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The idea of getting her eldest child a smartphone had long felt inevitable, said Daisy Greenwell. But by early last year, when her daughter was 8 years old, it filled her with dread. When she talked to other parents, “everyone universally said, ‘Yes, it’s a nightmare, but you’ve got no choice,’” recalled Ms. Greenwell, 41.
What if we could switch the social norm so that in our school, our town, our country, it was an odd choice to make to give your child a smartphone at 11? What if we could hold off until they’re 14, or 16?
The post went viral. Within 24 hours the group was oversubscribed with parents clamoring to join. Today, more than 124,000 parents of children in more than 13,000 British schools have signed a pact created by Smartphone Free Childhood, the charity set up by Ms. Greenwell, her husband, Joe Ryrie, and Ms. Fernyhough. It reads: “Acting in the best interests of my child and our community, I will wait until at least the end of Year 9 before getting them a smartphone.”
The movement aligns with a broader shift in attitudes in Britain, as evidence mounts of the harms posed to developing brains by smartphone addiction and algorithm-powered social media.
Meanwhile, the police and intelligence services have warned of a torrent of extreme and violent content reaching children online, a trend examined in the hit TV show Adolescence.
Other governments in Europe have acted to curb children’s smartphone use. In February, Denmark announced plans to ban smartphones in schools, while France barred smartphones in elementary schools in 2018. Norway plans to enforce a minimum age on social media.
Some parents feel the need to act is urgent, especially as technology companies, including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and X, formerly Twitter, have ended fact-checking operations, which many experts say will allow misinformation and hate speech to flourish.
The power of parents collectively delaying smartphones is key, Ms. Greenwell said, because it insulates children from peer pressure. “This problem isn’t that complicated,” she said. “If you have other people around you who are also doing the same thing, it’s actually amazingly, beautifully simple.”
On a recent Friday morning, dozens of parents gathered in the auditorium of Colindale Primary School in north London for a presentation by Nova Eden, a regional leader for Smartphone Free Childhood.
Ms. Eden described startling data — that the average 12-year-old in Britain spends 21 hours a week on a smartphone, for example, and that 76 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds spend most of their free time on screens.
Ms. Eden cited studies showing rates of anxiety, depression, and self-harm among teenagers spiking dramatically since social media was introduced. “These children are struggling and they need our help,” Ms. Eden said. “I know how hard it is, but we need to be the ones that stand up and say, this is not good for you.”
Colindale is in the borough of Barnet, which in February announced plans to become the first borough in Britain to ban smartphones in all its public schools. The initiative will affect some 63,000 children.
Eton, one of Britain’s most elite private schools, announced last year that new students would be banned from bringing smartphones and would instead be issued with Nokia handsets that can only text and make calls.
In Suffolk, the founders of the Smartphone Free Childhood initiative are aware that their success in attracting parents to their cause is partly thanks to social media and messaging apps on which they have spread the word. “There are loads of positive things about this technology,” Mr. Ryrie said. “We’re not trying to say that technology is bad, just that we need to have a conversation as a society about when it’s appropriate for children to have unrestricted access to this stuff.”
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