Suffolk campaigner warns smartphones are “damaging an entire generation”
It comes as Australia is set to ban social media for people under 16 years old
A rapidly growing parents’ movement, which started in Suffolk is calling for children to grow up without smartphones, says families are “desperate for change” as Australia moves to ban social media access for under-16s.
The Australian government has introduced a bill to parliament aimed at preventing children under the age of 16 from accessing platforms including Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and X. If passed, enforcement would fall to Australia’s online regulator, the eSafety Commissioner, with age-verification systems currently being trialled.
The proposals seek to address concerns about online harms, data privacy and the impact of social media on children’s mental health, issues that UK parents say they are also struggling to manage.
Daisy Greenwell, from Woodbridge, is the co-founder and director of the campaign group Smartphone Free Childhood, said the scale and speed of the group’s growth show how widespread those concerns have become.
We asked her, how she started her campaign.
“It all began very randomly when an Instagram post that I wrote last February about not wanting to get my eight-year-old a smartphone went viral,” she said. “I’d started a WhatsApp group with a friend who felt the same, and I put a link to this WhatsApp group in it. Within the space of a few hours, it filled up to 1,000 people.”
She said demand quickly grew beyond expectations. “We started another one, and that filled up, and then in the coming days they spread out all across the country,” she said. “Within a couple of weeks, there were Smartphone Free Childhood communities in every county of the UK.”
Smartphone Free Childhood groups 1
Smartphone Free Childhood groups 1
"Parents were just desperate for help"
Greenwell said the response reflected how overwhelmed many parents felt. “It felt like parents were just desperate for help and desperate for support on this issue,” she said, adding that “big tech algorithms have become so addictive that parents everywhere are struggling to cope.”
The organisation has continued to expand since it launched. “We’re now a group of 350,000 parents in the UK, and there are 40-plus global spin-offs from Nigeria to New Zealand,” she said.
She said one of the biggest changes has been giving parents confidence that delaying smartphones is a valid choice.
“Before it started, it felt like you had no choice in this,” Greenwell said. “You had to get your child a smartphone because you just couldn’t leave them the only one without it.”
She added, “The network effects of these things are so powerful that it’s awful to leave your child disconnected from their community like that. So now it feels like parents are empowered to wait; they feel there is another way. They have a choice in this.”
"This is a systemic issue”
Greenwell said she had initially expected criticism, particularly given how widespread smartphone use already is among children.
“It can feel like you’re saying all of you guys are bad parents because you’ve got your child a smartphone,” she said. “But we were really clear right from the start that this is a systemic issue.”
She said many parents who already gave their children smartphones were among the most supportive.
“People who already had a smartphone were struggling and saying, ‘I can’t manage this. I don’t know how to keep my child safe online,” she said.
“They were saying, ‘They’re sitting in their bedroom on their phone. They won’t talk to me anymore. I’ve lost them.’”
She added: “I was amazed at how little pushback we got and how parents everywhere wanted this and wanted to have the power put back into their hands.”
“We’re damaging an entire generation of kids. They’re the guinea pig generation.”
Speaking about what she would say to government leaders, Greenwell argued that urgent regulatory action is needed.
“Parents everywhere, not just the UK but across the world, are desperate for change,” she said.
“We’re damaging an entire generation of kids. They’re the guinea pig generation.”
She said technology companies had been allowed to operate without sufficient safeguards.
“We’ve let these huge, massive, most powerful, richest corporations that the world has ever seen infiltrate the minds and homes of every child in the world,” she said. “And we’ve seen the results now, they’re not good.”
The damaging effects of social media
Greenwell pointed to rising mental health concerns.
“Mental health has skyrocketed,” she said. “Anorexia, self-harm, depression, anxiety — all of this stuff has gone through the roof globally in the time that we’ve let children have these devices.”
She said any response should prioritise families’ ability to make informed choices.
“It’s time that we put power back into the hands of parents,” she said.
“Let parents choose how their children grow up, and raise the age of social media and put in rules and regulations that will help kids have a childhood free from algorithmically profit-driven ecosystems that are really not good for them in any way.”
However, human rights campaigners have cautioned that banning social media altogether may have unintended consequences.
Responding to the Australian proposals, Nikita White, Amnesty International Australia Campaigner, said:
“Rather than banning children and young people from social media, the Albanese government should regulate to enhance the protection of children’s privacy and personal data while prioritising their human rights.”
She added:
“There’s no doubt that the practices of social media platforms are harming young people's rights, but young people also have a right to express themselves online and seek information.”
Amnesty International has previously warned that the surveillance-based business models used by companies such as TikTok, Meta and Google are fundamentally incompatible with privacy rights.
White said placing restrictions on children alone risks missing the root of the problem.
“A total ban would put the burden of companies’ harmful business practices on young people instead of the companies causing the harm,” she said.
“The best way to protect children and young people online is by protecting all users with stronger data protection laws and not personalising feeds based on profiling.”
As governments internationally examine how to regulate social media, campaigners and rights groups continue to debate whether bans, safeguards or stronger regulation of technology companies offer the most effective way forward.