I just joined...

[sunandfog]

‘It went nuts’: Thousands join UK parents calling for smartphone-free childhood | Smartphones | The Guardian

I just joined my local whatsapp group - perhaps there is a hope we can turn the tide. Please sign up/bump if you agree.

We got our daughter a phone for her 12th birthday, last year of primary school. Just got her a revolut card too. Imo it''s really important to equip them with the skills to deal with these things. It seems terribly early to us, but the world has moved on, and it'd be a bad idea to just send them off to secondary clueless.

This campaign isn't about banning smartphones for kids, it's about delaying smartphones until aged 14 and social media until 16. The WhatsApp groups are for parents, not children. If you don't realise that children and adults are different and can have/need different rules then you are part of the problem.

I think it's a case of the horse has bolted though. The friends all have SM so my child will be exposed whether I like it or not. Imo much better to educate them about dealing with it rather than ignore it and it's all happening behind my back.

It's not ignoring it though, you can keep talking to your kids about it without giving it to them, just like you would with alcohol. There's lots of evidence that SM and smartphones are terrible for children and teens. I don't get this defeatist attitude to say 'oh well, it's there so that's that' when it's our children's mental and physical health we are talking about. Lots of parents say they only give their kids smartphones because everyone else has one, perhaps if this campaign grows they won't feel like the have to give into that peer pressure any more.

Plus also I think this campaign is aimed at parents who haven't given their kids smartphones yet, so primary and just going into secondary. I can't generally see parents being able to pull smartphones away from kids who already have them (although I know people who have done it and it is possible, just hard work)

Re the campaign - just to add - there are some child-friendly smartphones which allow use of certain apps, such as travel, banking and so on, but will not allow access to Snapchat etc. a lot of the discussion on the campaign WhatsApp is about trying to promote these phones (which are currently not available in the UK) to become the standard phones used by teens, rather than fully open smartphones.

I don’t understand. How is a WhatsApp group a campaign? It’s a chat group, how much sustained chat can ‘I don’t want my kid to have a smartphone’ ‘No me neither’ generate?

We’re all here on our phones, the anti-smartphone mums are on their phones… it’s shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Let’s focus on healthy boundaries for device use and online safety for kids.

@OurfriendsintheNE do you understand how grassroots campaigns work? They start with people getting together and joining forces. The WhatsApp communities are nationwide and there are groups for each school. They are not a "sustained chat" as you put it, but an opportunity to organise and take control away from the social media giants and into the hands of parents.

If the majority parents in one class or school agree to commit to the same steps (such as using new child friendly smartphones or disabling Snapchat etc) then children in that class / school are less likely to feel social pressure to join as none of their friends will be doing it. This has been proved to be true where parents across whole villages have worked together across schools.

I'm sorry you feel the horse has bolted in your case but for many of us we are not prepared for social media companies to rule the lives of our children.

Fair enough @bergentrain, I’d not thought about a whatsapp group having that function or visibility in the same way that a Facebook group or something might. Although I suppose fewer people use Facebook than previously.

I get that there would be a power in numbers if there was a big uptake among a particular class, although easier to achieve in primary than secondary I guess because of the year sizes.

The horse hasn’t bolted in my case as my kids aren’t of that age yet, I meant in terms of society in general and our modes of communication and like others have said, there are skills that need to be developed that goes along with that. Each to their own with their own families but I personally don’t feel
like it has to be all or nothing.

😂

Who is behind the promotion of these devices? Someone must have a vested interest as these devices are totally unnecessary.
My childrens devices all have Family Link so they need my permission to download apps and their web access is restricted. It allows me to change their access as and when I see fit without the need to shell out on a dumbed down device.

There are a lot of things that adults use that aren’t appropriate for primary aged children. No one in the campaign is trying to ban or restrict WhatsApp for adults!

I’ve just signed up and glad to see a group is starting among parents in my child’s primary school. Hoping this keeps gathering momentum and before too long most parents will stop giving smartphones to primary age children.

I’ve signed up for this too. There’s now over a decade of studies into the effects of smartphones on children. And there are some horrifying stats. My daughter is absolutely not having a smartphone at 11. I really dont think they are ready (or need) to have the internet in their pocket at this age

• 84% of bullying to children happens online via smartphones
• 9 hr average screen time a day in kids with smartphones
• 50% of 12 year olds regularly see online porn
• since 2004, 98% more depression in under 18s
• 11 year old girls commonly pressured to send nude pictures of themselves