A childhood without cell phones, the goal set by families in the United Kingdom

It’s the question many adults fear their children will ask: when will I be able to have a cell phone? In the United Kingdom, mothers worried about effects of cell phone use The children decided to take action.

For Daisy Greenwell, a mother of three, it all started after a casual conversation at the school gate, when another mother told her that her 11-year-old son already had a smartphone, as did a third of his classmates.

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“That conversation terrified me. “I don’t want to give my son something that I know will affect his mental health and make him dependent,” the woman wrote on Instagram after the talk.

“But I also know that the pressure to give it to him, if the rest of his class has one, will be enormous,” added this journalist.

Its publication in February triggered a wave of reactions from parents equally concerned about the idea of ​​giving their children a device that could expose them to online bullying, peer pressure, harmful content and even predators.

Together with her friend Clare Reynolds, this mother launched a campaign called Parents United for a Smartphone Free Childhood.

Greenwell tells AFP that his concern skyrocketed one day after reading a study, according to which the sooner a child was given a cell phone, the worse their mental health would be later.

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There are more and more studies that, combined with the experiences of parents, have raised fears about the effects of smartphone use on children, especially on their mental health.

“Initiation rite”

British Education Minister Damian Hinds recently told a parliamentary committee that almost all pupils now have a mobile phone by the age of 11 or 12.

“It seems like this is a rite of passage,” he told deputies, adding that some children have one “much earlier.”

After launching the debate on social media, Daisy Greenwell created a WhatsApp group, joined by like-minded parents, relieved that others thought the same.

From there, there was like a “snowball” effect, he explains.

Now there is a group in each region of the country and working groups of people with experience on the subject.

Among the participants are a director of a technology company and an employee of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s office.

Anxious generation

These concerns are captured in the book by American psychologist Jonathan Haidt, which was recently published in the United Kingdom, “The Anxious Generation.”

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In it, Haidt argues that there was a “complete transformation of childhood” between 2010 and 2015, with the takeoff of smartphones, which caused a “major reshaping of childhood.”

Haidt relates the rise of mental illness among young people to the omnipresence of cell phones, continuous supervision by adults, and the loss of a certain freedom in play.

“Things were getting better and better in terms of mental health and then everything got worse in 2013. (…) We have to eliminate smartphones from children’s lives,” says the psychologist.

He advocates prohibiting the use of cell phones before the age of 14 and social networks before the age of 16.

And the most important thing, he says, is that parents must act together to avoid giving in when a child tells us that he is the only one of his classmates without a cell phone.

“These things are difficult to do alone. But if we all do it together, then it will be much easier for our children,” she estimated.