A smartphone free childhood? A worldwide movement is growing

LONDON — The evidence linking smartphone use with mental health harms in children is growing and one grassroots organization within the U.K. is supporting parents who’re refraining from giving their kids the devices.

Smartphone Free Childhood, founded by Daisy Greenwell and Clare Fernyhough in February, arrange various group chats for fogeys locally across the U.K. and grew to over 60,000 members in just a few weeks, in accordance with its website.

Interest within the movement is driven by concerns concerning the normalization of youngsters with smartphones. By the age of 12, 97% of youngsters within the U.K. have a cell phone, in accordance with Ofcom, a government-approved regulator for the usage of communication services within the U.K.

Meanwhile, within the U.S., 42% of youngsters had a smartphone by the age of 10, climbing to 91% by the age of 14, in accordance with a 2021 report by Common Sense which surveyed 1,306 young people within the U.S. between the ages of eight to 18.

Parents are giving their children smartphones in an increasingly online world for various reasons including entertainment purposes, to maintain track of their location, and to remain in contact with them after they leave the house. Nevertheless, studies and experts highlight that is opening up the door to social media and possible mental health harms.

SFC goals to unite parents who usually are not giving their children smartphones to alleviate the peer pressure and isolation they may feel.

Its success has seen it expand internationally with groups arrange within the U.S., Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, and various other countries.

Just days after the SFC campaign was launched, the U.K. government — on the time led by the Conservative Party — issued recent guidance prohibiting the usage of smartphones in schools and through break times.

Some places within the U.S. — like Los Angeles, and the states of Florida and Indiana — have issued bans on mobile phones in schools.

Other independent organizations are being arrange globally including Austin-based Wait Until eighth, Unplugged in Canada, No Es Momento in Mexico, and the Heads Up Alliance in Australia.

Nevertheless, some academics and scientists remain unconvinced that smartphones and poor mental health are linked. Psychology professor Christopher Ferguson told NBC News earlier this yr that society tends to react negatively to recent technologies and its potential harms from TVs to video games and more recently, AI.

Young people reported worse mental health outcomes the sooner they acquired a smartphone, a Sapien Labs study published last yr found.

The study used data from 27,969 18–24-year-olds which was obtained between January and April 2023 across 41 countries including North America, Europe, Latin America, Oceana, South Asia, and Africa.

Some 74% of female respondents who got their first smartphone at age six reported feeling distressed or struggling, per the study. Nevertheless, this decreased to 61% for individuals who acquired their first smartphone at age 10, and 52% for individuals who were aged 15.

For male respondents, the share feeling distressed or struggling reduced from 42% for individuals who got their first smartphone at age six, to 36% for individuals who got their first smartphone at age 18.

Young individuals who acquired their first smartphone at an older age reported higher mental wellbeing including fewer problems with suicidal thoughts and feelings of aggression, and reduced issues with being detached from reality.

These findings are mobilizing parents to take motion, said Zach Rausch, a research scientist at Latest York University Stern School of Business and lead researcher for Jonathon Haidt’s primary Latest York Times bestseller “The Anxious Generation.”

“The mass migration right into a phone-based childhood has been really harmful to young people,” Rausch told CNBC Make It in an interview.

“The research has been constructing and the evidence of harm has grow to be stronger and stronger yr after yr,” he added. “The lid has been taken off of the box and fogeys see that other parents are speaking up about this so we’re seeing this wave of oldsters coming together.”

Rausch said it’s the mixture of smartphones with social media that is especially lethal for kids.

The UK Millennium Cohort Study, which follows the lives of roughly 19,000 young people born within the U.K. between 2000 and 2002, found a high correlation between social media use and depressive symptoms including low self-esteem, online harassment, and poor body image.

“When smartphones and social media really got here together, it created this whole recent way of interacting with one another,” Rausch said.

“So now you may have social media in your pocket on the smartphone that’s designed to maximise the period of time that you just spend on the phone … it’s in-built a way that’s addictive in nature and tries to hook you.”

In recent times, Meta, the parent company of social media platforms Instagram and Facebook, has come under fire from lawmakers and fogeys for exposing children and teenagers to harmful content on its platforms including various accusations of kid sexual exploitation.

In turn, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has called for lawmakers to issue more guidance and regulations to assist tackle harmful online content. Under mounting pressure, the tech giant announced in January 2024 that it is going to limit the form of content that teenage users of Instagram and Facebook can see including self-harm, eating disorders, and nudity.

Some tech corporations try to construct child-friendly smartphone and social media experiences. Google launched YouTube Kids in 2015, a separate YouTube-like app with child-friendly content and parental controls.

iPhone maker Apple launched a recent website recently promoting the Apple Watch for teenagers who’re too young for smartphones. The device that might be managed by parents’ iPhones in order that they can keep up a correspondence with their children.