{"id":18364,"date":"2025-09-15T19:32:31","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T19:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/18364\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T19:32:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T19:32:31","slug":"smartphone-free-childhood-the-unstoppable-rise-of-a-culture-shifting-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/18364\/","title":{"rendered":"Smartphone Free Childhood: the unstoppable rise of a culture-shifting campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

With smartphones a near-constant presence in children\u2019s lives, one grassroots movement is pushing back \u2013 with remarkable force. Smartphone Free Childhood began with a conversation between two parents and has exploded into a nationwide campaign that\u2019s captured headlines, inspired school reforms and signed up tens of thousands of families<\/p>\n

When the history of social change campaigns of the early 21st century is written, it\u2019s sure to include Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC)<\/a>. In a little over a year, an extraordinary movement has sprung from the grassroots, based on the principle that \u201cchildhood\u2019s too short to be spent on a smartphone\u201d. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s signed up hundreds of thousands of parents, reached millions more, secured the support of everyone from actor Benedict Cumberbatch and Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, to a clutch of MPs, and helped inspire everything from changes in school policies to the development of a new \u2018childhood-friendly\u2019 phone. At its heart, a simple suggestion: delay getting your child a phone until they\u2019re 14, and access to social media until the age of 16. Give young minds a chance to develop free from the tyranny of the algorithms which, to put it mildly, have hardly been designed with their welfare in mind. <\/p>\n

And it all started with a casual conversation during a playdate. Two mothers of eight-year-old girls from the same school year, chatting. And up popped the subject of phones. No, said one, she hadn\u2019t bought her child a phone yet, because she hadn\u2019t asked for one. But when she did, well, she supposed she would.<\/p>\n

Solutions every Saturday
\n Uplift your inbox with our weekly newsletter. Positive News editors select the week\u2019s top stories of progress, bringing you the essential briefing about what’s going right.
\n Sign up <\/a><\/p>\n

It was a simple enough comment, but one that sparked into life a smouldering concern in the other mum, journalist and editor Daisy Greenwell, formerly of The Times and also Positive News. \u201cLike everyone, I\u2019d seen the evidence about the impact smartphones can have on mental health. I\u2019d known that kids in [my daughter\u2019s] year were starting to get them, and I realised it was going to be a slippery slope \u2013 every child would want to have one, for fear of being left out.\u201d <\/p>\n

Statistics show just how far down that slope we\u2019ve already slid. In the UK, 89% of 12-year-olds now own a phone \u2013 as do a quarter of children between five and seven. On average, they get their first phone at just nine years old. <\/p>\n

And for \u2018phone\u2019, these days, you can pretty much read smartphone \u2013 an open door to the whole wide world, pretty much unfiltered, for your child to step through. The thought that her daughter stood on that threshold sent shockwaves through Greenwell. \u201cI thought: \u2018My God, this is about to happen, and nothing\u2019s been done about it!\u2019 It lit a fire under me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) has helped inspire everything from changes in school policies to the development of a new \u2018childhood-friendly\u2019 phone\n <\/p>\n

She wasn\u2019t alone. The last few years have seen a mounting wave of worry over what the tech is doing to childhood. As Greenwell writes on the SFC website: \u201cExplicit, violent and extreme content is only a few clicks away \u2026 Once children see these things, they can never be unseen.\u201d <\/p>\n

And there\u2019s more: \u201cthe average teen now receives over 200 notifications a day \u2026 making it harder to concentrate on school work, hobbies or real- life friendships. Constant distraction is the new normal.\u201d <\/p>\n

Add to that the power of the algorithms, feeding content that\u2019s designed to keep users looking at their phone (because that is, after all, how tech companies make their money). Then there are the grim reports of \u2018sextortion\u2019 and of children being groomed, and worse, by strangers, when sat in the supposed safety of their bedrooms at home. <\/p>\n

Put it all together, and it\u2019s no surprise, perhaps, that rates of teenage anxiety and depression have skyrocketed since around 2010, when smartphones became the norm. <\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n In the UK, 89% of 12-year-olds now own a phone \u2013 as do a quarter of children between five and seven. On average, they get their first phone at just nine years old\n <\/p>\n

Alarm calls in books like Jonathan Haidt\u2019s The Anxious Generation, and Kaitlyn Regehr\u2019s Smartphone Nation are echoed by those working on childhood\u2019s frontline. People like Peter Cosgrove, a US paediatrician specialising in emergency medicine. Now based at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children, he\u2019s seen a surge in mental health crises on both sides of the Atlantic \u2013 and, he says, it correlates all too clearly with the advent of the smartphone. Now a medical adviser to SFC, he was struck by how quickly the children in his care improved when their phones were taken away. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to say that there\u2019s been pushback from some academics to the idea that smartphones are the root of all evil, arguing that, while there may be correlation between their advent and a rise in teenage malaise, there\u2019s no nailed-on causation: smartphones, they argue, are not a smoking gun. <\/p>\n

But Cosgrove, along with Haidt and others, is adamant that the evidence stacks up. \u201cIt\u2019s been well proven \u2026 across multiple studies and countries that there\u2019s a direct linear correlation between childhood depression and the longer they use their smartphone and\/or social media.\u201d <\/p>\n

We want kids to grow up confident using technology, not dependent on it. We believe in giving kids more time to be kids before they\u2019re always connected. SFC is about balance, not banning<\/p>\n

That would have come as no surprise to Tom Beveridge. As headteacher of Alderbrook secondary school in Solihull, West Midlands, he\u2019d seen at first hand what happens when mobiles invade the classrooms and corridors. Bullying, abuse, risk-taking behaviour, pupils sending explicit images, friends falling out, a rising wave of mental health crises \u2026 in so many cases, he says, \u201cthere\u2019s a link back to smartphones\u201d. They challenge the basics of keeping children safe, he says. \u201cSchool leaders who are really good at putting boundaries for children in the real world, were finding it impossible in the online one.\u201d <\/p>\n

And in among this maelstrom of concern, one mum, Greenwell, in a quiet Suffolk village, feeling that \u201cwe\u2019ve been left to figure this out alone. There\u2019s no roadmap. No NHS guidance. No government policy. Just families everywhere trying to do their best, up against the most powerful and persuasive companies on the planet.\u201d <\/p>\n

Her initial response was a typical parent\u2019s go-to: a WhatsApp group (ironically), set up with her friend and fellow mother, Clare Fernyhough, aimed at parents who might share their concerns and resolve to delay giving their child a phone. \u201cIt was just the two of us to start with,\u201d Greenwell recalls, \u201cthen a third joined.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hardly a mass movement \u2026 <\/p>\n

But over the next few days, that fire in her continued to smoulder, until one evening, it burst into life. Her husband and SFC co-founder Joe Ryrie remembers: \u201cI was cooking dinner, and Daisy was like: \u2018I have to go and post about this now!\u2019 So I said: \u2018OK \u2013 go for it.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n At the heart of the campaign is a simple suggestion: delay getting your child a phone until they\u2019re 14, and access to social media until the age of 16\n <\/p>\n

Greenwell takes up the story. \u201cSo I wrote this Instagram post\u201d \u2013 in effect a brief manifesto for what became SFC, in part inspired by other nascent campaigns in Spain, and encouraging people to join the WhatsApp group. \u201cThen we had some friends over, and I didn\u2019t look at my phone again the whole evening.\u201d <\/p>\n

By the time she did a few hours later, what she saw was to change her and her husband\u2019s life. \u201cSuddenly, the group was full of random people from all over the country.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the Instagram post had gone absolutely wild,\u201d adds Ryrie. <\/p>\n

Over the next few days, things became wilder still. The WhatsApp group hit its ceiling of 1,000 members, so new groups started. \u201cWithin a couple of weeks, every county in Britain had them,\u201d says Greenwell. People were getting in touch, asking for advice, offering to help. \u201cAll these questions were popping up,\u201d recalls Ryrie, \u201cand people were expecting us to have answers.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never experienced anything like it,\u201d says Greenwell. \u201cEven though we were sat in our house in Suffolk, suddenly we were in the eye of the storm.\u201d She turns to Ryrie: \u201cI remember you saying: \u2018It feels like a magical and terrifying tornado has just come into our kitchen.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

As director of a branding agency, Ryrie adds: \u201cI\u2019ve been involved in quite a few startups, some of them have been quite successful, but never before have I felt anything like that kind of energy and momentum. There was so much demand, it had struck such a nerve. I thought: \u2018If this was a business, there\u2019d be this huge market opportunity, because we had hit on something that everyone wants, but no one has.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

Pulled by purpose<\/p>\n

It was decision time. Do they go with this momentum or let it slide? Thinking about the smartphone future that might lie in wait for their three children, they didn\u2019t debate for long. Ryrie started to wean himself off his branding agency, Greenwell gave in her notice at Positive News, and they threw themselves into making SFC a reality. <\/p>\n

A couple of friends came on board, Ryrie drew on his experience and some of his colleagues at his agency, and, as if often the way with an idea whose time has come, some initial funding materialised, in this case care of the Tenacious Awards, a project that provides funding and mentoring to campaigners and journalists. Further donations from private sources followed. <\/p>\n

Fast-forward just over a year, and SFC has a team of six, including its founders \u2013 but punches way above its weight thanks to thousands of supporters and volunteers. At its heart is the Parent Pact \u2013 now signed by 140,000 families \u201con every continent apart from Antarctica\u201d \u2013 which allows them to commit to the \u2018no smartphone until 14 \/ no social media until 16\u2019 stance, and encourage their kids\u2019 schools to do the same. As Ryrie puts it, this is all about people \u201cstepping into their power as citizens and saying: \u2018I\u2019m actually going to do something here; I\u2019m going to put my hand up and make a difference.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n Mother-of-three and SFC co-founder Daisy Greenwell with the family’s cat, Quincy\n <\/p>\n

And the benefits can be surprisingly personal. \u201cWe\u2019ve had people saying that this has been a life-changing experience \u2013 the most profound thing they\u2019ve ever done,\u201d says Ryrie. Greenwell adds: \u201cI\u2019ve had a lot of messages saying: \u2018I\u2019m crying just seeing that this campaign exists \u2026 that I can be seen and heard.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n

SFC increasingly works with schools like Alderbrook, which is framing its own policy. After consulting with parents, says Beveridge, they\u2019ve introduced a voluntary hand-in scheme, starting with its youngest (year 7) students, who now surrender their phones at the start of the day. The difference is palpable, he says. \u201cInstead of the canteen [at breakfast club] being full of students on their phones, it\u2019s a really lovely atmosphere of kids talking and having a laugh with their mates.\u201d <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never experienced anything like it. I remember Joe saying: \u2018It feels like a magical and terrifying tornado has just come into our kitchen\u2019<\/p>\n

Emboldened by the experience, and with the virtually universal backing of parents, the school is planning to make the hand-in compulsory and \u201croll it up\u201d, year on year \u2013 so that eventually it will cover the whole school. Intriguingly, adds Beveridge, numerous older children are saying that they wish this policy had been in place when they were younger. <\/p>\n

With Beveridge, backed by SFC, as the driving force, 68 of the 80 schools within the area have committed to similar steps, \u201cand I\u2019m working on the rest\u201d. <\/p>\n

Everyone interviewed for this article is quick to insist that they\u2019re not \u2018anti-tech\u2019 or even anti-smartphone. Whatever their downsides, smartphones are here to stay \u2013 and SFC isn\u2019t waging a culture war on them, says Ryrie. The team has even been talking to smartphone maker HMD, owner of the Nokia brand, which largely as a result is now developing a child-friendly device. It will allow access to essential information, without opening the gates to social media. <\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

\n The movement’s Parent Pact has been signed by over 140,000 families ‘on every continent apart from Antarctica’ and allows them to commit to the \u2018no smartphone until 14 \/ no social media until 16\u2019 stance, and encourages their kids\u2019 schools to do the same\n <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, says Ryrie, a lot of media coverage on SFC still tends towards the: \u201c\u2018Meet the parents who want to ban smartphones\u2019 angle \u2013 and we\u2019ve never said that. Tech isn\u2019t the enemy, it\u2019s how we use it that matters. We want kids to grow up confident using technology, not dependent on it. That\u2019s why we believe in building digital skills gradually and intentionally, and giving kids more time to be kids before they\u2019re always connected. SFC is about balance, not banning.\u201d <\/p>\n

That said, they\u2019d like to see some legal shifts, such as raising the age of digital consent \u2013 which allows companies to harvest data and so develop algorithms specifically to target the users \u2013 from 13 years currently, up to 16. And they\u2019re watching with interest governments elsewhere, such as the Australian government, which is about to ban social media for under-16s. <\/p>\n

And in the UK? Ryrie recalls running into Peter Kyle, secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, at an SFC event in Sussex, where he was the local MP. So did you buttonhole him? Yes, answers Ryrie, but \u201che did an excellent job of very articulately saying very little, in that way politicians can do\u201d. <\/p>\n

As SFC gains ground, it\u2019s hard to imagine, that, even for seasoned politicians, articulate nothingness will be an option for long. <\/p>\n

Photography: Eleanor Church\u00a0<\/p>\n

Attention: use it for good<\/p>\n

Every day, the news competes for your attention. Too often it exploits it, pulling you into outrage, despair, or distraction.<\/p>\n

At Positive News we make a different promise: we will use your attention for good.<\/p>\n

With 40% of people globally now avoiding the news, many are rejecting how traditional media uses their attention. Our journalism offers a different choice: we show what\u2019s going right in the world, so that you\u2019re informed in a way that uplifts you and helps you take positive action in your own life.<\/p>\n

But search engines, social media algorithms, and now AI tools, increasingly control where attention goes. Their aim is to keep people on their platforms \u2013 which makes it harder than ever for independent, not-for-profit media like us to reach people. We\u2019re not chasing clicks or profits for media moguls \u2013 we\u2019re here to serve you and have a positive social impact. We can\u2019t do this unless enough people like you choose to support it.<\/p>\n

Give once from just \u00a31, or join 1,500+ others who contribute an average of \u00a33 or more per month. Together, we can build a healthier form of media \u2013 one that focuses on solutions, progress and possibilities, and empowers people to create positive change.<\/p>\n

Support Positive News<\/a> and we promise to always use your attention for good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With smartphones a near-constant presence in children\u2019s lives, one grassroots movement is pushing back \u2013 with remarkable force.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18365,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[85,46,321,125],"class_list":["post-18364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-mobile","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18364\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}