The UK government will not ban smartphones at schools. These parents stepped up.

Daisy Greenwell has long felt that the idea of ​​letting her eldest son do something inevitable. But until early last year, when her daughter was eight, it filled her with fear. When she spoke to other parents, “Everyone said, 'Yes, that's a nightmare, but there's no choice,'” recalls Greenwell, 41.

She decided to test it. My friend Claire Fergnou shared concerns about the impact of social media on the addictive quality of smartphones and mental health, so I created a WhatsApp group to help develop a strategy. Later, Greenwell, who lives in Suffolk, a rural area in eastern England, posted her thoughts on Instagram.

“If we could switch social norms like giving your child a smartphone at 11am in our school, our town, our country, we could do it, like giving your child a smartphone at 11am,” she wrote. “What if they could hold off until they were 14 or 16?” she added a link to the WhatsApp group.

The post has gone viral. Within 24 hours, the group was oversubscribed for parents to participate. Today, parents of over 124,000 children in UK schools have signed an agreement created by a charity founded by Greenwell, husband Joe Reilly and Fernihoe, with free smartphone childhoods. “I will act in the best interests of my kids and our community and wait until I get my smartphone until the end of my ninth year.” (The ninth year is equivalent to the eighth graders in America.

This move is consistent with a wider shift in UK attitudes, as there is evidence of the harm that has been brought about by smartphone addiction and algorithm-equipped social media. In one survey last year, the majority of respondents (69%) felt that social media had a negative impact on children under the age of 15.

Meanwhile, police and intelligence news agencies are warning about the extreme, violent torrent of content that reaches children online, a trend that was being accused of murder after children were exposed to online misogyny, a trend that was looked up on online hit television shows. It became the UK's most viewed show, and on Monday Prime Minister Kiel Starmer met with the creators of Downing Street and reported that he saw it with his son and daughter. But he also said, “This is not a challenge politicians can simply legislate.”

Other European governments have acted to curb the use of children's smartphones. In February, Denmark announced plans to ban smartphones at schools, but France banned primary school smartphones in 2018. Norway will hold a minimum age on social media.

So far, the UK government appeared to be wary of intervention. Labour MP Josh McAllister has sought to introduce legal requirements to make all UK smartphone schools free. However, after the government made it clear that it would not support the ban, the bill was watered down and the principal argued that a decision should be made.

Some parents feel the need to act is urgent, especially as technology companies, including Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, and former Twitter, are checking the facts, making it urgent to allow many experts to thrive misinformation and hateful remarks.

“It's been years since things change,” said Vicki Allen, 46, a mother from Henfield in the south of England. “We feel that we need to be.”

She and her friend Julia Cassidy, 46, successfully campaigned for her children's primary school to limit phone use after Cassidy saw a Channel 4 documentary about school smartphones and came across a free childhood on smartphones. Cassidy was planning to give her son a phone call when he turned 11, but said, “I just made a very big U-turn.” Now she plans to give him a phone that can only be used for calls and texts.

Greenwell says it's important for parents to collectively delay their smartphones, and isolating their children from peer pressure. “This issue isn't that complicated,” she said. “If there's someone around you who's doing the same thing, it's actually surprisingly beautiful and simple.”

“Most people just want to keep their kids safe.”

On a recent Friday morning, dozens of parents gathered in the auditorium at Collindale Primary School in north London to give a presentation by Novaden, a local leader in childhood without a smartphone.

She explained the surprising data. For example, an average 12-year-old in the UK spends 21 hours a week on smartphones, with 76% of ages 12 to 15 spending most of their free time on screens. She also spoke about new research into the effects of smartphone use.

Eden cited a study that shows a dramatic rise in the rate of anxiety, depression and self-harm among teenagers since the introduction of social media. “These kids are struggling and need our help,” Eden said. “I know how difficult it is, but we need to be people who stand up and say it, this isn't good for you.”

Eden, 44, said he struggles to find the right balance for his children, ages 5, 10 and 13. She said it was Ian Russell's campaign, where her daughter Molly took her own life after seeing suicide-related content on Instagram and other social media sites. She had just given her 13 year old phone call.

“At the time I was going through this with my kids and I was watching him and his friends change,” she said.

Jane Palmer, principal of Colindale School, admitted that some parents are skeptical of restricting smartphone use, or banning devices from schools entirely, as schools do from September.

Some people argue that devices can provide social independence and allow children to be contacted in emergencies. Others feel that parental control is sufficient to ensure safety online.

But conversations between parents were beginning to give way to change, Palmer said. During the presentation, she explained how a former student died of suicide after being bullied online.

“It could be tricky. Of course not everyone supports it,” she said of the ban. “But I think at the end of the day, most people just want to keep their kids safe.”

Collindale is located in the Barnett district and announced plans in February to become the UK's first borough to ban smartphones in all public schools. The initiative will affect approximately 63,000 children.

Eaton, one of the UK's most elite private schools, announced last year that freshmen would be banned from bringing smartphones and would be issued on Nokia handsets where they can text and call instead.

In Suffolk, the founders of the smartphone Free Childhood Initiative recognize that their success in attracting parents to their cause is thanks to the social media and messaging apps they have spread the word.

“There's a lot of positive things about this technology,” Riley said. “We're not saying technology is bad. We just need to have a conversation as a society about when it's appropriate for kids to have unlimited access to things like this.”