More than 4,000 parents have joined a group committed to barring young children from having smartphones, as concerns grow about online safety and the impact of social media on mental health.
The WhatsApp group Smartphone Free Childhood was created by the former school friends Clare Fernyhough and Daisy Greenwell in response to their fears around children’s smartphone use and the “norm” of giving children smart devices when they go to secondary school.
“I’ve got a seven- and nine-year-old. Daisy’s got kids of a similar age and we were both feeling really horrified and worried and just didn’t want them to have smartphones at 11, which seems to be the norm now.”
Fernyhough and Greenwell hoped the movement would embolden parents to delay giving their children smartphones until at least 14, with no social media access until 16.
But what they expected to be a small group of friends who help “empower each other” has turned into a nationwide campaign after the group reached the 1,000-person capacity within 24 hours of Greenwell uploading an Instagram post to promote it.
Are these parents unable to keep their kids away from smartphones?
I’d guess not letting your kids have a smartphone could render them ostracized and bullied in school as long as it’s a very uncommon thing.
Most kids nowadays probably won’t spend much effort associating with someone that doesn’t have an online presence or social media I imagine.
So many group chats, hardly anyone phones or text messages, so even if you supply your kid with a dumb phone they will miss out on a lot of the social stuff going on at school.
Lots of people are quick to snap back with ‘Why don’t the parents… parent’ but as a parent, this is the larger worry. Like, yes, I can stop my kid from having a phone but if everyone in her friend group has one and uses one, am I doing damage in not letting her experience and grow alongside her friends?
The reality is that it’s not 2002 anymore, and my children aren’t going to grow up in a house with one semi-reliable internet-access point (family PC).
It’s significantly more complicated than merely suggesting that parents be better, because…what is better here?
Not talking about you, just some of the other comments seem… incredible snappy.
Which is the point of the group - if you can get enough parents to not give their kids smartphones then it reduces the social pressure to get one.
However, the kid with one would be king of the class.
I saw my brother today and he reckoned my nephew didn’t really go out and see his friends - he communicates with them (a lot) on his phone or in games. Now that might not be desirable but him not having a phone won’t force him outside as everyone else will be inside on their phones. It just feels an unwinnable situation unless you got an almost complete consensus.
Yep, and then you have the blue Vs green bubble debacle.
As a fully grown adult the amount of shit I get from friends and co-workers for not using WhatsApp is crazy.
You mean they only use voice group chat? Wierd.
They mean group chats as opposed to phone calls or SMS
Obviously. Sending SMS from computer requires jumping through all the hoops.
You were talking about group voice chat?
group chats as opposed to SMS
That’s the thing. Most parents aren’t giving their children smart phones because they want to. They’re doing it because not doing so would make their children social pariahs. At that point it’s no longer a choice.
Exactly. Personal experience.
With this and the online safety bill, apparently not. Which seems a bit odd - there’s that argument that kids could get around blocks adults put in plac, however, that might have been valid 10-20 years ago but people with kids today have grown up with the Internet. If they aren’t tech savvy that’s a choice by now but, even then, there will be organisations that can.point them to off-the-shelf products that will do.the job. After all, you have knives in the house and you restrict a child’s access to them until they can be trusted to use them properly.
Smartphones are bad for the mind of developing children; I’d go as far to say as they’re bad in general for adults (but that’s a different topic).
I never had a smartphone when I was a child and I turned out just fine…
The world is increasingly more reliant on technology though. When reading/writing was becoming more essential I’m sure many people had the same opinion. What works for one generation won’t necessarily work for the next, the world changes.
I do agree that there should be limits though, a lot of smartphone apps/games are designed in part by psychologists to deliberately exploit young minds that don’t have defenses against them yet