teens.

Mark Cuban

Business mogul Mark Cuban shared his tech rules for his three kids during a 2017 episode of The Thrive Global Podcast. He explained that he has Cisco routers set up to detect the apps his kids are using — “That’s the downside of having a geeky dad, you know. I can figure all this stuff out,” he said.

Cuban explained that for every hour of reading his kids did, he would grant them two hours of Netflix time. “That worked out really well until one of [my daughter’s] friends gave her her password,” he said. “I caught onto that very quickly … I try to stay one step ahead, and it’s good for me, too, because it keeps me abreast of all the new apps and all the new technology.”

He also shared a similar tactic for his son to earn Minecraft time. “On one hand, getting better at Minecraft … can be intellectually stimulating and a learning tool. But watching these videos over and over and over again, we had to put time limits on it,” Cuban shared. “If he watched math videos or did math problems for me, he could earn time to watch Minecraft videos.”

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez explained her “Sunday Funday” method with E! News in 2015, sharing, “[The day] starts with a late breakfast. We sleep in, even the kids sleep in. And Sunday Funday, they work towards that because they don’t get to use their iPads during the week, or play video games or anything because it’s school time — and they have to be good in school and then they get Sunday Funday. It’s something I made up so they could work towards it and behave!”

The multi-talented icon continued, “All they want to do is be on these devices all the time. They get to play with it as much as they want that day, and I get to lay down because it’s an amazing baby [tool] — everybody knows, that’s why they give it to them all the time.  But you know, I try to regulate it and then on Sunday, I let them go and I take a nap while they’re doing it.”

Miranda Kerr & Evan Spiegel

Supermodel Miranda Kerr and her husband, Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel, are all about limiting screen time with their kids. Spiegel shared in an interview with the Financial Times that his own limited screen time as a child “was valuable because [he] spent a lot of time just building stuff and reading or whatever.” In an effort to pass on that lesson, he and Kerr allow just an hour and a half of screen time per day for their kids.

Heidi Klum

Supermodel Heidi Klum told People in 2018 of her kids’ screen usage, “Normally, there’s a certain amount of time they can play, but when we’re on the airplane, the sky is the limit. By the time we land, they have square eyeballs.”

Klum also explained that she then required her daughter Leni to show her the photos she wanted to post of herself on her private Instagram: “They’re all getting sexier and sexier, and I feel like there’s a time and place and a certain age group when you can do that for yourself, so sometimes she shows me photos and I’m like, ‘Eh, maybe not that one, show me other photos. Even though it’s just her friends, you never know who they could send it to.”

Susan Wojcicki

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki is another tech giant who believes in screen time limitations for her kids. She told CBS in 2019, “I allow my younger kids to use YouTube Kids, but I limit the amount of time that they’re on it. I think too much of anything is not a good thing.”

Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan

Even the founder of Facebook monitors screen time with his kids. Mark Zuckerberg told FOX News in 2019, “I don’t generally want my kids to be sitting in front of a TV or a computer for a long period of time.”

He continued, “I let my kids use [Facebook Portal] to communicate with my parents, so they can stay in touch with their grandparents easily, [and] their aunts who live across the country.” He continued to cite research that supports video chatting as being healthy in terms of human connection, but clarified that mindlessly consuming content doesn’t have the same benefits.